The Official 2008 NCAA Football Thread

[SilverDragonSoun]

Last season was certainly a roller coaster ride and this year may be similar. If so we are in for another great year. The season has officially started. Who is your team, how do you see them doing this year? National Championship predictions?

 

My team is Arizona State and I see them in second or third place in the Pac 10. My national championship prediction is USC vs. Florida. I think picking Ohio State is an easy pick because I feel they have the easiest road to the championship game.

[SilverDragonSoun]

Let the games begin and already we have some surprises.

 

Bowling Green beats Pittsburgh

Utah Beats Michigan

East Carolina Beats Virginia Tech

 

And in other news Oklahoma currently leads Chatanooga 50-0 with 3 minutes until halftime.

[Strategery]

War Damn Eagle!

 

Randy

[Magpel]

I quite enjoyed watching the 4th quarter of East Carolina vs. V.Tech game from a treadmill. I think I am going to make an effort to stay in touch with college football this year.

[MidLifeCrisis]

South Florida is up big time going into the 4th quarter. Looks like last year was no fluke and they will be a program to be reckoned with.

 

Nice to see some upsets in week 1. Looks like we will be in store for another fun season.

 

[Geoff Grace]

Good start for our team, eh Silver Dragon Sound?

 

Sun Devils top Northern Arizona, 30-13

 

http://homepage.mac.com/musicproduction/.Pictures/ASU.gif

 

GO SUN DEVILS!!!

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Geoff Grace]

Oh, and my number two team did pretty well too:

 

Mark Sanchez, USC click on all cylinders in 52-7 victory over Virginia

 

Best of luck with your teams, guys!

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[mate stubb]

Ohio State won.

Missouri won.

Michigan lost.

 

All is well after week 1, except for Beanie Wells' foot.

[Jode]

So much for Thunder and Lightning - the vaunted Clemson backfield did not net One. Single. Rushing. Yard. on Alabama. Mark my words - the Tide will roll hard in 2008.

[SilverDragonSoun]

So much for Thunder and Lightning - the vaunted Clemson backfield did not net One. Single. Rushing. Yard. on Alabama. Mark my words - the Tide will roll hard in 2008.

 

What's scarry is that they are so young and could get only better with each game. They will certainly get tested and now their games in the SEC have become much more magnified nationally.

[Jode]

Life is good. Alabama opens their season with a big win, and Tennessee opens with a big loss to UCLA. My two favorite teams are Alabama and anyone who embarasses Philip Fulmer.

[Geoff Grace]

Yeah, how about Rick Neuheisel's Bruins? Nice overtime upset over Tennessee.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[SilverDragonSoun]

Yeah, how about Rick Neuheisel's Bruins? Nice overtime upset over Tennessee.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

 

Agreed nice win for them and a good plug for the pac 10.

[SilverDragonSoun]

And this week starts with an upset already. Vanderbilt beats #24 South Carolina.

[Jode]

And this week starts with an upset already. Vanderbilt beats #24 South Carolina.

 

Philip Fulmer and Steve Spurrier start the season with upset losses? Oh man, this is already too much fun. Losing to Vanderbilt is like losing to the Helen Keller School For The Blind - although, to be fair, they've played pretty tough ball in recent years. Tough for Vanderbilt, anyway.

[RABid]

Kentucky beats Louisville in a big way and Steve Spurrier gets beat. My season is complete.

[SilverDragonSoun]

Another Saturday in the books, well almost. Hawaii is still in the first quarter.

 

In the top 25:

 

East Carolina is for real as they man handled West Virginia in the only upset. BYU and Wake Forest escaped upset.

 

In non top 25, Notre Dame hung on to beat the power house that is San Diego State. I hear the BCS has already offered them a bowl bid.

 

And lastly imagine if you're a fan of Washington State. Your team loses at home 66-3 and is down 42-3 at halftime. Not a pretty picture or a good time for the Cougars.

 

How did your team do?

 

 

[SilverDragonSoun]

Just showing my devils some love and some eye candy for all.

 

http://members.cox.net/starzandstripes/images/devils.jpg

 

http://members.cox.net/starzandstripes/images/cheerleader.jpg

[SilverDragonSoun]

We're getting closer to USC and Ohio State on Saturday. Should be a great game!

[RABid]

We're getting closer to USC and Ohio State on Saturday. Should be a great game!

 

Yes. Good games are hard to find early in the season. The way the bowls work now there is little purpose in good schools playing good schools before conference play. All you do is take a chance on loosing the championship in September.

[SilverDragonSoun]

We're getting closer to USC and Ohio State on Saturday. Should be a great game!

