Matthew Welde

Now that the new academic year is under-way, that means one thing: college football is on the horizon. By the time people are reading this the start of the season will be just a few weeks away. So, in the spirit of yearning, here’s a rundown of what I consider the three biggest games of the upcoming season. I am only considering regular season games, so that means no conference title games. Also, the most significant factor in what I mean by “big” is how the games affect the race for the BCS National Title. Away we go.

BRONZE MEDAL – NOTRE DAME VS….

Just kidding.

BRONZE MEDAL – FLORIDA GATORS AT LSU TIGERS – Oct. 10

The Gators are a near unanimous pick as the preseason No. #1 team. This game is almost certainly the toughest game on their schedule. Night games against the Tigers are very hard to win. If Florida is going to lose a game, chances are this will be it.

SILVER MEDAL – USC TROJANS AT OHIO STATE BUCKEYES – Sept. 12

Both teams should be top contenders. The winner gets a big boost from beating a quality opponent and the loser falls to the back of the pack. Thus, two top contenders for the Crystal Football have a lot on the line. This game falls short of the gold because the loser has almost the whole season to climb back into the race.

GOLD MEDAL – OKLAHOMA SOONERS VS. TEXAS LONGHORNS – Oct. 17

Both teams will start the season in the top three. The loser will probably be out of the conference title and the BCS National Title games. Also, anyone who follows college football should be having visions of airplane banners and asterisks right about now because of the way the Big 12 South championship played out last year.

Boomer Sooner.

The 2008 college football season was one large contradiction.  The season seemed to be defined by controversy and yet, everything that happened was the sort of things that have become normal in major college football.  Read the full story

The college football season is two weeks away from being over. The Big Ten teams are all finished. Pretty much everyone else has just one game left on their 12 game schedules, and will finish up next week. The rankings at this point of the season Read the full story

The onset of college football means preseason polls and rankings.  Nearly every sports media outlet has a preseason list of top 25 teams.  I’ve compiled the preseason rankings from five large sports media outlets.  I averaged out the rankings to see which five teams had the highest average rating.

The five preseason rankings I included are the Associated Press poll, the USA Today Coaches poll, the CNNSI.com power rankings, the ESPN.com power rankings, and the FoxSports.com rankings.  Along with the average ranking for each team I take a look at how things have played out through the first three weeks.  Like all things that have to do with college football, there’s bound to be people who don’t agree.  That’s part of what makes it fun.  Here we go.

GEORGIA BULLDOGS

Average ranking - 2.2

Biggest concern - the SEC schedule

Georgia’s SEC schedule is simply brutal.  The Bulldogs have four teams on their schedule that are currently ranked in the top 10.  Two of those games are road games.  It doesn’t get harder than that.

How they’ve fared

So far they’ve beat up on a pair of inferior teams and scraped out a win against the Gamecocks.  They’ve passed their first SEC test against a South Carolina team that beat them last year, but they only managed 14 points, which is a troubling sign for Bulldog fans.  They are one of the rare teams that won and still fell a few spots in the polls.

What lies ahead?

Scoring fourteen points on South Carolina is a bad omen for a team set to face opponents that have a comparable defense and a better offense than the Gamecocks.  A 14-7 win at home against South Carolina translates into a long night playing at LSU.  The Bulldogs are guaranteed a spot in the BCS Championship Game if they run the table, but their path to Miami is the most difficult among these teams.

Were they right?

No.  Their quarterback has put up mediocre numbers, including a paltry four touchdown passes in three games.  Their schedule won’t allow them to score fourteen points and win very often.  The pollsters gave too much weight to a returning quarterback that was mediocre last year and not enough weight to the schedule.

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