November 1, 2024

It’s Kick Off Time Playa’s!

The college football season kicks off this Thursday so I want to quickly throw out the top five predictions by D2B.

My top five at the end of the season will be:

#1 South Carolina – No LSU and they get Auburn and Florida at home. Tough road stretch of games 7-9 where they go to Mississippi St, Tennessee and Arkansas, but they come through it.

#2 Nebraska – Huskers bring Big 12 swagger to the Big 10 and they don’t play anyone without a dress until @ Wisconsin 10/1. Ohio St, Spartans and Iowa to finish season, but all at home. Good schedule and QB experience will get them into the title game.

#3 Oregon – After opening against LSU with a win the Ducks have a pretty easy schedule considering USC will be at home.  At Stanford November 12th is the game that will make or break their season.

#4 Oklahoma – At Florida State week 2, @ Baylor week 10 and @ Stillwater week 12 along with a neutral clash with Texas makes this year’s Sooners squad a bit vulnerable. If they make it out of the 1st 11 games look for the Oklahoma State game to dictate which BCS bowl they play in.

#5 Virginia Tech – The Hokies have 1 team in the top 25 on their schedule and that team (Miami) is in investigation hell.  Not really much in their way except @ Georgia Tech week 10. Beamer really has a chance this year.

Weekend Pigskin Pix by D2B

The last time I posted picks I went 4-for-4. I don’t expect to go 100% this weekend, but I got a good feeling about these games. Here are my college football and NFL picks for the weekend:

Friday Night:

Illinois goes into Fresno State for either embarrassment or to solidify their bowl hopes.  Both teams are going to a bowl, but this game will have a say in how much money they get in their bowl game. Both offenses are potent and will put up points in what should be a shootout.

Take the Over 58 1/2

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The MAC Championship is actually a pretty fun game to watch. No weather issues because the game is in Ford Field Dome. Northern Illinois comes in winners of 9 in-a-row including last weeks 70-3 romp over Eastern Michigan a. NI has averaged 46 points during their winning streak and I don’t think Miami Ohio can stop them considering they give up over 330 yards per game.

Give the 17 1/2 and take Northern Illinois

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Saturday Games:

Rutgers is horrible and West Virginia is hoping to get into the Orange Bowl as the Big ‘Least’ representative.

Give the 21 pts and take West Virginia

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Boise is pissed and they will take their anger out on Utah State on the Blue Turf.

Give the 39 1/2 pts and take Boise State

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Nevada got the big win against Boise last week and now must try and come down from that high against a Louisiana Tech team that can score as well.

Take the 9 1/2 pts and La Tech at home

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Sunday NFL action:

KC at home versus a Denver team that got worked at home by Sam Bradford. Easy call.

Give the 9 pts and take KC

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Troy Smith versus Aaron Rogers. Umm, no contest in frigid Lambeau.

Give the 10 pts and take Green Bay

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Indy can’t stop anyone and they can’t run the ball. Dallas comes in with a new swagger and will get after Peyton so he will have another interception laden game.

Take the 5 1/2 pts and Dallas

Top Weekend CFB Bets by D2B

We are heading into week 4 of the college football season which means fall has arrived and we are starting to get into league games so the real race begins for the BCS Bowls.

Here are some big games to watch and wager on over the first weekend of autumn.

Thursday September 23rd – Miami -4 1/2 at Pitt:

Miami is playing their first game since they got beat at Ohio St 36-24. Jacory Harris was picked off four times (3 were in-and-out of Miami receivers’ hands) yet the Canes racked up over 350 yards of offense against the #2 ranked team in the country.  Pitt does have a top 5 RB in sophomore Dion Lewis, but the Panthers lost their best player on defense in DE Greg Romeus. Pitt had a loss to Utah on their opening night and they had an unimpressive win versus New Hampshire two weeks ago so it doesn’t seem like they will be able to handle the speed of the Canes.

Prediction: Miami -4 1/2 will cover

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Oklahoma -13 @ Cincinnati

Oklahoma is coming off a hard fought win against Air Force. The Sooners now travel to Cincinnati where a year ago this game could have been the best of the day. Cincy is coming off a loss last Thursday at NC St and they are struggling to find an identity under their head new coach. Oklahoma is a Jekyll and Hyde team when you consider they squeak by Air Force, but a week before dismantle Florida State.  This is the week where Oklahoma shows its power and beats a lost Cincy team.

Prediction: Oklahoma -13 will cover

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Alabama -7 @ Arkansas

The best team in CFB travels to their first SEC clash against #10 Arkansas and Heisman candidate QB Ryan Mallet.  Alabama has beaten a young inexperienced Penn St team, a lousy Duke squad and lowly San Jose St. Not exactly a schedule to get ready for the SEC. Arkansas already went into Georgia and won so their confidence should be high. The score should be tight so look for Arkansas to get a lead and then stay within striking distance as long as their defense can stop Bama’s running game.