 

Yes. Good games are hard to find early in the season. The way the bowls work now there is little purpose in good schools playing good schools before conference play. All you do is take a chance on loosing the championship in September.

 

I'm hoping for a good game. You're correct about the benefit of playing the tough non-conference games, especially since the BCS system now weighs human polls heavier than strength of schedule. The mentality is you play the cupcake games and move up the rankings rather than play quality opponents. In the case of Ohio State and a few others over the past few years this has been a recipe for success. Last year Hawaii benefitted from an easy schedule and went to a BCS game only to get blown out by Georgia, the team that got left out was Arizona State. Ironically next week Arizona State will play Georgia in a game that should have been played last year in the Sugar Bowl. Georgia was and probably is a better team but at least ASU and Georgia would have been a more competitive game. The good thing about playing a tough game like this early is that it prepares you for the tough conference games and and if you lose, its better to lose early in the year rather than later.

[stepay]

Last season was certainly a roller coaster ride and this year may be similar. If so we are in for another great year. The season has officially started. Who is your team, how do you see them doing this year? National Championship predictions?

 

My team is Arizona State and I see them in second or third place in the Pac 10. My national championship prediction is USC vs. Florida. I think picking Ohio State is an easy pick because I feel they have the easiest road to the championship game.

 

Not so sure Ohio State has such an easy road. USC this Saturday will be tough (AT USC the current No. 1 ranked team). USC has only lost ONE home game in 5 years. Even if they beat USC, the Big Ten is greatly improved from last year.

 

I'm a big Ohio State fan, but I don't think they will beat USC (especially since Beanie Wells might not play), and then I see at least one more loss in the Big Ten for them this year.

 

I see it as a pretty wide open year with no real dominant player. Georgia looks to have as good a shot as anyone, and if USC's young offensive line can do well early, they could go undefeated and win the title.

 

My hope is that Ohio State was just looking ahead last week against Ohio University and that Ohio University was just playing out of their minds. Would love to see the Buckeyes beat USC.

[SilverDragonSoun]

At the half:

 

USC 21 Ohio State 3

 

USC has been dominate and Ohio State has blown the opportunities they've had. Ohio State looks better with the Freshman in the game. USC has trouble with running QB's. It'll be interesting to see how the second half plays out.

[Magpel]

The National title game, clearly, will be USC vs. E.Carolina ...or am I?

 

BTW, will competitive big time football ever return to Syracuse? With the Ernie Davis film coming out, one can only hope.

[SilverDragonSoun]

Ohio State embarrasses themselves again on the big stage. How many more times must college football fans endure watching them get spanked by clearly better teams. They should run the table in the big ten since that conference isn't that tough minus Penn St. They will probably be there in the end with one loss and by default will fall into the BCS title game again after losing against the only strong opponent they play.

[Jode]

I've wondered for several seasons now what business Ohio State has in the top ten. They get murdered every time they play a real team. Ron Zook, run out of Florida on a rail, embarassed them last year. I'm so glad they had to play a for-real non-conference opponent early in the season, so the bloom could get knocked off the rose. Penn State should sack and pillage them much the same as USC did.

 

Speaking of embarassment - BYU 59, UCLA 0. Holy blowout, Batman. Worst loss in 75 years for the Bruins. I kinda didn't want to see BYU win after last week's gift-wrapped victory against Washington. Let's see: holding is a judgment call, pass interference is a judgment call, offsides can even be a judgment call, but flipping the ball over your shoulder in the heat of a close game is an automatic unsportsmanlike conduct? I wanted to nominate the Pac-10 officiating crew for the Pontiac Game Changing Performance of the Week last week.

 

Alabama wins big, as they should. Next week against Arkansas should be a good game. Keep your eye on the Tide. They will impress this year. Hell, keep your eye on the entire SEC - if we don't beat each other up too badly, one of us is going to the BCS game. Question is, which one? (Answer: Not Tennessee. Hee hee hee...)

[ProfD]

Ohio State embarrasses themselves again on the big stage.

 

I've wondered for several seasons now what business Ohio State has in the top ten. They get murdered every time they play a real team.

Exactly my reason for predicting in Stepay's thread that the outcome of the game would be Ohio 3, USC 40.

 

Sure, I gave USC 5 points too many but they very easily could have gotten them.

 

Ohio State has a hard time against faster and more physical teams.

[SilverDragonSoun]

More upsets this week. The trend has been one conference goes through a rough week, this week it was the pac 10.

