College Football 2015-16

The great River City of Peoria!

 

I played many a soccer tournament there growing up. Out by the Caterpillar plant.

 

I know exactly where that is, haha. Never played out there myself, I just played park district.

 

...and Illinois just fired their coach a week before the season. Man I hope Fulham starts winning...

 

Beat me to it CC, was driving and heard about Beckman getting the axe...only a week before the season is starting. Talk about a mess down in Champaign Urbana.

 

Here are a couple of better images from today's stadium expansion announcement at Louisville. Still no bleachers...anywhere.

 

These "experts" have A&M finishing everywhere in the west but 1st.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...verrated-underrated-predicted-order-of-finish

Yes, the mighty Chanticleers will be a force again this year. The new turf has not won me over though...


I did graduate from Coastal, albeit years before they had a football team. So my first choice in football has always been Auburn since both my parents and older sister attended. I'm rooted in the SEC. I have extended family that went to a number of SEC schools and it's always been a friendly family rivalry (no trees have been harmed).

I'm looking forward to Jeremy Johnson and the upgraded defense - Muschamp is back! Should be an entertaining start against Louisville next weekend.

 

I'm always hopeful for the Gophers upcoming season...then I look at the schedule and get a little sick to my stomach.

Game 1 - #2 TCU (hoping to stay within 2 touchdowns)
Game 2 - @ Colorado State, classic letdown game. Oh wait, you have to win the week before to have a letdown?
Games 3-4 - Cream puffs
Game 5 - @ Northwestern, always a tall task
Game 6 - @ Purdue, our letdown game last year
Games 7-12 - Nebraska, Michigan, @ Ohio St., @ Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin

Brutal run in to the finish line. I think we will be bowl eligible this year, but just barely.

 

From hoops land, Louisville might be a little better and go to another bowl. Kentucky and Indiana will still suck. Louisville opens with Auburn at the Ga. Dome. If they manage to win that, it could be interesting. But I doubt they will.

 

Opening week and not everyone is playing a cupcake. For those new to this thread we try and find the biggest games of the week from a national perspective, but please include your game/team of interest and share your thoughts. Dynamo, you mentioned you call games, is it for a small school? No matter the division we all like to hear about your team. Lax in the early lead for the line of the season.'Iowa football, sponsored by blah';

* Have always thought preseason rankings were meaningless, but did include them.

Thurs; #2 TCU at Minnesota. Encore, you going? The Horned Frogs whooped the Gophers last season, but would expect it to be closer up north.

Virginia at #13 UCLA No real reason to include this game other to see what last year's #1 high school QB Josh Rosen does. He was given the job despite being outplayed at practice by Neuhiesel's kid.

Louisville vs #6 Auburn at the Georgia Dome. I'll leave it to Jump for Cardinals analysis, but I tend to think a team is overrated when breaking in a new QB as Auburn is doing. Will take Auburn to win by running the ball, but what happens if they get behind?

#15 Arizona State vs Texas A&M in Houston. The Aggies will have a huge crowd advantage, and I'll take them winning this game. My 3 favorite words for every ASWho game…DIE SCUM DIE!!

Texas at #11 Notre Dame. This is a very interesting matchup. I'll take the Irish, but wouldn't be surprised in the least if Texas takes this late into the 4th quarter.

#20 Wisconsin at #3 Alabama. Would expect Bama to wear down Whiskey, but not because of the heat (summers in Wisconsin are equally hot and humid), but because of the overall talent.

Monday:
#1 Ohio State at Virginia Tech. Kind of hard to remember Tech handling the Buckeyes at the Horseshoe last year, but they were the better team by far that day. From then on the Hokies were mediocre and the Buckeyes went on a roll. Urban Meyer will have them ready for payback.

*Upset Alert; Is there such a thing as an upset the first week of the season?
Washington at #23 Boise State. One of my best friends lives in Boise and graduated from BSU (after having too much fun in Tucson for a couple of years). Saw him in Vegas recently and this is one of the biggest home games in school history. Chris Pederson returns as coach of the Huskies, and will have UDub ready to play. In Vegas the Broncos are a 12 point favorite, but have to think the Huskies will keep it very interesting.

