College Football: Week 1

Well folks, it’s that time of year again; time for my weekly College Football column. For the next 20 weeks I’ll ponder the intangibles, pontificate the insecurities, and postulate the ineptitudes of mainstream writers and the sport they indite. Arduous as it may seem, it doesn’t take a seminal and reticent mind to conjecture on the hopeful convalescence of Notre Dame football; but what does help is a contrite view of all things pigskin. Enough with the verbosities, let’s get on to the show…

Of course everyone saw Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina Gamecocks triumph over the George O’Leary’s plucky Golden Knights of UCF (remember, it's UCF not Central Florida) 24-15, but what you might not have seen was how much the Old Ballcoach’s wife looks EXACTLY like he does…yikes! Yeah, SC can, and will, chuck the rock around, but they’re softer than Carol Yager’s belly. UCF controlled both lines of scrimmage, but they should…they’re coming off an astounding 0-11 campaign last year. What I’m trying to say is, If SC doesn’t grow some balls, they’re in deep shit this year.

The Vanderbilt Commodores, eked out a 24-20 win over Wake Forest in spite of 254 yards rushing by Micah Andrews. All-everything QB, and my NCAA’06 online boy, Jay Cutler threw for 275 and ran for another 89 to pull out a very solid win for the Ivy School of the SEC. (Does anyone mean more to their team than Cutler to Vandy? He's the LeBron James of College Football.) Like SC, Vandy can’t stop the run either, but as long as Jay "LeBron" Cutler keeps carrying them, they may win 4 or 5.

And finally, Tulsa decided that Laurence Maroney had cooties as they ole’d the Heisman hopeful for 163 yards on 8 carries before the first quarter had even ended. Eventually Tulsa decided they could, in fact, tackle Maroney, holding him to a mere 202 yards and 2-TDs in the 41-10 Minnesota win. While the score did look lopsided, Minnesota didn't look like world beaters. Poor scheming led to most of Maroney's yards and the Gopher's won't see many fronts smaller than Tulsa's.

Now for the previews. Because I’m a Big-10 boy at heart, I’m going to concentrate on the boys of the great lakes for most of the year. However, I will touch on some of the top-10 games if they have the merit.

Bowling Green at Wisconsin
Omar Jacobs throws for 400 and 4-TDs but comes up short because the rest of his team won’t be able to handle the crazies in Camp Randall. The Wisconsin faithful border on criminally insane, doing things like freezing pennies inside of marshmallows to throw at the visiting team. While I do think that Omar is good enough to be a top ten pick in the next NFL draft, I don’t think anyone on BG’s defense will smell a Tagliabue podium in the near future. Barry’s boys have enough of a running game to pull out a close win in the first game of the Barry Alvarez farewell tour.
Wisco 38 – BG 35

Notre Dame at Pitt
Brady Quinn is good. He’s got great technique, an above-average supporting cast, and an offensive genius in Charlie Weis calling the plays. But Tyler Palko is much better than Quinn and he’s actually got an all-American level receiver in Greg Lee who, if healthy, will be the deciding factor. If Lee can’t go, the Fighting Irish pull this out over Dave Wannstedt’s crew.
Pitt 31 – ND 24

Miami at Florida State
Is there a more over-hyped team this year than Florida State? They have a spectacular running tandem of Lorenzo Booker and Leon Washington and they have good linebackers, but the rest of their team is undersized and average. For those of you out there who aren’t familiar with teams that have the same kind of qualities as this years Seminole squad see Minnesota 2004. I can’t see FSU losing less than 4 games this year, and I’m guessing they go 6-5 losing to Miami, Boston College, Viginia, NC State, and Florida. Miami is going to start the Paterno plunge in Tallahassee with a drubbing.
Miami 35 – FSU 17

Boise State at Georgia
Time for the token upset of the week. The Broncos will win this game. They will win because David Green, David Pollack, Reggie Brown, Fred Gibson, Thomas Davis, and Odell Thurman, also known as the heart and soul of the Bulldogs, are playing in the NFL. That leaves DJ Shockley and Thomas Brown as the only players who can keep UGA in this game.
Boise St 44 – UGA 31

Miami (OH) at Ohio State
Justin Zwick, the great white hype, will not win this game for the Buckeyes. In fact, JW will do his best to lose this game. He’ll be sacked 4 times and throw two interceptions in the first half, but will be saved by the now aggressive Silver Bullets. In the second half, Todd Boeckman will throw for 220 and 3-TDs in a white-washing of the boys from Oxford. Everyone will talk about Ted Ginn, Santonio Holmes, Terna Nande, A.J. Hawk, and the rest of the talent on the field, but the game will be won and lost between the headsets. Most prognosticators presume this game will be close because that’s what Tressel-ball dictates, but what us Buckeye faithful know is that JT doesn’t tighten up until Big-Ten play. Every opening day game for the Bucks since Jim Tressel began walking the sidelines has been a cake-walk, regardless of level of competition. 2004: OSU 27 – Cinci 6, 2003: OSU 28 – Washington 9, 2002: OSU 45 – Texas Tech 21, 2001: OSU 28 – Akron 14. All of the scores were closer than the actual games.
OSU 34 – Miami 10

Your homework for the week is to name this column. Post your answers in the comments section.