 

Maryland beats Cal

UNLV beats ASU ($%^%$^% b%$%^^&%%W#$@#$!#^$&%$%^$)

New Mexico beats Arizona

South Florida Beats Kansas

 

Many other teams were almost upset as well. ASU's loss takes the national spotlight off their game next week with Georgia as they got caught looking ahead. It will be interesting to see how these few weeks play out as the contenders start to seperate themselves from the pretenders.

 

[Jode]

So the new polls are out this morning. Five SEC teams are in the top ten, with my Tide just ahead of Auburn.

 

Ohio State is not. I saw a telling stat in the paper this morning: Despite an 18-1 Big Ten record over two seasons, ranked non-conference teams repeatedly beat the Buck out of Ohio State. But even in the Big Ten, they'll be in trouble - Wisconsin will try them hard, and Penn State will mop the floor with them. Maybe then everyone will stop trying to convince me how great they are. Call me a hater. I am.

[stepay]

So the new polls are out this morning. Five SEC teams are in the top ten, with my Tide just ahead of Auburn.

 

Ohio State is not. I saw a telling stat in the paper this morning: Despite an 18-1 Big Ten record over two seasons, ranked non-conference teams repeatedly beat the Buck out of Ohio State. But even in the Big Ten, they'll be in trouble - Wisconsin will try them hard, and Penn State will mop the floor with them. Maybe then everyone will stop trying to convince me how great they are. Call me a hater. I am.

 

Well, since you are a self-confessed Buckeye hater, you can't be objective. I am a Buckeye FAN, so by definition I can't be objective either, but here's my best try:

 

1) Not sure anyone who knows about college football is trying to convince anyone how great the Buckeyes are this year. I knew they were not that good after watching the first two games and hence picked USC to beat them. The Buckeyes benefited from a very weak Big Ten last year and a slew of major upsets the last two weeks of the season. In 2006, the Buckeyes WERE great though -- star-laden team with a ton of first round NFL draft picks. No team is consistently great year after year -- only crazed fans think that.

 

2) During the 2006 season, lots of people were saying the Buckeyes had an easy road to the title game. I just don't see it. They went to Texas and beat the then No. 2 team in the nation at their stadium. Then, they had to beat an undefeated and ranked No. 2 team in Michigan at the end of the season in order to get to the title game and play yet another NO. 2 ranked team. No college football team in the history of NCAA football had ever beaten TWO No. 2 ranked teams in the same season. There were a couple of other decent Big Ten teams that season too.

 

3) LAST year, the Big Ten was really bad except for Ohio State, so they definitely had a cakewalk to the title game. All the voters knew it though and were voting in a way to keep the Buckeyes out of it, but everyone and their brother kept losing the last two weeks of the season. The same people who say the Buckeyes are horrible and that the Big Ten is horrible are the ones who say the SEC is so great. Well, LSU benefited even more from all those crazy losses the last two weeks as the Buckeyes did since they had 2 losses going into the title game vs. just one for the Buckeyes. To show how objective I can be though, it is clear that in the last 4-5 years the SEC has been the best conference in the nation. That is also true this year. Clearly top to bottom the best.

 

4) The Big Ten is stronger this year than last year. The Pac-10 (with the exception of USC) is worse than they were last year -- they just lost 4 games to the Mountain West on Saturday!

 

5) I disagree about the Buckeyes not being able to win against ranked non-conference teams. Three bad losses in the last three years yes, but if we're looking for a long-term trend, it just isn't there. Since 2002, non-conference wins against ranked opponents include the National Championship against defending champ Miami, AT No. 2 Texas (just two seasons ago), beat a ranked Washington team, beat a ranked North Carolina State team, beat a ranked Kansas State team in the 2004 Fiesta Bowl, beat ranked Notre Dame in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl.

 

Fact is that most teams don't play too many ranked non-conference teams in any given year, and the last big three games the Buckeyes had that they lost were against two #2 ranked teams and one #1 ranked team. Fine to say they suck, but by being in two title games the last two years, they were playing against the best the rest of college football had to offer, and then again against USC, they are again as of now the best in the nation. Not really the same as comparing their fortunes to any other team that wasn't playing in a title game or against No. 1 ranked USC.

 

This year's Buckeye team is not very good for whatever reason. Boeckman is perhaps the worst quarterback to ever lead his team to a title game. They need to put Pryor in there right now.

 

Hate to tell you though that Alamaba will have several losses before the year is over; combination of the SEC being strong and Alabama not being all that good (mostly the former in this case). I actually don't hate any team, but I sure don't like your coach. Sabin has rubbed people wrong everywhere he's been, so I bet one day he will spurn you and Alabama also; you'll learn to hate him.

 

Good luck though. I see the Buckeyes ending up in the Outback Bowl. Maybe they'll play Alabama.