College Football Preview

As I have already stated, I hate pre-season rankings. I think in a sport with such high turnover, it is dumb to try and predict who is going to be good the coming year. The worst part about this, is pre-season rankings can have an impact on the National Title game. I personally don’t think any rankings should be produced until at least week 6. Will this happen? No, because pre-season rankings sell magazines and produce hits on websites. So instead of ranking teams, I am going to discuss teams and players who you should keep an eye on for next season as well as pick my conference champions.



ACC

I think the ACC, along with the Pac-10, will be the most competitive Automatic Qualifier (AQ, AKA the improper term BCS) conference this season. I could see any team winning the conference and see any number of teams winning either division. Georgia Tech is the defending champion and my pick to win the conference. Paul Johnson has gotten better each season in Atlanta and has one of the toughest offense to prepare for. UNC is a popular pick to win it as Butch Davis has settled in with some great recruiting classes. Miami, Clemson, Va Tech and FSU (needs a D though) should all be better this year. I could see any of these teams winning it. The one thing I expect from the ACC this year is a lot of close entertaining games, so the real winner (get ready for the lameness) will be the fans.

Champ: Georgia Tech

Big XII

The last year of the Big XII before it loses two members should be a good one. Nebraska, on its way out to join the Big Ten, is predicted to win the Big XII north based on the strength of the blackshirts even with the loss of Suh. Bo Pelini needs to find more ways to score then last season as the offense was the reason they didn’t win more. Phil Steele (One of College Football’s best prognosticators) has Oklahoma as his #1 team in the year. Who am I to disagree with him. The biggest weakness from last year’s team was O-Line is now one year better. Landry Jones (hopefully he will still be rocking his awesome mustache) also has a year of experience under him in a Bob Stoops offense that has never struggled to score points. Texas should be good again, but will suffer a drop off after losing the QB with the most wins in NCAA history in Colt McCoy. The team is stacked with Texas talent (all but 3 of the top 2 lines on the depth chart are from Texas) but will have to win the Red River Rivalry game if they want to win the South. Baylor will not be competing for the Big XII title but will be a team to watch because they have my personal favorite player in NCAA this year Robert Griffin.

Champs: Oklahoma

Party At the Garden!

The Big East Tourney is on right now. Marquette is crushing St. Johns, while DePaul lost earlier. (Side note: DePaul may stink, but I love those uniforms.) Not exactly exciting yet, but this is such a ridiculously long tournament that you're bound to have sleepers as well as killer games. Tonight, Notre Dame plays West Virginia and the Fighting Irish are pretty much headed to the NIT if they lose.

I wasn't going to post right now, but then I read this quote at ESPN.com's blog regarding the DePaul/Providence game:

This is the classic battle between a team with nothing to lose and a team with everything to lose. The DePaul fans are having a good time; the Providence fans look as though they're about to have a group colonoscopy. - Dana O'Neil

Gotta love that. I expect both sides to look similar to Providence fans during the Minnesota/Northwestern game tomorrow.

By the way, Virginia Commonwealth and their senior stud guard Eric Maynor won their way into the tourney. I will always love VCU after they knocked off Duke in the first round of the Big Dance two years ago. Any midmajor that gets rid of Coach K in the first round is all right with me.

College GameDay In Morgantown

It's Louisville vs. West Virginia tonight on ESPN's College GameDay. Noffke, are you really not watching this? Religion puzzles me.

Here's my deal. The Big East is definitely great this year. Personally, I'll take the ACC top-echelon teams over those of the BE, but all in all it seems like a good year for all the power conferences in college basketball (except the SEC!). Everyone knows that Pittsburgh and UConn are locks for 1 or (at worst) 2 seeds, but this Louisville team is sort of the mystery squad of the elite. And if they win tonight in Morgantown, they get the regular-season Big East crown. For me, it all hinges on ultra-inconsistent NBA prospect Earl Clark.

Clark is so amazingly talented. He can make some killer passes, he is 6'9" with a monster wingspan, he can shoot and crash the boards. But sometimes, he just disappears. Terrence Williams is a rock solid player for Pitino, for sure. But for me, whether this team goes deep or not depends on the play of Earl. And you just never know whether he will decide to play big or not on any given night.

Meanwhile, Bob Huggins' West Virginia squad features probable Big East ROY Devin Ebanks, who used to be an Indiana University commit under Kelvin "Text Me Baby!" Sampson. I love watching Huggy Bear coach. I also love watching Pitino coach. This is a definite showcase for those of us who feel like the Big Ten is the land of the best in CBB coaching - other conferences feature great coaches, too. Just to be fair.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited for this one. Jacksonville vs. East Tennessee State was a terrible game, basically unwatchable, so that was a big letdown. I'll be flipping back and forth between this game and the OVC Championship (OVC: Land of Perennial First Round Loser Austin Peay) on ESPN2. Hopefully at least one of these two will be entertaining.

Not to pick a side, but Go Mountaineers! Gotta represent the Pittsnogle Legacy. And I guess I'll take Austin Peay over the humorously named Morehead State.

UPDATE: The Big East is giving us a killer game. Louisville leads 32-29 at halftime on the strength of four Terrence Williams three pointers. He is looking pretty much unstoppable. Williams also had a gorgeous jam in transition. The Mountaineers, meanwhile, are showing off some pretty passing to the interior and are getting easy layups against the Cards big men. Very entertaining game.

Jerry West on who should be College Basketball's logo (West is the NBA 'logo'): "Maybe Bobby Knight, throwing the chair?"

UPDATE II: Well, it looks like the Ohio Valley Conference ain't no slouch, either. Morehead State and Austin Peay (with their rousing chant, "Let's Go Peay!" - sounds urgent) were tied at 55 all when Kenneth Faried laid down an alley oop jam for Morehead with 6.7 seconds left. And now?! Caleb Brown of Austin Peay ties it off glass as time expires! Huge. This one is going to overtime. Tim Welsh and Lou Canellis have the call on ESPN2. Both teams have big time players, notably Faried and Leon Buchannan for MSU. Who will get to battle a 2 seed next week? Stay tuned.

UPDATE III: Double OT in the O.V.C. 63-63. Louisville-WVU is within a few points. This is great.

IV: Well, Morehead State is dancing. Freshman Steve Peterson hit the winning shot, his only score of the game, with less than two seconds left. Meanwhile, West Virginia has taken the lead on Louisville, despite leading scorer and sole senior Alex Ruoff being held scoreless and tied to the bench with foul trouble for most of the game.

So far, we've got Cornell, Radford, East Tennessee State, and Morehead State in the tourney. I don't see any of these teams as higher than a 14, but I predict that at least one of them (probably Radford - that Art guy is really good) will give someone a scare in the first round.

V: Well, Louisville wins 62-59, despite West Virginia having one final last-gasp shot. Ruoff was held scoreless throughout. Terrence Williams had a huge game. Louisville goes into the Big East tournament as the #1 seed, ahead of Pittsburgh and Connecticut. What a tournament that is going to be. I'm signing out for the night. These next two weeks are going to be freakin' awesome.