Can Florida State win the ACC Atlantic?
All of us are allowed to call an audible from time to time and I called one last night.
I was going through my preseason magazines and breaking down the ACC and SEC predictions as promised. Then I realized it would make sense to go ahead and get my own predictions out there now so that you could compare them to the magazines and then offer up your own. Obviously, we’ll be revisiting all of this stuff after practice starts.
So here is the new lineup:
Today: ACC Atlantic
Friday: ACC Coastal
Monday: SEC East
Tuesday: SEC West
For those of you who give me a hard time for not putting enough ACC football on this blog, well, here is your shot. Step up and show me the level of your interest because the next two days are going to be devoted to ACC football.
To the SEC boys and girls: Be patient and be nice. Your time is coming on Monday and Tuesday.
Okay, here we go. Here is how the five magazines I use for reference picked the order of finish in the ACC Atlantic:
ACC …
What have we learned from the preseason magazines?
Here is a fun exercise I like to do before going to ACC and SEC Media Days. I take about five preseason magazines, put all of their predictions down on paper and compare them. There is not a lot of heavy lifting involved, but it gives you a mini consensus of what other people thinking.
The five magazines I used this year are: Athlon, Lindy’s, Phil Steele, The Sporting News, and a new one published by the folks who produce The Kickoff.
Example: Here are the pre-season Top Fives for each magazine:
Athlon: Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Ohio State
Lindy’s: Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Virginia Tech
Phil Steele: Florida, Texas, USC, Oklahoma, Penn State
Sporting News: Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Ole Miss
The Kickoff: Florida, USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State
What did we learn? That Florida, USC, Texas, and Oklahoma are in everybody’s top four in some combination. Four of the five magazines had different No. 5s: Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Penn State, and Ole Miss.
Continue reading What have we learned from the preseason magazines? »
It’s time to be honest about the BCS
Today at 2:30 p.m. a Senate Judiciary subcommittee will hold a hearing entitled: “The Bowl Championship Series: Is it Fair and in Compliance with Antitrust Law?”
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), you’ll be shocked to hear, believes that the 12-0 (which later became 13-0) team from Utah was denied the opportunity to play for the national championship by the BCS system, which picks two teams to play for the title after the regular season. In a Sports Illustrated story last week, Hatch called the BCS “biased” and claimed that it “probably” violates antitrust laws.
This is the second time this year representatives of college athletics have been hauled before Congress for a dog and pony show to score cheap political points with the folks back home. Earlier it was Rep. Joe Barton of Texas (sense a trend here?), who called the BCS “communist.”
Here is the problem I have with this entire exercise. If you want to have four-team, eight-team or 16-team playoff to decide college …
It’s good to be back! What did I miss?
It’s good to be back! I enjoyed my time off but now that July 4 has come and gone, it’s time to start getting ready for the 2009 season. Just in case you’re counting it is:
**–16 days until SEC Media Days in Birmingham (July 22-24). There is no truth to the rumor that this year’s media days have been renamed “The Lane Kiffin Invitational.” Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
**–20 days until ACC Media Days in Greensboro, N.C. (July 26-27).
**–60 days until the season begins on Sept. 3 with South Carolina at N.C. State.
Let’s spend a few minutes today catching up on what we’ve missed during the break. Then we’ll be full speed ahead.
Every year my little June sabbatical reminds me that there is truly no offseason any more in college football. So what did it miss? Here are just the highlights:
Alabama appeal. The Tide has a (slight) shot: I’ll admit it. When Alabama was asked to vacate 21 wins by the NCAA because of a handful players were getting and distributing extra textbooks …
Happy July 4! See you on Monday!
I hope all of you are going to have a great Independence Day weekend! Mr. College Football will resume on Monday, July 6, and boy do we have a lot of catching up to do! Come Monday we will only be 16 days away from SEC Media Days in Birmingham. Wow! See you then.
