NCAA Football 2005

[Alan Dunkin]

Ah might as well start a thread... season starts Thursday.

[Nick Walter]

Here's my prediction for my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers. Nebraska will win the big 12 north just barely and get badly badly spanked in the big 12 championship game against Texas.

[Ben]

When I saw the thread, I immediately thought "Hey, that's last year" Damn you EA Sports, damn you to hell!

[VegasRobb]

I'm curious to see how Steve Spurrier will do at South Carolina. Lou Holtz left him quite a mess to clean up.

Speaking of Lou Holtz, I'll be following the old Notre Dame coach, Tyrone Willingham and the new Notre Dame coach, Charlie Weiss.

[Jason Levine]

Here's my prediction for my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers. Nebraska will win the big 12 north just barely and get badly badly spanked in the big 12 championship game against Texas.

Speaking of Texas, big early season game: Sept. 10th the Longhorns visit the 'Shoe for the first time in, well, ever I think, to take on Ohio State. If the Buckeyes win that one, the season finale in Ann Arbor may have serious BCS implications.

[Alan Dunkin]

Even more importantly, they face Louisiana-Lafayette the week before... er, maybe not.

I'm very interested to see how Boise State fares against Georgia. The Broncos are one of these great funky unknown offensive powerhouses that rarely play "real" teams, and when they do, they usually account well of themselves - except for a massive overpowering by Louisville last year on New Year's Eve. Georgia is going to be a tough cookie - perhaps not offensively massive as Louisville was last year, but the defense is the killer - and Boise State is not really known as a defensive program. Can the Broncos prevail? Probably not, but it should be fun.

I also have a feeling TCU-OU will be a lot closer than the oddsmakers think.

--- Alan

[dannimal]

The problem with the Big 10 this year is that Purdue doesn't play Michigan OR Ohio State, which makes it very likely that they go 9-0 in the Conference, and even if Michigan or OSU(cks) go 9-0 Purdue will win the "Who hasn't been in a while" tiebreaker for the automatic BCS bid (assuming both the UM/OSU(cks) winner and Purdue have the same overall record).

Doesn't mean the game won't have BCS (or National Title) impact, but that the moronic Big 10 schedule has more.

[Robert Sharp]

I'm curious to see how Steve Spurrier will do at South Carolina. Lou Holtz left him quite a mess to clean up.



We'll get a taste of it tonight. The win wno't matter but I want to see the system and see if he has the players that fit his style of game.

[Jason Levine]

The problem with the Big 10 this year is that Purdue doesn't play Michigan OR Ohio State, which makes it very likely that they go 9-0 in the Conference, and even if Michigan or OSU(cks) go 9-0 Purdue will win the "Who hasn't been in a while" tiebreaker for the automatic BCS bid (assuming both the UM/OSU(cks) winner and Purdue have the same overall record).

Doesn't mean the game won't have BCS (or National Title) impact, but that the moronic Big 10 schedule has more.

I see from this post and his location that dannimal is from that school up north and is otherwise a loyal supporter of the forces of darkness.

--Jason Levine (OSU alum who thereby doesn't give a damn for the whole state of Michigan)

[Ben]

I'm pleased that ScUM couldn't come up with a clever "putting letters around the acronym" insult either. OSUcks?


Also, in NCAA 2006 there isn't a nanny on the sign text(the signs they should after good plays in celebrations). I heartily recommend editting every single sign to "FUCK MICHIGAN" or "ANN ARBOR IS A WHORE."

[Rimbo]

TCU-OU will be a close one. OU is really in trouble; a few days ago, one of their starting OL's just up and left the team. This with an OL that was already depleted from graduation.

[Wholly Schmidt]

The cocks muffed. The innuendo is staggering.

[Alan Dunkin]

SC went limp after awhile, obviously Spurrier needs to stroke them a bit more. Against Central Florida... come on.

Other games.. pretty much as expect, some were closer than expected, others were your usual blowouts - Toledo and Arizona State for instance. Washington State had some issues with Idaho. Buffalo started its annual run at the worst team in Division I by not scoring a single point against UConn.

Tomorrow is light but the one interesting game obviously is Arizona-Utah. The bulk of Utah's offensive power graduated or got drafted, though the defense should be very good. Exactly what they have to replace the losses is very much a group of unknown players... how will they fare against a usually weak Arizona squad that features a decent defense? Should be fun to watch.