Prediction: Arkansas + 7 will cover

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Boise St -17 vs Oregon State

Oregon State painted their practice field “Bronco Blue” so they could get used to the most famous CFB field in the NCAA. All the painting will not work because eBoise St. will flex it’s BCS muscle and control this game from start to finish and win going away. Boise will show the voters they can beat a top ACC and Pac-10 foe.

Prediction: Boise St -17 will cover

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Stanford -4 1/2 @ Notre Dame

Stanford has won their first 3 games by a total of 114 points and may have the best QB in all of college football. Notre Dame squeaked by a horrid Pur-don’t team in its opener and lost to Michigan and Michigan State over the last 2 weeks. They are at home against a hot underrated team and the Irish really don’t have a defense to stop Andy Luck and the Cardinal. This could get ugly and if the game was set to play in Palo Alto the line would be 14 points easy.

Prediction:  Stanford – 4 1/2 will cover

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On a side note here are the “I can’t believe you are playing these guys” games of the week.

Wisconsin vs Austin Peay, Ohio State vs Eastern Michigan and Nebraska vs South Dakota State

College Football Jokes

(1) What does the average Univ. of Florida player get on his SATs?
……..Drool.

(2) What do you get when you put 32 West Virginia cheerleaders in one room?
……..A full set of teeth.

(3) How do you get a Nebraska cheerleader into your dorm room?
……..Grease her hips and push.

(4) How do you get an Ohio State graduate off your porch?
………Pay him for the pizza.

(5) How do you know if an Alabama football player has a girlfriend?
……There is tobacco spit on both sides of his pickup.

(6) Why is the Kentucky football team like a possum?
….Because they play dead at home and get killed on the road.

(7) What are the longest three years of a Texas Longhorn football player’s life?
……..His freshman year.

(8) How many Oklahoma freshmen does it take to change a light bulb?
……..None. That’s a sophomore course.

(9) Where was O. J. Headed in the white Bronco?
……. Durham , North Carolina . He knew that the police would never look at Duke for a Heisman Trophy winner.

(10) How do you keep an FSU football player out of your front yard?
………………..Erect a goal post!

AND FINALLY (drum roll and cymbal clash)…..

(11) Why did Tennessee choose orange as their team color?
………You can wear it to the game on Saturday, hunting on Sunday, and picking up trash along the highways the rest of the week.

Survey Says

College football kicks off tomorrow evening and it should be another fantastic year. Here are my predicitions for conference champions and the national champion.

ACC
Florida State, Miami and North Carolina are all veteran teams. If UNC has player suspension issues that linger for too long look for Florida State to win the Atlantic and Miami to win the Coastal.

Prediction: Miami beats Florida State in the ACC Championship

Big East
Cincinnati lost their QB and head coach while UConn, Pitt and Rutgers have gained another year of seasoning and are ready to win this wide open conference. While some may say that West Virginia is always in contention the Rich Rodriguez days are long gone. Upstarts UConn and Rutgers have skill players back and great coaching in order to win tight games. Pitt may has a Heisman hopeful, but they still have a coach who chokes in more big games than Marty Shottenheimer. South Florida has a nice offense coming back but the defense is the weakest in quite some time for the Bulls.

Prediction: Rutgers to win the Big East

Big 10
It is almost unanimous that Ohio State, Iowa and Wisconsin have some of the best teams in all of football this year. OSU plays at Iowa and Wisconsin and at home to Miami, Penn St and Michigan. Iowa has most of their tough games at home, but the Arizona game on the road in Week 3 could be a pitfall. Wisconsin has to go to Iowa which will more than likely be their demise.

Prediction: Ohio State wins

Big 12
This year is the last hurrah for Colorado and Nebraska. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter because Nebraska will win the North Division in a landslide. Texas and Oklahoma will once again play the Red River Shootout for conference supremacy. Oklahoma may have a Heisman hopeful at RB in DeMarco Murray and Texas could be good, but they lost a lot.

Prediction: Oklahoma wins the Big 12 Championship

Pac 10
Lots of good QBs, a death penalty and many other young talented players are heading up this conference. Arizona gets Iowa, USC, Washington and Oregon State at home. Oregon State has to open up at TCU and then 2 weeks later goes to Boise State besides back-to-back road games at Arizona and Washington. USC can’t win anything tangible, but have the talent to make a huge statement. Washington Heisman hopeful Jake Locker is a true playmaker and should keep the Huskies in most games. Stanford has the offense, but will need a defense to make anyone look at them as contenders.

