10 Games to Watch

These are the 10 most intriguing non conference games of the year not ranked in any order.

FSU @ Alabama In Jacksonville; September 29: There are several story lines coursing their way through this match up. This will not be Nick Saban’s first game against a quality opponent, as Bama squares off against defending SEC West Champion Arkansas and Georgia in the weeks before. This is the 4th match up between the two schools but the first one since 1975. One of the more interesting subplots will be Jimbo Fisher coaching against Nick Saban for the first time. Fisher was hired by Saban at LSU when he received the job. Where will the Nole’s go from here? After last seasons disaster the natives are restless in Tallahassee. This game will go a long way towards easing their angst or making it worse.

Virginia Tech @ LSU; September 8: This sure to be an absolute slug fest between a pair of the nations perennial defensive stalwarts. Last season both squads were ranked in the top 5 nationally in total and scoring defense. This game boasts some of the best linebackers in the country. Ali Highsmith, Xavier Adibi and Vince Hall might not get the attention of Dan Connor, Ray Maualuga or James Laurinitus but this men are every bit the players of these others. This a rare non conference, non rivalry trip outside of Blacksburg. The big question around Baton Rouge is how Matt Flynn or Ryan Perilloux will fare at replacing Jamarcus Russell. On the other side of the ball everyone wants to know which Sean Glennon will come to the party this year, the one who rocked the Ramblin Wreck for 339 yards and a TD or the one who went 5 for 19 for 86 yards and a pick against Miami.

Southern Cal @ Nebraska; September 15: Sam Keller will face off against a familiar foe. Last time he faced the Men of Troy he started fine with a strong first half and then imploded throwing 5 picks in the span 40 minutes. USC will surely roll into Memorial Stadium ranked number one in the nation but facing a hostile crowd. This game will be the first of 5 very tough road games that the Trojans must win if they hope to reach the promised land flowing with Sugar and Bourbon. This will be the biggest game in the Bill Callahan era and the Huskers are sure to want revenge for the defeat placed at their feet last year in the California sun

TCU @ Texas; September 8: No one was paying attention at the time but the magical season of the Boise State Bronco’s began with a resounding victory over a BCS foe. True the Bronco’s were at home, and yes Oregon State is not Texas but TCU is planning to make a Boise like run to glory. If the Horned Frogs are to make 2007 their season of destiny it will start in Austin. The Frogs are fast and aggressive on defense with a pair of NFL prospects in Tommy Blake and Chase Ortiz and 7 other starters returning. If TCU can pull off the upset then Gary Patterson better be ready to go house shopping in December.

South Florida @ Auburn; September 8: South Florida is poised to make a Rutgers run to prominence and if it is going to happen this year this game will be the game to start it. The days of the Big East needing to prove itself might not be completely gone, but a victory in this game would go a long way to silencing the critics that last years Louisville Miami game was supposed to. This is not the Big East’s only chance this week because the trendy upset pick to win the PAC 10, Oregon State visits Cincinnati just two days before. USF has had their moments, beating UofL two years ago and West Virginia this past year but this is going to be the biggest game in school history. If they can pull out this win the Big East is going to be set up for one hell of a season with half the schools sure to find some time in the top 25.

Oregon @ Michigan; September 8: Michigan is sure going to start the year in a lofty position but the Ducks will have more than enough offense to push UM. Oregon sure did implode last year but this will still be an immensely talented team with an offense among the best of the best if they figure out the QB situation. This will be a huge test for Ron Prince and his defense which has to replace 6 starters. They were shredded in the final two games when USC and OSU spread the field. OU will bring a spread attack to the Big House. Between Brady Leaf or Dennis Dixson, Jon Stewart and Jaison Williams the Ducks will have enough offense to hang punch for punch with the Wolverine’s.

Miami @ Oklahoma; September 8: And so it begins, the Randy Shannon era at Miami. It has taken far too long for the Randy Shannon era to begin anywhere but it is fitting that he gets his head coaching start at his alma mater. The biggest question in Soonerland is the quarterback job with three candidates each as inexperienced as the next. Adrian Peterson is gone but Sooner fans got a taste of that last year and they like the flavor that Allen Patrick brings to the table. The biggest question for Miami is whether or not they will ever find some semblance of an offense under Patrick Nix.

Tennessee @ Cal Berkley; September 1: Rocky Top was rocking and rolling again after a horrible 2005. This game will finish up the home and home between these schools and hopefully this is more of a game than last years. Cal should have a dynamic offense between Justin Forsett, Desean Jackson and Nate Longshore but they have major holes to fill with the departure of Brandon Mebane, Daymeion Hughes, and Desmond Bishop. Tennessee may not be the favorite for the SEC East but this will once again be a top 25 team. Watch for Jonathan Hefney to assert his claim as the best Safety in the land in this game.

