We’re now only a couple of Saturdays removed from the start of the 2014 college football season, otherwise known as the reason people don’t get too depressed at the end of summer.
There are changes aplenty for the new season, here’s a completely non-sequitur guide of 32 things to watch for.
1. The New Playoff
College football goes to a brand new four-team tournament this year, which will mark the first time in the history of the sport that the champion will be chosen through a playoff.
The semifinal games will rotate between the Rose, Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Fiesta, and reinstated Peach Bowl, with the championship game played at a neutral site like, you guessed it, Jerry’s World, Texas.
What changes are in the offing? Probably not too many in that there will still be room for a loss, possibly two, defiantly no more than that, and there will be controversy abound. But we will see three football games to remember at the end of the year. It’s a step in the right direction.
2. Big Year At Oregon
Marcus Mariota is back, and that means so are the huge expectations. Mark Helfrich will be expected meet those expectations – but what does that look like exactly? Rich Brooks took Oregon to respectability, Mike Bellotti made them a top 25 team, and Chip Kelly took them to the top of college football. What’s Helfrich’s legacy?
3. Things Looking Up At Oregon State
The Beavers, with their star quarterback returning as well, have the look of one of those pesky, entertaining, nine to ten win Mike Riley teams. After all these years, a change at offensive coordinator could do this team some good – and help them claim a signature scalp.
4. Chris Peterson At Washington
The man who made a school giddy that their coach left to take the USC job. Peterson has a lot on the line – he jumped from Boise State as the wheels were wobbling. This is a guy who cashed in his golden ticket. He’s betting more on Washington than Washington is betting on him.
Peterson is charismatic, innovative, and a lot less dry than this piece of writing you’re reading. If all goes well, this could be the start of something good in Seattle.
5. PAC-12 Dominance
Remember the days of USC and the nine dwarves? Let’s look at what has happened to this West Coasters in the last few years: Oregon and Stanford became bonafide national powerhouses, UCLA picked themselves up off the mat, USC are in the process of doing the same, Rich Rodriguez, Mike Leach, Chris Peterson, Jim Mora Jr., and Todd Graham have come in, and Mike Stoops, Paul Wolf, and Dennis Erikson have gone out.
That all sounds pretty good. Every program in the conference, with the exception of suddenly very sorry Cal and a struggling Utah is trending the right way. I think we’re looking at the second best conference in college football.
6. The SEC Network
As for the best conference in the country? They’ve got their own network now. It’s got Tim Tebow. Rest assured, you’ll be hearing a lot about it over the next few months.
7. They Also Got Brent Musburger
In a staggering and uncalled-for coup, the SEC has stolen away Northerner and former lead voice of college football Brent Musburger.
Beloved for his backdoor gambling references and beloved by Eminem, if you’re scoring at home the SEC now has the Brent and Vern Lundquist calling its games.
It almost makes up for losing the title to the ACC last year.
8. Speaking of the Defending Champions
Jamies Winston, who hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory since we last saw him winning the national title, is back and better than ever this year. There will be a target on his back, so either he’s going down the Cam Newton road, or the Jeremiah Masoli road.
We shall see. Good thing the ACC hasn’t been good since it ruined the Big East all those years ago.
9. More Realignment
Greatest hits this year include Rutgers and Maryland in the Big Fourteen Ten, reshuffling in the American Athletic Conference, Louisville escaping by the skin of Bobby Patrino’s motorcycle paint shavings to the ACC, some nonsense going on in Conference USA, and some interesting stuff in the Sun Belt.
10. Leaders And Legends Are Dead
The Big Ten divisions, that is. Quickly realizing how cataclysmically stupid they sounded, they’ve gone to a simple East/West structure.
11. Beware The Power Five
With the conference formally known as the Big East shoved to the backburner, the five remaining power conferences have talked about banding together and wrecking all sorts of havoc by doing unholy things like paying players for making their schools millions of dollars, and reinstating the college football video game. Watch out.
12. Also Beware Appalachian State
They’ve made the jump to division one with the Sun Belt, and continue to be competitive. Michigan, we’re laughing at you not with you.
13. Good News! It’s the 20th Anniversary of The Pick!
14. It’s Also the First Anniversary of This
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPlQHYkHEzc
15. The Last Notre Dame – Michigan Game
Because the NCAA is godless, and Notre Dame is moving to a part-time ACC schedule in 2015, the Irish and the Wolverines will clash for the last scheduled time in week two at Notre Dame Stadium, which, for the first time in its 84 year history, will have field turf.
16. Michigan State – Oregon
Also in week two at Autzen Stadium, this is a top ten matchup resplendent in its clash of styles and footballing culture. One of the benefits of the new playoff system is that an early loss to a big nonconference foe absolutely won’t kill your championship chances, so games like this aren’t as risky as they once were.
It’s an early heat check for the Ducks, and College Gameday is a lock for Eugene on September 6th.
17. I Hope You Like Chris Fowler
Because between hosting Gameday and becoming the voice of ESPN and ABC’s Saturday Night Football, you’re going to be hearing a lot of him this year. He’s in line to call the championship game as well.
18. I Hope You Don’t Like FOX Sports 1
Because this ad is simply offensive.
19. Charlie Strong In Texas
I think Strong is a damn good football coach, and almost everyone else does too. The nagging question is whether it takes more to succeed as the head football coach at Texas. Will Strong, with his no-nonsense, take-no-prisinors, workaholic, egoless approach change Texas before Texas changes him. The hire was a gamble by Steve Paterson – but the right one.