TB
Mr. CFB will return July 6
Hi folks. In case you missed my announcement on Friday, Mr. College Football is taking his traditional break in June and will return on Monday, July 6. When I get back we will be only 16 days from SEC Media Days in Birmingham which will be followed by the ACC Kickoff in Greensboro, N.C. Wow!
Until then I have a homework assignment for you. Give me your order of finish, by division, in the ACC and SEC for 2009. If you want to state your case for the winners, be my guest. I’ll check back from time to time to read your predictions.
If something big happens while I’m away and I’m near a computer, I’ll try to come back for a day and play.
Thanks for all of your support. I’m looking forward to a great 2009 season.
TB
SEC headed to a big payday in 2010
Destin—Some final thoughts on the annual SEC Spring Meetings, which officially end this afternoon:
Like it not, the SEC is headed into a new, and better, era: Competitively it was another great year for the SEC with national championships in football (Florida), women’s track and field (Tennessee), women’s gymnastics (Georgia) and men’s swimming and diving (Auburn). The league may pick up a few more championships before the spring sports are done.
The SEC has won three straight national championships in football and four of the last six. Florida, the defending champ, will be a consensus No. 1 when the 2009 season begins and gives the league a real chance to make it four straight titles.
But last night when the SEC held its annual awards banquet, Commissioner Mike Slive said that the conference, which a year ago celebrated its 75th anniversary, is headed “into a new and exciting era.”
A big reason for that optimism about the future is the two new television contracts with …
Bad move: Coaches vote to make ballots secret
Destin–At a time when Congress is hauling the BCS into hearings in an attempt to get more transparency into the process, the American Football Coaches Association, a group I really respect, has made bad, bad step.
That group’s board of directors voted to make the final ballots in the coach’s poll—the one which helps determine who will play in the BCS championship game—secret once more starting after the 2010 regular season.
For the past three years coaches have made their final ballots public. That was done in order to have some kind of accountability in the system. The voters in the Harris Interactive poll, the other poll used in the BCS formula, are subject to have their ballots released at any time. With so much at stake in terms of money and prestige, and with BCS championship berths being decided by mere percentage points (ask Texas), every vote in both polls is critical.
“If every ballot was public then I would be out of it,” said Georgia coach Mark Richt, who votes in …
Continue reading Bad move: Coaches vote to make ballots secret »
Kiffin: No more apologies
Destin, Fla.—Lane Kiffin did apologize for using the word “cheat” and Urban Meyer in the same sentence back in February. He was wrong and the SEC commissioner let him know it with an official reprimand.
But the new Tennessee coach ain’t apologizing for anything else and here’s why: Given the realities of the football program he inherited, Kiffin believes he was just doing what he had to do to jump-start the process of making the Volunteers a contender again.
“Do I love everything I had to do to get us to this point? No I don’t but my job is not to love everything that I do,” Kiffin said as he met with the collective SEC media for the first time on Tuesday. “My job is to do the best thing for our university and the best thing for our people.”
Kiffin, 34, has ruffled more than a few feathers since joining the SEC coaching fraternity last December. The episodes have been well documented so we won’t review them here. But here at the annual SEC spring meetings, where he sat …
SEC Commish to coaches: Knock it off
Destin, Fla.—Mike Slive is, by his own admission, “a recovering attorney.” He is also a former district court judge. So he’s no stranger to being in a room full of powerful people who don’t necessarily love each other.
The SEC Commissioner will draw upon that experience today as the league’s 2009 Spring Meetings begin here on the Florida panhandle. Slive will meet with the SEC’s football coaches as he always does. His language will be measured. He will be calm, but firm. He will remind them of the SEC’s basic rules of sportsmanship to which every coach in the league in every sport is expected to adhere.
But the message, while dressed up befitting a man of Slive’s stature, will be very simple and very blunt:
Knock it off.
Knock off public pronouncements that other coaches are breaking the rules. Tennessee’s Lane Kiffin said that about Florida’s Urban Meyer in February. Kiffin was wrong and was reprimanded by the SEC.
Knock off shots about somebody else’s recruiting …
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