2002 College Football Season Thread Figured I'd kick it off with this: http://espn.go.com/ncf/s/2002/0801/1412915.html Incredibly, the season starts about exactly 3 weeks from the time of this post, with Colorado State at Virginia. Can't argue with much, except I'd knock Michigan down a few and bump Oregon up some. But, preseason polls are what they are. I'd pick Miami to win it all though, even with their killer schedule. The Gators won't be in peak form in time to play them, even if it is in the swamp. FSU, Tenn., and VA Tech do have to go to the Orange Bowl.
Re: 2002 College Football Season Thread BC still has to go to the Orange Bowl this year too. Need some payback, even though Willie has moved on to the shores of the Mighty Kayahoga (I know I mauled it).
Hi guys I know nothing about US college sport, and I don't want to start a 'slagging' contest, but a friend of mine here in Sydney's wife went to Texas A&M, and supports them. Can someone tell me if they are any good, have much history of success, any prospects?
Volutary Disclaimer ($1 to Ollie Tse): I lived in Austin and worked for the University of Texas for a year, so I'm fond of the arch-rivals: Texas A+M is traditionally a strong team-- in the past, they've had runs at being a national power, but no one's expecting all that much from them this year, as they're in the same division as Texas and Oklahoma, two teams which figure to be national-title contenders. Look for a winning record and a trip to a minor bowl game (assuming that means anything to you), but don't expect much more. They have a poisonous rivalry with the University of Texas, which is really a clash of cultures--UT is in Austin, which has an exaggerated, but basically true reputation as a haven for liberals, oddballs, unwholesome musician- and artist-types, and hippies. TAMU is in College Station, which was an exaggerated, but basically true repuation as a fly-speck nowhere-burg which is home to a university that embodies hopelessly reactionary values. It's also an academic thing--TAMU fans regard UT people as intellectual snobs, and UT fans regard TAMU people as airheads. UT wears orange and are nicknamed the "Longhorns", TAMU wears maroon and are nicknamed the "Aggies." This should get you up to speed. There's several real UT supporters on this forum who will be happy to share the latest Aggie jokes with you.
Cheers Godot Mention of 'bowl' games interests me. I've heard of them of course, but how do they rate - like is it a regional thing, or do certain games confer more honour? How do the teams get picked to play in a particular game? I know that there are no championship playoffs in gridiron, so do the bowl games have an influence on who gets ranked best, or does that go on the regular season record against their traditional pool rivals? (Sorry for being ignorant, but I am interested)
No need to apologize. Welcome to the wacky world of American college football. A rather too comprehensive answer: In the olden days, around the turn of the century, the rules of football were first codified in a form that would be somewhat recognizable to a modern viewer. Originally, college football teams were student clubs which would play against teams from nearby colleges for fun, but as the game grew in popularity, college football contests became big business for promoters who matched up teams with large numbers of rabid supporters. The difficulty of long-distance travel meant that it was rare to see teams from different parts of the country. But some bright folks in Pasadena, CA got the idea to schedule a game during the winter holidays between a strong, popular team from the East and a strong, popular team from the West as part of a regional festival--a game which is known to this day as the Rose Bowl. During the Thirties, the other "classic" bowl games got started, also associated with regional fairs or tourism promotion--the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, and the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Also, during this time, the conferences were forming--leagues of sorts for teams in the same region. After World War Two, more bowl games were started, the conferences began striking up alliances with the bowls, so that their champions would always be invited to a specific bowl game. The Big-10 (Midwestern) champion always played the Pac-10 (Pacific Coast) champion, the winner of the Southeastern Conference always went to the Sugar Bowl, etc. This was basically the system which existed up until the early '90s. Even though travel was increasingly easy during the Forties and Fifties, the short length of the season and the desire on the part of schools to schedule traditional rivals meant that inter-regional games were still quite rare. Since it's obviously quite impossible for more than 100 teams to face off in a meaningful league format, college football's unofficial national champions have been determined in polls, of which the most famous is the Associated Press poll of sportswriters. Before the 1960's, the AP poll was conducted after the end of the regular season but before the bowl games, because the bowls were (somewhat