 

Unfortunately I won't be able to see the Horned Frogs impale my rodents, but like I said in my post earlier, I'm hoping we can hang within a couple of touchdowns. I think TCU's defensive will be a little more vulnerable this year, but our quarterback has been inconsistent at best, during his career, and we lost our RB to the NFL. And there is no way that we'll be able to slow that offense down...TCU averaged 46.5 points/game last year!!! And that number could go up this year. I wouldn't be surprised if the score was 42-28 or 55-7 with TCU winning in both scenarios.

 

I always feel like I'm going into this thing blind at the start of the season, but here goes anyway.

TCU over Minnesota. Way too much offense for the Frogs and I think they'll be better defensively this year. They had a lot of issues at LB last season.

UCLA over UVa. Virginia played the Bruins close last year...at home. While I think UCLA might struggle offensively in Rosen's first start, I think they have enough for the Cavs.

Auburn over Louisville. I think Auburn wins this game in the trenches and with their rushing attack. But Louisville is also replacing all 4 starters from last year's secondary, so they could be in for a long day either way. Curious to see how much Muschamp has impacted that defense.

A&M over Arizona St. Why? Because I'm a total homer. Actually, the Sun Devils blitz...a lot...and they aren't particularly sound when they do it. So if that blitz doesn't get home, they're getting torched. Allen has enough experience against that and I think he'll shred them enough for us to win. On the other side, we can put heat on the qb with just our front four, and with Chavis' pressing defense, Bercovici is going to be forced into a lot of quick decisions.

Notre Dame over Texas. There are few teams that can make me root for the Horns, but the Irish are one of them. ND returns 10 starters on defense and unless I missed something, Texas still doesn't have a qb worth half a crap.

Bama over Wisconsin. Pretty much agree with everything Joe said on it. Bama should be ripe for an upset, I just don't think enough of the Badgers to think they'll do it.

Ohio St over Va Tech. Ohio St was excellent last year...in the last 3 games. They were sporadic the rest of the season and at times looked like the Big 10 might be the league left out of the playoffs. I doubt they get off to a slow start this year and they're just too much more talented than the Hokies.

Boise over the Snarlin' Pups of Montlake. I probably would have picked this as my upset if Joe hadn't, but since he did, I'll go with the chalk. I do expect a tight game.

Upset:
I agree, I hate picking one this early, especially straight up. Might be a cop out since the line is just 2.5 pts, but I'll take home dogs Vandy over Western KY. ATS, I like a number of teams, but Akron over Oklahoma (-31.5) is probably my favorite.

Surprised Meatchicken at Utah was omitted. Utah wins that one.

 

Immediately thought of Meatchicken Matt, but didn't see it on the schedule, so assumed it was next week. Utah put a hurting on Michigan at The Big House last year, and while Harbaugh will turn it around the Utes should win.

The other game I missed is North vs South Carolina in Charlotte. Guess I'll go with the Ol Ball Coach in that one.

 

Agree, think the Gamecocks take that one.

 

I'll have to be a homer tonight and say the Hilltoppers beat Vandy (my wife's a Red Towel alum) and, of course, the mighty Racers handle Kentucky Wesleyan with ease at beautiful Roy Stewart Stadium in beautiful Murray, KY.

 

Arizona's season lasted 5 minutes of the first quarter as the Lombardi, Nagursky, Bednarik, and Pat Tillman award winning Scooby Wright hurt his knee. Even if we're lucky and he's only out for 4 or 5 weeks he'd miss Ucla & Stanford...sigh

TCU was there for the taking, Gophers QB wasnt up to it.

 

Wound up watching a lot of college football last night and man, everyone looked rough. There were a ton of red zone turnovers.

Tough break on 2 Star Scooby, Joe. I watched most of that game with UTSA & it was probably the best game of the night.

 

That's been the knock on our QB since he arrived on campus...inconsistent, in over his head, whatever other "in-" word you want to use. Sigh. That would have been a HUGE victory for the program.

 

I'm half expecting the Pack to fall on their face at home tomorrow here in Raleigh, but I'm really hoping I'm wrong. Though I mean, it's NC State lol, however if we lose at least UNC did too. My game in Durham kicks off at the same time so I'll be keeping an eye on Twitter/ESPN haha.

 

NC Central or St Augustine's?