COLLEGE FOOTBALL - WEEK 1

Time to actually get excited, as you read here first, College Football is back!  If last Saturday was the tasting, Thursday and Friday are the rehearsal; that would make Saturday the big day!  Robert the Cheech is currently making his way to St. Louis for a golf / college football / beer / bad food kind of weekend.  Last week, we were a bit late to the party on the Bambi trailer.  This week, even later to the party with this cover song that friend of the site Adam Case can’t stop raving about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVfe6rdHRKI

Allegedly that was the last song Blind Melon recorded.  Possible Richard Hoon realized what he had done and took a triple dose of magic mushrooms.

No story about TOB’s special lady this week, though with a weekend full of brunch, birthday parties, and golf, there are bound to be some quotes for the baseball article (which is coming…probably).  Two double headers for the Cardinals this weekend, can’t remember that happening in my lifetime.  As TOB writes this, the special lady is still asleep.  Perhaps waking her up to mention the Cardinals will be playing a double header on two consecutive days for the first time since 1998 against the Mets (well within TOB’s lifetime, FYI) will put her in a good mood for the day.

And now, it’s time for recaps, previews, and general nonsense!

Let’s start with the general bitching of everyone, the pre-season rankings.  “But how can we know how good anyone is if we haven’t seen them play yet?” – Casual/idiot fan.  Well, there are several factors:

·       Returning starters (#1 most important)

·       Coaching history / overall team legacy (1a on importance)

·       Recruiting class (pretty important if factors 1 and 1a are met – no one cares if some shitty coach stumbled upon a 5 star kid who didn’t want to leave his home state)

·       Strength of schedule (least important, but still a factor.  Some of the Power 5 will have a pair from time to time and play a big opponent, however, these games are scheduled so far in advance that the match-up ends up being a dud – Bama/USC in years past – sorry bout it Steve Gerring)

There are other factors, no doubt, but those are the primary ones.  They make sense, and are probably on the whole a decent predictor of who will be good for the year.  “But why don’t we just let a few weeks go by and see who is really the best.”  - Same guy.  Unfortunately, even if the NCAA didn’t set a ranking system, it would take about 30 seconds for ESPN or FOX or some other entity to make a ranking system and people would be drawn to it.  Additionally, if you don’t know how good someone is (going into the season as if all teams are equal), would you just rank teams really high that had major blowouts the first couple of weeks?  Get ready for cupcake central!  No one would have incentive to schedule tough early games and the season wouldn’t really feel like it started until about week 4.  Not to mention the ranking system, while still biased toward more traditional programs, still tries to be more objective than your average fan.  That would all go out the window.  With no objectivity, you would see teams ranked solely on name recognition and nothing else.  Even when they were having a bad year those teams would be propped up because they have 3 blowout wins over crap teams and people like wearing a cap with their logo (posers).  The pre-season rankings are like capitalism, it’s a terrible system, but it’s the best one we’ve found.

As for the rankings, no real surprises this year.  Of the top 25, here is how it breaks down by Power 5 conferences:

·       BIG10 – 7 teams

·       SEC – 6 teams (all top 16)

·       PAC12 – 5 (none above 11 – Oregon)

·       BIG12 – 3

·       ACC – 2

·       Non Power 5 – 2 (ND, UCF)

All that tells TOB is that the BIG10 and SEC will have a lot of opportunities to play against ranked opponents during conference play, while Clemson, Oklahoma, and Texas better hope they win their big games to keep their ranking up.  The PAC12 remains a joke, and no one is really sure why they have 5 ranked teams outside of the fact that they need to fill 25 spots.  It won’t destroy the PAC12’s season tonight if the 4th or 5th best SEC team beats the highest ranked PAC12 team, but it would sting.  TOB has noticed pundits already touting Utah as the actual best team in the PAC12 to hedge against an Oregon loss.

Let’s look at some of the bigger games for this week…j/k, there are only two big games this week (three if you count ND/Louisville, which we probably shouldn’t). 

·       Oregon at Auburn (-3.5) – The teams are relatively even according to Vegas, the 3.5 points is just for the home field advantage.  TOB is very excited to watch this game with Robert the Cheech and a few others.  Notes will be taken, many of them will not be legible by the am.  Great test for the hot quarterback prospect out of Oregon, Herbert.  Auburn has a D-line near what Clemson had last year, so they will be putting a lot of pressure on.  Unclear if Auburn can muster an offense to match, if in fact Herbert is the real deal.

·       Houston at Oklahoma (-23) – Despite the big line, TOB is excited for this game.  Dana Holgorsen (formerly of West Virginia, formerly the cover shot for a TOB article with his sweet mullet) has never beaten OU, but put up a few good showings against the BIG12 bully.  Both teams can score in bunches…or so we think.  Jalen Hurts is going to be the big X factor and we will have to see what kind of offense Lincoln Riley has worked up for him.  Over/Under is 80…seems high for a new QB on one side, new coach on the other, game 1 of the season.  Side note:  Good move College Football putting this game Sunday night (then the ND game Monday night) to stagger the eyeballs.  The NFL has finally picked up what the NCAA has been doing for years – pick out one or two huge feature games and put them on primetime.  Let all other games play at the same time (NFL has about 6 going at once on Sundays at noon and then again at 3:30) and allow there to be quality in the quantity. 

·       It should be noted that the top 5 ranked teams in the country have an average point spread of 28.5 in their first game of the season.  That’s pretty lame.  Again, there is one big game, another good one, and then they can just keep cutting to highlights from all of the others to make it seem like there is drama going on.  You win College Football, you always do.

Last thing, now that Urban Meyer is part of the College Gameday crew, we may as well start the “Countdown Until Urban Meyer Takes a D1 Job.”  TOB’s vote has long been USC (or at least since Urban announced his retirement from Ohio State).  TOB suspects he sees how this year goes at USC/UCLA and pounces on a wounded program (similar to Florida, Ohio State).  For all of the talk about needing to get away to spend more time with his family, TOB has seen Urban on ESPN the past 5 consecutive days.  Quality time Urban, quality.

No picks in the column this week, Robert the Cheech and TOB will be making bets in person all day.  Results of that to follow.  Enjoy the first Saturday kickoff!  Shout out to Steve and Mallory on their baby shower today (TOB’s lady will be attending, TOB will not) and to Xander for his birthday (TOB and the special lady will be in attendance for that – Ortbals you better have some TV’s on…).

 GO IRISH!

 -Tonyonball