anachronistically) regarded as exhibition games. Before that time, the polls had a major image problem: consensus #1 teams had a nasty tendency to occasionally go into the tank in their bowl games. Moving the poll vote to after the bowl games solved that problem, but it created an entirely new one: what happens in a year when two or more teams go through their entire schedules without losing a game and don't meet in the bowls? What about seasons where everyone carried at least one loss? In short, how do you choose a national champion in a year when no team is head-and-shoulders above the rest of college football? There was much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the unfairness of it all. The rise of the all-sports TV channel ESPN during the '80s and '90s helped fuel a huge sports boom in the US, and college football rose with the tide. Many things in sports began to take on greater importance than they had in the past, among them having a "true national title game" that is "decided on the field." A group of four of the biggest bowls (Orange, Cotton, Sugar and Fiesta) and most of the big conferences created what is called the Bowl Coalition, which aimed to create a national title game by having a national championship game between the top two teams in the polls. The game would rotate among the four coalition partners. The drawback in this arrangement was that the Pac-10 and Big 10, two of the biggest conferences, were not partners, nor was the Rose Bowl, still the biggest deal among the bowl games. This was corrected, sort of, when the Bowl Coalition was replaced by the Bowl Alliance, which enabled the Pac-10 and Big 10 champions to opt out of playing in the Rose Bowl in favor of a trip to the championship game--if they were one of the top two teams. The Bowl alliance was later replaced by the present system, called the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS. The BCS is basically an updated Bowl Alliance which rotates an annual championship game among the four big bowls (now Rose, Sugar, Orange, and the Johnny-come-lately Fiesta.) Eligibility to appear in a BCS bowl is determined by an intimidatingly complex mathematical algorithm which includes the polls and various computer rankings. The number of non-BCS bowls is ever-growing. There are now 28 bowl games, including games in garden spots like Shreveport, Louisiana and Detroit, Michigan. Virtually all games are associated with one of the conferences, and several of the big conferences send more than half of their teams to one bowl game or another. (The only rule for post-season eligibility is that your team must have a winning or break-even (6 wins, 6 losses) record.) There's a hierarchy of bowl games. The national championship game is the biggest deal, followed by the other BCS bowls, followed by the more prestigious minor (non-BCS) bowl games, followed by everything else. The minor games tend to attract little attention apart from fans of the schools involved, and sometimes not even they are all that interested. A good rule of thumb for determining the prestige of a minor bowl game is how close the game is to being played on January 1st, the traditional date for post-season college football.
College Football is America's greatest invention Godot22, Nice run down on our College Football, that pretty much summed it all up. UT and A&M shuts down Texas for a day. I would like to add some triva as the very first college football game was between Rutgers and Princeton in the Fall of 1869. It was an association football code game and Rutgers won 6-4. As for this upcoming season, look for a Big XII club to take part in the BCS final again. I'm a Texas Tech supporter and a decent bowl game is all I'm looking for. That and a win over Texas A&M. Beating the Aggies is a good thing Craig the Aussie...it makes them think of something outside of TAMU football. Craig, If your want to see 'real' American sporting clashes, check out these gridiron match-ups as the NFL has nothing on'em. U.S. Military Academy at West Point vrs. U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis (the best) Alabama/Auburn Texas/Oklahoma Florida State/Florida Michigan/OSU the list could go on as every state has either a Civil War intrastate match or a Border War. Being a fan of our gridiron and association football is just year round football bliss!
Key words being "in the past." A&M has been on a long downward slide, and their recruiting pull is no match for UT or Oklahoma. UT = BCS Bowl A&M = Galleryfurniture.com bowl I will be at the big UT/A&M game on 11/29. Hope some of my fellow Texan BSers will be there too.
If there is any justice in the world, this is the year Mount Union doesn't win the Ohio Athletic Conference. The 10 conference titles in a row must not reach 11. Please take the damned Purple Raiders down several notches. Hopefully, it will be Baldwin-Wallace that ends the streak. Wishful thinking, in all likelihood. Anyone see the Buckeyes schedule? If they get decent QB play and replace the corners, they may contend for the national cham...hell, who am I kidding. They always find a way to screw things up.