--- Alan

[Jason Levine]

Yeah, it is a light schedule, but I wouldn't completely ignore either Miami of Ohio at Ohio State or NIU at Michigan. These are the type of supposedly light-weight, warm-up opponents that somehow always seem to manage an unexpected amount of trouble for their heavy-weight hosts (particularly with OSU looking ahead to Texas next week).

[Alan Dunkin]

Oh I meant light schedule for Friday.

Yes, Miami (Ohio) vs. OSU should be really interesting. I wouldn't mind the Buckeyes getting knocked down a few notches on general principle..

--- Alan

[Robert Sharp]

YAY!! Vandy won last night! We beat Wake Forest...it's our first opening win in 8 years, and has already matched half our wins from last season! Good times!

[hido]

Oh, Robert. :roll:

[Robert Sharp]

So, TCU DID win! That was amazing. OU looks terrible. Their defense is still good, as expected, but their offense is awful. It may just be inexperience, but the OL looked pretty bad, as did the QB. Hard to say how good Peterson might still be, since he was getting hit immediately almost every time he ran the ball.

[Jason Levine]

Oh I meant light schedule for Friday.

Yes, Miami (Ohio) vs. OSU should be really interesting. I wouldn't mind the Buckeyes getting knocked down a few notches on general principle..

--- Alan

Sorry, Alan, no joy for you. The Buckeyes looked pretty sharp, especially considering that was their backup QB. The 'Horns better bring their A game to Columbus.

[Wholly Schmidt]

Clemson squeaks by the Aggies! We fired howitzers at half-time! Awesome!

[Brad Grenz]

Wow, the Miami v FSU game sure was ugly.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the season develops. The preseason rankings are so pointless, you can't really tell anything for 3 or four weeks. I'm hopeful about the Oregon teams, but neither has been tested so far.

Clemens looks sharp for the Ducks and the new offense seems pretty sound. Their recievers, between a healthy Demitrius Williams and JC transfer Finley, are looking very hot. Hopefully the secondary has worked the kinks out.

Matt Moore, off the field for a couple years, also look great for the Beavers. He's already got a nice chemestry with Mike Hass, and Bernard was really productive out of the backfield. The defensive line is a question mark, but the linebackers are strong and one of the new corners already has a int. It'll be interesting to see how Boise State rebounds saturday after their pounding at Georgia.

I'm sure glad football season's back!

[Alan Dunkin]

Yeah the pre-season rankings sure don't install a lot of confidence for either FSU or Miami's hopes this season - it wasn't that the defenses were all that great (they were pretty good at times), just the offenses and special teams really sucked. Poor throwing decisions, poor throwing, poor running plays, poor execution and really poor field goal units.

Well some of the interesting matchups this weekend turned into nothing (Miami of Ohio looked like crap unfortunately), TCU won a tough matchup that they deserved to win (laughing all the way), Boise State was overwhelmed, etc.

Oregon State did half to come back in the second half against Houston though..

USC looked a little sloppy; Texas played over a speedbump. Louisville was really disappointing - I can't believe they let Kentucky back into the game like that. Not to mention not score much of anything in the second half...

A&M's Franchione was stupid and made some very dumb decisions in that game.

--- Alan

[Jason Levine]

Yeah, other than the OU loss and the surprisingly easy Irish win there wasn't a whole lot to shout about after Week 1. Week 2 should be fun though, starting with ND at Michigan and then Texas at Ohio State.

[Alan Dunkin]

Great week, Big East took some knocks courtesy of the Big 12 (among others) with a variety of great games the entire day, and the Texas-OSU game was friggin great. I'm not a big UT fan by any stretch of the imagination (coming from a family of Aggies), and I love to put them down a notch, but I like putting teams like OSU down two or more notches. This was one great game from start to finish.

--- Alan

[Contrai]

Great game for Notre Dame against Michigan. Well actually great game for ND's defense, their offense on the other hand was really sloppy for most of the second half. Their was also a bit of Irish luck involved as well :D

[Rimbo]

\m/

[Robert Sharp]

Vandy is 2-0 now! This is our year to win a national championship! We have a better record than Miami.