College Football 2011

[R_of_G]

It was nice to spend this past weekend watching football games with meaningful outcomes. I'm very much looking forward to the opening of NFL season this weekend, but I also love the college game.

The highlight of the weekend by far was watching my USF Bulls beat Notre Dame in South Bend. It was not the prettiest win in football history, we gave up twice as many yards as we gained, but we capitalized on a flurry of Notre Dame turnovers and managed to hold out on defense and run the ball well in the latter stages of the game. In the end a W in South Bend is something USF fans will remember forever whether Notre Dame is overrated at #16 (or ranked at all) or not.

I was hoping for more from the LSU/Oregon game. I suspected LSU would be too much for Oregon to handle but I still thought it'd be closer.

Final note, unless you need to camouflage yourself against a giant state flag of Maryland, there's no need wear something like Maryland's new uniforms. This was just one of a half dozen or so new designs for Maryland this year.

Can't wait to see how much worse it can get. I believe Oklahoma State is also joining Oregon in the new uniform every week program. It just serves to make me like Penn State or Nebraska's uniforms that much more. Why do you need more than two colors and a number?

 

[Eric]

I agree that the simplicity angle on uniforms is my preference. You could even have the exact same colors (Nebraska/Stanford/Wisconsin), as long as you follow the road/home uniform protocol.

I like college football mainly for wasting away rainy Saturday afternoons, but with no TV right now, I'll have to get creative. Like you, I'm looking forward to the start of the NFL season.

 

[marnold]

Maryland's uniforms were ridiculous. I believe that ESPN said they had 32 different combinations. At least Michigan's special uniforms for this weekend are little more than tweaks.

 

[Beerman]

LSU is going to have to rely on their defense to carry them....how far, we won't know but even if Jefferson gets back in soon, it could be tough.
Maryland's uniforms are pretty lame and I'm not crazy about Oregon's fluorescent colors either. But they wear whatever Nike gives them I suppose.

 

[R_of_G]

USF moves to 3-0 with a 70-17 obliteration of Florida A&M (not exactly a football powerhouse).
It was refreshing to see USF get the running game going for great gains last night. The less BJ Daniels has to throw the ball, the better the chance for a Bulls' victory.

Sadly our Big East Conference is collapsing around us. Syracuse and Pittsburgh have jumped ship for the ACC. Rumor has it the ACC wants to add two more teams (to get to 16) and they're targeting UCONN and Rutgers. Hopefully the Big East can pick up some refugees from the crumbling Big 12 otherwise this could be the last year we get an automatic BCS bid. I'd also tell Notre Dame that they can't just be in the Big East for basketball, it's all or nothing.

It makes me sad how money is destroying college sports, not that it hasn't always played a role but it's reaching a tipping point with this "super conference" garbage.

 

[marnold]

I don't think the Big East would dare tell Notre Dame that. They'd either drop out entirely or go to the Big Ten which I think is their ultimate destiny anyway.

 

[R_of_G]

I don't think the Big East would dare tell Notre Dame that. They'd either drop out entirely or go to the Big Ten which I think is their ultimate destiny anyway.

Yeah, the Big East wouldn't want to lose that mediocre basketball program.

The whole thing is a joke. At this point there's little reason left to even keep up the pretense that this is "college athletics." Let's just cut the crap and call it what it is, a minor league feeder system.

 

[Eric]

The whole thing is a joke. At this point there's little reason left to even keep up the pretense that this is "college athletics." Let's just cut the crap and call it what it is, a minor league feeder system.

Yup. Considering it's all entertainment, it's unsurprising that it ends up being money-driven. I don't like people brazenly trumpeting the fact that it's pro (e.g. Terrelle Pryor), but I quit believing it had anything to do with school a number of years ago.

 

[R_of_G]

So how long until the "Super Conferences" have corporate naming rights?

I can't wait for the 2014 Tostitos BCS Championship Game featuring the champions of the Dr. Pepper PAC 16 and the Pizza Hut SEC.

At the very least the NCAA should mandate they change the names of the conferences to be appropriate numerically and/or geographically because I'm still trying to figure out how Oklahoma will be Pacific anything and the Big Ten has had more than ten schools for more than ten years. If the conferences as we once knew them are going to fall by the wayside then let's rename not reboot.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

I need to learn more about this, as the Pac-10 which I grew up with is now the Pac-12. The Huskies lost to the Huskers, but did manage to put up some offense from the reports I read. They are not quite there yet as any sort of force, but at least did not completely roll over.

As far as corporate naming rights go, the Huskies are now going to be playing in the pro stadium the seahacks play in while they rebuild and "improve" the old Husky stadium. Can't wait to see all the rich support sky box amenities. I would love to see college ball return slowly to a more academic oriented program of some kind. Not likely I suppose.

 

[Eric]

I would love to see college ball return slowly to a more academic oriented program of some kind. Not likely I suppose.

I personally think it's too embedded into the current public consciousness for that to happen again. When the money comes in, morals and standards go out. Sadly, that's how it seems to work with a lot of things in life.

 

[R_of_G]

I need to learn more about this, as the Pac-10 which I grew up with is now the Pac-12. The Huskies lost to the Huskers, but did manage to put up some offense from the reports I read. They are not quite there yet as any sort of force, but at least did not completely roll over.

The existing PAC-12 teams should have fun fighting it out for the next few years because when they expand to 16 the four most likely schools are Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

It all makes me sad because I was learning to appreciate the Big East as a football conference as a USF alumnus but growing up in the northeast I've always thought of the Big East as one of the premier college basketball conferences. Telling a kid the conference tournament is played in Madison Square Garden is a great recruiting tool. Now one of the legendary teams from the conference is skipping town.

Or maybe it all gets to me because I will spend the rest of my life paying off student loans while some kid gets a free ride that he only uses for two or three years before he decides to go professional and become a millionaire overnight all because he can run a 4.3 forty.

It's all a joke, but not the funny kind.