Prediction: Arizona wins the Pac 10

SEC
Tim Tebow is gone, but Florida continues to reload as usual. Alabama is coming off a dream season, but have issues with the Heisman winner Mark Ingram getting banged up plus they have a lot of new faces on defense. Auburn has a pretty easy path to their tango against Alabama in the season finale while Arkansas and South Carolina should have explosive offenses. You can’t count out LSU, but in the end Florida wins SEC East and Auburn in a stunner wins the SEC West.

Prediction: Auburn wins the SEC

Sleeper Teams:
Middle Tennessee State, NC State, UCLA, and South Florida

BCS Championship
The BCS Championship game will not have a WAC or Mountain West team in it even though there is a lot of preseason hype that Boise or TCU will make the big game. The usual suspects Ohio State and Oklahoma will battle for the title with Terrelle Pryor and Ohio State gutting through a great game for the win.

My Top 3 NCAA Football Summer Pix

We are five weeks out and USC is on probation, Urban Meyer took no time away from the game and Nick Saban is calling out agents and boosters. Are you ready for some college football?

This offseason seems to have been more interesting than any other I can remember. Lane Kiffen and USC got smacked down, The Pac whatever and Texas were gonna be in the same conference and you have multiple teams being investigated by the NCAA for player interaction with agents or runners.

My Top 3 Teams – after spring ball and district court appearances are:

#1 – Ohio State

#2 – USC

#3 – Boise St.

USC will have more incentive than any school in the country due to the ‘non-bowl’ sanction. Before this sanction they were top 4 and in the end what has changed for this year? They didn’t get the #1 recruit in the country due to the sanctions, but they are still loaded. I am a UCLA guy, but this is USC’s year.

Jim Tressel and OSU seem to be a bit under the radar and I feel this is the year of the Buckeye. Other than their rivalry game against Michigan the Buckeyes have Miami the second week in Columbus and the typical Big 10 games they will more than likely roll through in typical fashion. Besides the schedule Pryor is a stud and has major confidence after the Rose Bowl win against Oregon earlier this year. Can you name another big name QB in college football?

Boise has one tough game the entire year and it is the first game of the year against Virginia Tech in Washington, DC. If they win that game look out!

In-Fighting Going on at SoCal

It’s bad enough the USC Trojans are on double secret probation, had to give back a Heisman trophy, have a new AD and don’t forget they have a head coach who got chased out of Tennessee. Now USC has an alum who is considered royalty in coaching, considering he has the longest coaching tenure in the NFL, suing head Coach Lane Kiffin over the theft of an offensive coach. A freaking running backs coach nevertheless.

Kennedy Pola left the Tennessee Titans to become the offensive coordinator at USC even though Jeff Fisher was never aware until after the fact. You have to figure this process was going on during Mike Garrett’s term as AD and was already in motion by the time Pat Haden came into the office as the new AD.  I can’t believe Haden would have allowed this to happen without reaching out to Jeff Fisher especially since they know each other.

Personally, I don’t see Lane Kiffin at USC very long past this year as he has a way to even make me feel sorry for Al Davis. This guy is bad news for the university and for amateur athletics as a whole.

Where is College Football Going?

With all the talk about the Big Ten becoming the Big 14, the SEC stealing some ACC schools just after the big ACC merger a few years ago along with the whispers of realignment of the Pac 10 which could become the Pac 12 I start to wonder just WTF is going on?

Earlier this week it was rumored the Big Ten had offered membership to four schools: Notre Dame, Nebraska, Missouri and Rutgers. The ACC is looking anxiously at the Big Ten expansion because it could set off a chain of events that one day affects the ACC with regards to Bowl games and the money those games generate for the ACC. Already losing the Gator Bowl this year the ACC is scheduled to have three New Years Eve games which we all know is nothing monetarily in comparison to the January 1st games.

The big loser in all of this would be the Big East.. They could lose up to 4 maybe 5 teams out of a conference still looking for an identity after losing Miami, Va Tech and BC to the ACC a few years back. They have added Louisville, Cinci and UConn which are nice schools, but only in basketball are they a marquis brand. Losing a Rutgers, UConn, Syracuse and Pitt would be devastating for the league considering that football is the big purse that allows for the other sports to survive.

