College Football Preview

I know you smell that. It’s is what you think it is: football season. So for the next two weeks, that’s were talking about: the upcoming pig-skin season.
And college is first up. Georgia seems to be everyone’s hot pick to start things off; not a bad one. They destroyed Hawaii in last year’s Sugar Bowl and they return a lot of good players including offensive duo Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno. If they do win the national title, they will be the fourth SEC team to win the BCS crown after LSU twice, Florida and if you want to count Auburn’s undefeated 2004 season. But the team that starts off number one usually doesn’t finish this way.
So that leaves us USC at number two. The Trojans still have all the talent they have always had this decade (that Pete Carroll guy can sure recruit) but they don’t seem to have the leadership of the past like Palmer, Leinart, Tatupa and Grootegood. It hurt them last year at times now having a player who could drag through the tough times and it could be their downfall again this year. On the other hand, they do have a pretty easy schedule.
But they do have to open up the season against the Ohio State Buckeyes, who are number three. Now those guys have an easy schedule. The past two years, they were the other team in the national title game after their schedule ended three weeks early as everyone else kept battling it out. And with Chris “Beanie” Wells running the ball there is good chance they could be playing for a title again this year, especially since their biggest late-season threat, Michigan, is going to have a down year.
Oklahoma and Florida round at the best of the best at four and five. Both have stellar quarterbacks in Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow respectively. Bradford broke all sorts of freshman records last year and Tebow won the Heisman. Both teams also have fast defenses again and have decent shots at the title; if they can survive their schedule.
Speaking of stellar quarterbacks, the Big 12 is loaded. We already talked about OU’s Bradford and he I joined by Colt McCoy (Texas), Graham Harrell (Texas Tech) and Chase Daniel (Missouri). Oh wait, we’re not done yet. There is also Zac Robinson (Oklahoma State), Todd Reesing (Kansas) Josh Freeman (Kansas State), Stephen McGee (Texas A&M). Ok, I think that’s it. Get read to see footballs flying in the middle of the country.
Elsewhere around the country. Like previously said, Michigan will have a tough transitioning to new coach Rich Rodriquez’s spread option offense. Arkansas got NFL castaway Bobby Petrino after old Arkansas coach Houston Nutt went to rival Ole Miss. Joe Pa is still at Penn State and he’s still got the Nittany Lions in the top-25. Virginia Tech will have fun will their dual quarterbacks (Sean Glennon and Tyrod Taylor) along with their always awesome defense and special teams. Clemson is still really fast and athletic. Surprise. C.J. Spiller and James Davis can really run. Oregon might return to another Leaf after losing Dennis Dixon. And we all thought the nightmare ended at the beginning of this decade.
Gosh and there is still so much more to talk about. Tulsa is going to keep scoring a lot of points, Norte Dame will try to prove their worth all that TV time and don’t forget about the Toledo-Bowling Green Peace Pipe rivalry game.
Ok, let’s pace ourselves, it’s a long time until January.