Louisville @ Kentucky; September 15: Kentucky is making noise in some circles as being a threat to the established supremacy in the SEC East, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia. Interstate 264 is not one of them. This game will be a dandy between two experienced QB’s in Andre Woodson and Brian Brohm. Steve Kragthorpe’s new offense promises to put the ball in Brohm’s hands even more, bad news for opposing defenses. The Governors Cup is a big deal in Bluegrass country.

West Virginia @ Maryland; September 13: This a underrated border war. Very quietly Maryland had a tremendous season in 2006 winning 9 games and coming close to winning the Atlantic division title. Everyone knows what West Virgina brings to the table, the most dynamic backfield duo since Michale Vick and whoever that other guy was at Virginia Tech. Maryland was very young last year and will surly be better this season. Problem is so will the rest of the ACC, and bad for them in this game so will Pat White and Steve Slaton, this time with two functioning wrists.

The College Football Conspiracy Theory

The fans of College Football are an interesting bread. If there is one thing that every College Football fan has it is a level of hyper-sensitivity that is completely unfounded. If you went to any campus and asked any random fan on a Saturday during the season how they felt about the way the media portrays their team I would be shocked if the consensus was not “The media has it out for our team, they never report anything good and only report the negative.” That answer would be consistent from campus to campus with little exception. Living in Ohio and being an Ohio State fan during the Maurice Clarrett fiasco that was the general consensus around the Buckeye State during that time. Each and every time another Buckeye made a mistake and got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time the cries would begin anew that ESPN was trying to bring down the OSU Athletic Department. Buck Nuts were so caught up in the moment that they could not take a step back and realize that ESPN would have nothing to gain from destroying OSU, especially the OSU Football program. ESPN and its parent company, Disney, had the exclusive rights to broadcast OSU Football games and have done so for years and have made money, and alot of it, because of those possessory rights. Ohio State was, and still is, one of the five most profitable Athletic Departments in the nation with a fan base as massive as anyone in the nation. Ohio State is a bank with an untold fortune waiting to be tapped. Disney would gain nothing by bringing down the OSU Athletic Department. Attempting to bring down the Ohio State program would be akin to robbing a bank, but instead of carrying the cash out, burning the cash. There is no profit in that, Disney is a profit maximizing company and would not even think of burning a profit. OSU, and any sports fans for that matter need something to rally against. “The media” is almost always the easiest target because writing something in an unflattering light is usually enough to set a fan base off, even though it is not logical and plays into the hands of the media. To be angry at the media you have to read and watch what they have to say, which is their only goal in the first place, to get you to put money in their pockets, tuning in and logging on does just that. A fact that is often overlooked and forgotten by the average fan. All the media wants to do is make money, that is it. They don’t really care about what the average fan has to say, they just want to know what that average guy wants to get angry about. When they know that they give the people what they want. To apply this line of thought to the OSU example when the news of Maurice Clarrett’s faulty police report first broke on the heels of allegations that he received improper academic treatment ESPN was the first one on the scene and they reported it from wall to wall converging on High Street and providing hourly updates on ESPN news and the newest information for all their sportscenter broadcasts. For whatever reason some people in Ohio failed to see how the star player on the defending national champion pulling a 180 and throwing the institution that gave him fame and instant recognition under the bus would be a story for the rest of the nation. So the people of Ohio raised up in anger towards ESPN and they bitched and moaned and complained and bitched some more. Petitions were started in an attempt to bar ESPN from ever stepping foot on campus again. Ed-Op pieces across the state ripped into George Bodenheimer for failing to report both sides of the story and in the end all of the bitching and moaning accomplished nothing. There is no way that Karen Holbrook and Andy Geiger were going to look ESPN in the face and say that we don’t need your money. It would never happen. All of this would have faded into the past but Buckeye Football players kept screwing up with offenses ranging from battery to sexual assault and lest we forget the 500 dollar hand shake that will life in infamy. Every new mistake meant that all the past allegations would be rehashed in the media once more and started new cries that ESPN was trying to destroy the OSU program. I thought that this was a problem unique to Ohio. I was wrong, the same tired line is trotted out by fans from Baton Rouge to Eugene. SEC fans think that ESPN has an axe to grind with them because Gameday does not come to SEC country that often, overlooking the fact that Gameday has become a massive promotional tool employed by ESPN to hype of games that will be shown on their network partner seeing as CBS has rights to ESPN why would they promote them? PAC 10 fans complain about the inherent East Coast bias. Big 10 fans complain about something. Big East fans complain about the lack of respect in relation to other conferences. There is little validity to all these claims. Individual people on any network may have a bias for or against one program or another. I will concede that point but the idea that a single company is in the act of defaming and demeaning dozens of programs at the same time is absurd. But there are thousands of people flying the flags of dozens of different institutions who hold firm to the belief that it is happening to them right now. They are convinced that the media has it out for them and intends with their actions to disrespect or demean the number one team in their hearts. I have bought into some strange ideas over the years but the idea that a single company is simultaneously upholding dozens of conspiracy theories for the defamation and destruction of dozens of universities is something that even an avid conspiracy theory buff wouldn’t buy.