As far as the Pac 10, they plan to hire super agency CAA to find out if what they want to do is a viable solution for the league, Geesh, so SoCal it makes me want to puke and I live here. You don’t need an agency to conduct studies and get paid millions to come up with the answer because the answer is to EXPAND you Idiots! Get BYU and Utah or raid the wo-be-gones from the Big 12 like Colorado and Kansas and expand the brand into the middle of the country. Basketball as well as football would be affected in a positive manner. Every year 2 of the most storied programs (KU and UCLA) could play in hoops in a home-and-home. Sounds better than Utah vs UCLA or BYU vs Oregon State, right? Whatever they do I hope they do it fast! Knowing how the Pac 10 purists handle emerging ideas I say that the conference will still be in the same boat 5 years from now, but maybe with a Pac-10 and Big 12 partnership — NOT a merger — to maximize TV opportunities.

And finally the SEC. One of the most popular scenarios right now is for the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Pac-10 to expand and form four super-conferences by absorbing teams from the Big East and Big 12. Ya right, and we will have a college football playoff to boot! Anyway, the SEC is looking at grabbing South Carolina rival Clemson as well as Miami and Fla St out of the ACC to create a super duper conference. Maybe ESPN can start a new network called ESPN-SEC and throw in Tim Tebow as their lead analyst.

In any case all these adjustments are leading to what we may all want. These super conferences happen and let the winners of the conferences play in a 3 game tourny where we would have a semi-final and a final to at least give us some sort of playoff system to crown the absolute champion.

It would definitely be better than what we have now!

Congrats, 2010 Top 5 and a Long Spring and Summer Ahead

Congratulations to Alabama for becoming the 2009-10 BCS Champions.

Now that college football and the regular season of the NFL is over we have to get over the fact there will not be a Monday night game nor will there be a Toledo vs. Bowling Green Tuesday or Wednesday night ‘football jonesing’ game.

We have come to that time a year where we get 4 NFL games this week and next then 2 games on one day in 2 weeks and then 2 weeks later a single game and that will be it until August. I can’t say it has been the greatest of college football years because ethe excitement of previous years did not resonate. I’m not sure why, but maybe its because only Oklahoma #2, USC #4 and #7 Oklahoma St really didn’t live up to their preseason rankings.  Preseason ranked Florida #1, Alabama #5 and Texas #3 were always in the top 3 or 4 and really nobody came close to knocking them out.

The real surprises to watch this year were TCU preseason ranked #18 and Boise State #20 who both finished the regular season undefeated. The Broncos and Horny Frogs rose the ranks and in a small way give us hope for a potential playoff scenario in the future.

The biggest tanks of 2009 were Mississippi, USC, Oklahoma, Kansas and of course Lou Holt’s National Champion, Notre Dame.

I know its way way too early to even think about next year, but here are my 2010 NCAA Football preseason Top 5 picks:

#1 USC – have you seen the 2010 cupcake schedule? Hawaii, Virgina, Minny and Wazu to open. Barkley and the defense are another year older and will roll.

#2 Virginia Tech – except for Boise State they can breeze through the ACC with no Fla St, Clemson or Maryland on the schedule.  Miami and North Carolina are on the road.

#3 Alabamaa – They return 13 from a National Championship team with most of the offense either sophomores or juniors. They play Penn St in their second game and Florida in Tuscaloosa.

#4 Boise St. – They have a ‘real’ game against VTech in October at FedEx field and a home game vs Oregon St.  They bring back a lot of skill players and 20 starters.

#5 Ohio St. –  Terrelle Pryor has the confidence now and so does Tressel to take this project to the next level.  Marshall, EMU and Indiana on the schedule.

Top Ten Tim Tebow Status Updates

Unless you have been living in a cave with Osama bin Laden over the last week then I think it’s safe to say you have heard Tim Tebow suffered a concussion last Saturday against Kentucky. Since then it seems like almost everytime I turn around someone is providing an update on whether he will be able to play this coming Saturday against LSU. It’s definitely a big game considering Florida is the top-ranked team in the country and LSU is currently fourth, but I think we can do without the 24/7 updates on Tebow.

#10
Tim Tebow just finished guzzling a Red Bull, but it didn’t give him wings.

#9
Tim Tebow was spotted at a mall in Gainesville shopping for socks, but something still might not be right with his head because the socks he purchased were pink.

#8
Tim Tebow is still a virgin.

#7
Tim Tebow attended all his classes today so it was a busy day for the quarterback considering the three classes he attended were weightlifting, under water fire safety and the basics of golf.

#6
Tim Tebow didn’t practice again today with the rest of the team, but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express recently.

#5
Tim Tebow told the media today he will definitely play football…again this year.

#4
Tim Tebow just turned down having sex with the 13th different girl today who offered.

#3
Tim Tebow had three balanced meals today and plans to do the same again tomorrow.

#2
Tim Tebow is even sick and tired of hearing his name on ESPN every other minute.

#1
Tim Tebow admitted that Superman doesn’t really wear Tim Tebow pajamas to bed.