20. Also In Texas…
Baylor opens up a lovely new stadium with the Bryce Petty Heisman campaign already in full swing, while Texas A&M are facing a rather nasty regression without Johnny Manziel. TCU coach Gary Paterson is feeling the pressure to win after two substandard seasons in the Big XXI, while the Red Raiders just seemed concerned with how good looking their coach is.
Don’t Mess With Texas!
21. Steve Spurrier
Long live this guy, and really anyone who will say Nick Saben has underachieved at Alabama because he’s only won two SEC titles in eight years.
22. Can Ohio State Get To The Promised Land?
Urban Meyer’s pledge to make Ohio State an SEC team in the Midwest is being heeded. But it’s better to be lucky than good, right?
In 2012, Meyer’s first year, the Buckeyes went undefeated and would have played in the national title game if they weren’t bowl banned. Last year, freed from the ban, Ohio State only needing to beat Michigan State in the Big Ten title game. It didn’t happen.
Now, with the playoff system, it will be even harder for Ohio State to get over the hump. But is the third year the charm?
23. Charlie Weis!
Yes, it has escaped many of you, but Charlie is entering his third year at Kansas. So far, he’s sitting pretty at 4-20. What will this year hold? I can’t wait to find out.
24. The Pageantry
It’s a buzzword that is bandied around a lot in accordance with college football, but pageantry really is why we love it. College football isn’t about the players. Those guys come and go. We remember the great ones, and stick up for the guys who once wore our schools’ colors, but this isn’t really about the guys on the field.
It’s about what they represent. It’s about the community, the color, the inter-connectedness of community, and in a broader sense the country.
The color is incredible. So is the style. In college football, no one gets left out. Wyoming has a team. Nebraska has a team. Alabama, Hawaii, every little town in rural Ohio, everyone’s invited to this party.
That’s why college football is cool. Despite the NCAA and its inherently corrupt structure, college football is brighter than ever. Stadiums will rock. Traditions will flourish, and Saturday’s in the fall will continue to be very special.
25. Big SEC Games
One Saturday last year, I spent the day watching games – big games, games that mattered – but once I hit Alabama-LSU in Tuscaloosa, I was blown away. Maybe it’s because they don’t have much else, maybe it’s because they don’t have pro sports, maybe it’s because they’re all bunched close together and it’s real hot down there, but SEC football is something else.
26. MLS’ Influence
Yeah, you read that right. College football is turning to MLS to try and increase attendance and fan immersion.
27. Jerry Kill
Fighting through debilitating seizures, this brave coach is turning the Minnesota Golden Gophers around, and doing it despite taking a leave of absence last year because of his illness.
Kill’s story, along with his football team, could hit the mainstream this year.
28. Coaches
College football head coaches are often unbelievable characters. It’s not a surprise, given the position their in: Often worshiped or hated, these men have to represent universities while their lives and livelihoods hinge on a bunch of loosely controlled 20 year old kids.
Bo Pelini at Nebraska has apparently tried a Get Happy regimen this offseason, Mike and Bob Stoops could kill opposing coaches – or each other – this season if things don’t pan out for highly-rated Oklahoma, and can you believe there was like ten years there where Les Miles was eating the grass at Tiger Stadium and no one knew?
Often in this sport, the best theater is in the stands – and on the sidelines.
29. The BCS Is Dead, Long Live The Selection Committee!
There is cause for happiness: The BCS poll is gone. The highly sophisticated (random) way in which we ranked teams for almost two decades is done. So, for the most part, is a bowl system that made most teams in the Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange bowls disappointed and unwilling participants.
Just to send the message very clearly that computers are out, humans are in, the BCS has been replaced with the College Football Selection Committee, humans who will pick the final four and be subjected to bias, bribery, the potential threat of violence, and – I’ll just stop there.
Should be a grand old time.
30. The Return Of Penn State?
Bill O’Brien kept this team afloat, realized how long that bowl ban really is, and bolted back to the NFL. So in steps Pennsylvania native James Franklin, who has a dry wit, a bald head, and a resume that includes making Vanderbilt competitive in the SEC.
Franklin looks like the man for the job. Those in Happy Valley are giddy about his arrival, and while Penn State are deservedly serving their punishment for horrible, horrible transgressions, Franklin is the man to take the Nittany Lions towards a brighter future.
31. The NCAA Is Spending More Money Than Ever Before On Lobbyists
For the student athletes, of course.
32. College Football Is Better Than The NFL
I know: You love the NFL, the entire country loves the NFL. And I get it – sort of. And while the NCAA is a potentially incurable mess, the Ray Rice fiasco this summer puts Roger Goodell and his league on very similar footing.
Aside from the bureaucracies, there’s no denying this: Great college football games are more exciting, both on the field and off. The atmosphere of a college football game – marching bands, student sections, etc. – so far outpaces the stale, corporate feel of the average NFL game that it’s not fair.
The intensity is often higher. There are more points, there is more drama, and Saturday has games from all over the country on all different networks from dawn until dark, while the NFL wriggles in the confines of timeslots, blackouts, and paying extra for the RedZone Channel and the NFL Sunday Ticket.
Saturday has always been the best day of the week. We’re about set for a four-month-long reminder why
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