Notre Dame

It has recently come to light that I have an issue with Notre Dame Football. This was brought up by my roommate no less who threw out the comment that I have such an outright bias against Notre Dame. While I have been railing against Notre Dame for the past two years it is not because I have strong bias against them, it is because they have not lived up to my standards of evaluation. Unlike the majority of the College Football public my standards of evaluation are the same across the board, I don’t have special ones just for Notre Dame. Simply put the media needs Notre Dame to be successful in much the same way that MLB needs the Yankees, the NFL needs the Cowboys or the NBA needs the Lakers or Knicks. When those teams are on top of their respective league’s it is a whole lot easier to drum up interest and publicity for the rest of the league. What happens is with the tiniest indication of success the media will come in and prop up those teams even when there may be better teams with better seasons they will not get the ink that the name teams of those league’s do. The same line of thought can be applied to Notre Dame. The Irish have not been deserving of half of the attention they have received in the past two years. But because they have had a measure of success against what is perennially one of the weakest schedules in the nation. The best win of this “resurgence” of Notre Dame has been against an 9-4 Penn State team that was a year removed from their best season since 1994. That is the only win that you can hang your hat on, the rest have come against the also rans of this sport with the exception of Michigan and Tennessee in 2005 which were both in once in a generation sort of bad seasons. There is no substance to the idea of Notre Dame being back among the elite of this sport. The Irish don’t have to earn that status like the rest of the teams do. Most average media types seem to wait patiently for the Irish to return to prominence, but instead of actually waiting for confirmation of their return to prominence they grant them elite status at the first sign of life. A lot of people point back to 2005 when the grounds keeper of Notre Dame stadium grew the grass three feet long in attempt to slow down USC. For the most part it worked and the game ended up being an all-timer that the Irish lost. People like Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti scream at the top of their lungs that this game played in the cool Autumn afternoon in South Bend signaled the return of Notre Dame to the elite levels of this sport. They screamed it at the top of their lungs because they need Notre Dame to be good. They screamed it with the hope that they would actually start to believe it themselves. What they forgot is that to be amongst the elite of this sport you have to beat an elite team and they haven’t. Sure they came really close to beating USC, but you know who else did. Fresno State. The Bulldogs of the Valley pushed the Men of Troy every bit as far as Notre Dame did. Did anyone scream at the top of their lungs that the Bulldogs were among the elite of the sport like they did for the Irish? No, of course they didn’t because the pundits don’t need a healthy Fresno State but they do need a healthy Notre Dame. Notre Dame has not earned a damn thing in the past two years. They have twice gone to BCS bowls, which in and of itself is a crock and surely topic for the future, and they were twice promptly run out of the stadium by vastly superior teams in terms of speed, athleticism and physicality. They have failed to beat USC, they have split with Michigan with the one win against the worst UM team in decades, they split with the flakiest program in the nation, Michigan State. That is not the resume of an elite program. Notre Dame has not proven anything in the past two years but still gets treated like they have accomplished as much as USC, Texas or OSU has. That is the issue that I have with Notre Dame. The standard of proof for their program is so much lower than it is for the rest of the nation. If you put the reults of Notre Dame side by side with USC, LSU, Texas, OSU or Florida for the past five years, or even the past two years each program has a better record against better competition. If Notre Dame wants to sit at the big boy table they need to step up their game because as it stands right now they don’t deserve to be there. They are not a top 10 program right now. They will be in a few years but they aren’t right now.

