Each week during the off-season we will be doing this feature that will simply be called “This Week In College Football”. We will cover the biggest news and stories of the past week and give some opinions and analysis.
NSD (National Signing Day)
This week was dominated by National Signing Day. It’s a college football fans version of the NBA and NFL draft. As technology increases and the internet comes up with new inventions, like twitter, NSD becomes more and more up close and personal (sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad). Pick your posion in terms of who’s the best at rating the High Schoolers (Rivals, Scout, 24/7, ESPNU). This is a day for college fans to have pride in their team without them ever having taken the field. Your team is declared a winner or a loser despite not knowing the actual results until these kids put on the pads. Recruiting is a crapshoot, but it’s a fun crapshoot. And it’s fun to take these players and wonder if they will make an immediate impact. Most will not make an immediate impact. The biggest chance for them to make an immediate impact is if they play a skill position. Those seem to be the guys that can come in and compete and make a difference immediately (remember Marcus Lattimore and Michael Dyer last year, yeah I thought you did).
So who were the big winners this year? On NSD my Georgia Bulldogs were definitely one of the big winners pulling ESPN RB #4 Isaiah Crowell, who made his selection and was then given a live bulldog puppy by a teammate, former USC commit LB Kent Turene and then on Saturday pulling JUCO NT John Jenkins to complete their “Dream Team”. Another 6-7 team that surprised on NSD was the Clemson Tigers. Clemson grabbed LB Tony Steward, who picked Clemson over FSU, and inked 4 guys in the top 50 of the ESPNU 150. Alabama made some noise during NSD with their “web cam” and their hot cheerleader but they made the most noise on Saturday picking up highly touted OL Cyrus Kouandijo (ESPNU #3) and adding him to what Rivals ranked as the #1 class overall. Rivals rounded out their Top 10 class like this: #2 FSU, #3 Texas, #4 USC, #5 UGA, #6 LSU, #7 Auburn, #8 Clemson, #9 Oregon, and #10 Notre Dame. The teams that gained the most momentum on NSD were teams that had losing records last year (Clemson, Georgia and Texas). Did they do enough to get them back into the mix next year. Did they get guys who can come in and contribute immediately? It will be interesting to find out.
Who Wants a Quarterback?
Does anybody need a QB with some college experience or a highly touted 4-star that’s spent a couple of years on campus? There are a few guys that are looking for new homes. Former Michigan QB Tate Forcier, former Rutgers starter Tom Savage and Kentucky QB Ryan Mossakowski. In a back-up role last year, Tate Forcier passed for 597 yards, was 54 of 84 and threw 4 TD and 4 INT. In 2009, he threw for over 2,000 yards and had 13 TD and 10 INT. Tate has narrowed his choices to Kansas State, Washington, Arizona, Miami (Fl) and Montana. He’s going to take visits starting next week and hopes to visit all of his targets during the week. It feels like Kansas State and Miami(Fl) are in the drivers seat for his services.
Former Rutgers QB Tom Savage had a great Freshman campaign as he went 149 for 285 and threw for 2211 yards with 14 TD versus 7 INT. He helped to led Rutgers to a 9-4 season as a Freshman. But this year it took a turn for the worse and Rutgers went into the tank finishing 4-8 (with one of those wins being over the mighty Norfolk State). As a Sophomore, Savage played in 6 games and went 43 for 83 for 521 yards with 2 TD versus 3 INT. Chas Dodd has taken over the QB duties for the Scarlet Knights and has left Savage looking for a new home. Greg Schiano orginally put restrictions on where Savage could transfer but has since pulled those restrictions. Savage has family in Florida so Miami (Fl) has popped up as a potential landing spot for him. Some of the other schools Savage is looking at? Michigan, FSU, Florida, Arizona, Marshall, Western Michigan, and Northern Illinois are some of the other candidates on his list of 25 schools he’s looking at.
Ryan Mossakowski was the 14th ranked QB in the Nation when he came out of school as a part of the 2009 recruiting class. When he committed to Kentucky he passed up offers from Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Nebraska, and Oregon among others. Mossakowski redshirted in 2009 and then did not play in 2010. When Senior Mike Hartline was suspended at the end of the season for the bowl game Mossakowski thought there would be some opportunity for playing time. Well there wasn’t. The coaches told him the Kentucky QB job would be open for anybody to take in the spring but he decided that he wanted to go elsewhere and play immediately. That might be a FCS school as he could go in and play immediately (that didn’t exactly work out for Star Jackson last year at Georgia State) but he’s keeping his options open right now. Mossakowski will finish up spring semester at Kentucky before transferring. There has been no word yet on who he is considering.
Murphy’s Law
Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. That’s been the story for former South Carolina TE Weslye Saunders recently. As a junior Saunders hauled in 32 receptions for 353 yards and 3 TD. He was tied for the 2nd most receptions by a TE in the SEC behind some dude named Aaron Hernandez. Like was good for young Weslye as he seemed destined for the NFL. “Hotel Gate” hit the Gamecocks this summer and shortly thereafter Spurrier dismissed his starting TE from the team in September. It would seem that since he could no longer play college football that he would be focusing all of his energies on preparing for the draft and making sure he had all of his ducks in a row. Right? Well, not exactly. Technically, Saunders still has a year of eligiblity left in school because he was booted by the team not by the NCAA. So he still had to apply for a waiver to declare for the NFL draft. Saunders says that he didn’t put in a waiver because he received an invitation to the NFL combine on January 3rd (waivers had to be in by Jan 15th). If the NFL doesn’t change his eligiblity status then he might have to wait for the supplemental draft. My take is that Saunders did some things at Carolina that he shouldn’t have and he said some things he shouldn’t have but he should be cleared for the NFL draft. Give the kid a chance to get in and play some football (and try to keep his mouth shut).
He Was A Damn Good Dawg
The Georgia Bulldogs have one of if not the most recognized mascot in all of college sports. But it’s been tough to be a bulldog mascot for Georgia over the past couple of years. This Saturday, Uga VIII was laid to rest at Sanford Stadium with his ancestors. Uga VIII had just taken the helm as the mascot for the Bulldogs October 16th of last year before the Vandy game. In January it was announced that the young mascot had canine lymphoma and less than a month later Uga VII, also known as Big Bad Bruce, lost his battle with cancer. RIP to a damn good dog.
Super Bowl Prediction
While this is a college football blog I would hate to have a chance to give a prediction for the Big Game and not do it. As an Atlanta Falcons fan I was a bit shocked at the way the Green Bay Packers dispatched of my beloved Falcons in the play-offs. Maybe it’s that bitterness that has me leaning towards the Steelers. Maybe it’s the fact that Hines Ward plays for the Steelers. Hines is one of my all-time favorite Georgia Bulldogs. Hines played QB in High School but when he came to campus he was a jack-of-all-trades and was willing to do anything to help his team win. As a freshman he filled in for the injured Terrell Davis (you know him right?) and gained 423 yards on 77 carries as a RB. As a sophomore he played RB, WR and QB. He finished his career as Georgia’s go-to receiver finishing with 149 receptions. When he left Georgia he was second on the all-time list of all-purpose yards at UGA, second to some guy named Herschel. But I digress…I think this should be a close game. The Packers are the hottest team in the NFL right now and have been playing good on both sides of the football. That being said, I’ve got the Steelers 27-21.
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