Bearcats Football Takes a Positive Step

This week the University of Cincinnati Athletic Department took a step in the right direction for their Football program, which is on the brink of becoming the flag ship of UC Athletics. For most of the history of UC athletics the Basketball program has ruled the roost. Going back to the late 50’s when Oscar Robertson thrilled packed houses at the Armory Fieldhouse and brought Bearcat Basketball to the attention of the national audience to the back to back National Championship teams of 61 and 62. 30 years removed but fresh in the minds of all Tri-State residents are the days of Bob Huggins. Huggy Bear lead UC back to national prominence in the 90’s with his brand of tough nosed physical Basketball. UC has always been recognized as a Basketball school and rightfully so given the outstanding winning percentage and tradition that has been evident at this university. But the success of Bearcat Basketball unwittingly demoted every other sport to second class status, especially the Football program. For decades the Athletic department required anyone who wanted Basketball season tickets to also buy Football Season tickets. The arrangement made some sense during the C-USA days when the Basketball program was rocking and rolling before packed houses in the Fifth Third Arena and the demand was sky high. But in reality it came at the expense of the Football program. By making Football tickets requirements for Basketball tickets UC essentially branded the Football program a step below the Basketball program and not as important. However when Huggins was dismissed and the Basketball program took a turn for the worse that could not be said for the Football program. UC Football has not been bad over the last decade but it has been fairly average. There have been some good stretches and bowl appearances. That is changing, UC had one of the best seasons in the nation that no one talked about this past year. But it has not done anything to wrest the minds of Tri-State residents away from the Buckeyes 100 miles north on I-71. There are any number of reasons for this, blaming the local media seems to be the popular one among true Bearcat Football fans and there is some merit in that approach. Simply looking at the lack of coverage of the UC Rutgers game shows that. During the week there was not a mention of the impending visit of the Scarlet Knights until the day before the game and after the game and the biggest upset in school history the story was relegated behind the OSU Michigan game, which was somewhat understandable. But there really one thing to blame and that is the apathetic attitude to UC Football from of the majority of sports fans in this city. If you polled 100 Cincinnati residents as to what their favorite College Football program is 75 would tell you Ohio State and the majority of the others would tell you Notre Dame or Michigan. I would be shocked if 10 would say UC. Understanding that makes the pairing of Football tickets with Basketball tickets in the past make some sense. In the minds of most Tri-State residents UC Football is a second class citizen. This sense of apathy towards this program is part of the reason why Mark Dantonio left. UC Football might not have the hearts and minds of Cincinnati residents but it is in a far better position to secede in the Big East than the Basketball program is. Not surprisingly this fact goes unnoticed to the majority of Cincinnati residents. That fact has not gone unnoticed by Mike Thomas and the Athletic Department staff who bestowed equal billing on Bearcat Football from on high, well the eighth floor of the Linder Center, for the first time in over a decade. The current of position of UC Football begs comparison with a program that has seen a meteoric rise in popularity and respect. They too had just opened new facilities geared towards making the institution a legitimate Football program. They too had long been considered a hoops school in a city where High School Basketball and Football ruled supreme. Long had this program had its home territory raided by more prestigious and history rich programs. They were also looked down upon as the inferior little brother to a school that bore the name of the state. This program was long held as an inferior to its more successful basketball program. This program also had a signature victory against a highly ranked national opponent at home in front of a national television audience. Then, in the middle of their Ascension to the top the architect of the program bolted the university that had given him national notoriety for an institution nestled on the banks of the Red Cedar in East Lansing. Then, when everyone thought the program would crumble with the loss of the architect the administration went out on a limb and hired a brash young offensive minded coach who would continue the raise to prominence in fact this coach quickened the pace. If you haven’t figured it out yet the program that I refer to is Louisville. There may not be a guarantee of similar success but there is no reason that UC can not enjoy a level of success similar to our rivals 100 miles to the south. The situations are eerily similar, right now UC sits in the same position that Louisville was in just 5 or 6 years ago. The decision of the Athletic Department to recognize the ability of UC Football to stand on its own is a risk, a calculated risk true, but a risk none the less. With the hire of Brian Kelly and his fan friendly offensive show appeals more to the casual fan. Personally I loved the way the Bearcats played under Mark Dantonio with the conservative play calling of Don Treadwell and the fast and furious defense of Pat Narduzzi. It did not make for fan friendly Football but it did keep UC in games, UC won a fair share of those games. Kelly’s attack will be wide open and high octane for sure. The risk is that Kelly could fail in the long run which makes the timing of this decision perfect. The defense will return 8 starters and will be among the best in the conference, if not the nation. While the offense has the type of players Kelly craves for his offensive system. Big, tall, physical athletes like Dominic Goodman and Earnest Jackson in the slot, speed merchants like Jared Martin and Derick Stewart to stretch the defense vertically from the perimeter, not to mention a veteran offensive line that returns 3 starters and a stable of backs to choose from. This team is set up to win right now, even if the offense doesn’t click right away the defense will be able to win almost every game. The risk of a bad season in 2007, while present, is minimal. Kelly is in what I like to refer to as a “Tim Tebow.” Urban Meyer only inserted Tebow in situations where the chance of failure was minuscule. Kelly is in a similar situation, everything is in place for this program to take off the facilities, the team a supportive administration Alot of pundits around the nation recognize that fact, College Football News chief among them. Not surprisingly no one in the Tri-State is seeing this http://http://rodeo.cincinnati.com/artchat/comments.aspx?aID=703060344 That will change in time, when UC starts seeing more success UC Football fans will come from the depths in much the same way Bengals fans have materialized from nothing in the past five years. UC should be applauded for this decision and I feel that it will pay off in a big way, just look at our rivals to the south.