I can't believe that Florida St. is in the Top 10. I could see them around 15 or so, but that's it. They do have a lot of starters coming back, but does it matter how many starters come back if they really are not all that good? Washington at Michigan is a great early season game. Hopefully Cody Pickett will stay healthy this year for the Dawgs, which would definately help WR Reggie Williams. Reggie's gonna have a break out year this year, which could be his last for UW before he goes to the NFL. BTW, how come some of the teams that are picked to win their conference by the conference's coaches/AD's get less votes in the ESPN Coaches poll than teams picked below them in their conference. Washington is in the top 10, Washington is at 14 (IIRC), even though Wazzu is picked to win the Pac-10. Boise State got less votes than both Fresno State and Hawaii despite being picked to win the WAC. And Boise State also is the team that went into Fresno last year and ended Fresno St.'s undefeated year and also went into Hawaii (a place where both Fresno St. and then undefeated BYU lost last year) and beat the Rainbows. Plus, BSU is returning starters across the board for the most part, while FSU lost Carr and Hawaii lost WR Ashley Lei'lei (sp?). Do coaches throughout the nation look at the conferences pre-season picks at all?
The coaches' votes are mostly cast by sports information directors. I doubt many people on the east coast know anything of substance about the WAC, so Fresno and Hawaii get more votes because they have historically had more success. People know more about the Pac-10, but for a lot of people it's still that league that plays its games after bedtime, so Washington is going to get more votes than Washington State, just based on reputation.
Re: 2002 College Football Season Thread Pre-season #24. I'd be more than happy with that @ the end of the season the way the last 2 years have gone.
This could be a breakthru year for BC. Losing Mark Colombo will hurt, so will losing Green but I think the positives brought on by his absence in the locker room will offset the negatives brought by his absence on the field. An 11-1 season is not at all out of the question--I don't see us winning in Miami in late September, but the other 11 games are all very winnable: UConn, Stanford, Central Michigan, Virginia Tech, Navy, Syracuse, and Rutgers at home; Pitt, Notre Dame, West Virginia, and Temple on the road. The key stretch will be in October and November, when we face Pitt, Notre Dame, and West Virginia on the road. Those games, along with Stanford, UVT, and 'Cuse at home, will make or break our season...we'll probably need to win half of those to be guaranteed a bowl, 5 wins means a major bowl, 6 wins means a possible BCS bid. You have to figure Central Michigan, Navy, Rutgers, and Temple are locks (as is UConn, but I think they're I-AA so it doesn't count towards the BCS standings). I really wouldn't be happy with anything less than 9 wins (including UConn) this season...Tom O'Brien has a chance to make this team a national power, and this is the season he's going to do it. Alex
UConn has 1-A status now, Alex, so it does count. I think it's once every 4 years that a 1-A school can petition to have a win vs. a 1-AA to count towards bowl requirements. Also, this year with the 12th game, 6-6 teams are eligible, if their conference still has tie-in slots to fill. Hate to say this about BC, but Stanford will likely beat them. I know it's a 3K mile trip, but it's my understanding that BC needs to shore up its secondary a bit. If so, you don't want to be playing Stanford's big, tough wideouts, especially the 6'7 Teyo Johnson. I see an insight.com bowl bid in the Eagles immediate future if they can win at Pitt. The Gator, it may be too much to come ahead of Va Tech.
I am torn between Miami Hurricanes and the Eastern Michigan Eagles. I am sure they will finish number 1 and 2 in the Country just like last year.
Eagles will go 9-3 at most. With a loss in the bowl. Brandon Brokaw, PSU transfer Dodd and Derrick Knight are serviceable RBs, not game-breakers like William Green.
Michigan's offense may be a bit iffy this year-- can returning QB John Navarre play better in the big games than he did last year? Who will replace Marquise Walker at WR? What about losing kicker Hayden Epstein?-- but our defense is going to be rock solid. Numerous pre-season all-conference picks at DL and LB. Home with Washington in game 1 will be interesting. Notre Dame in game 3 will be as well.
Between Florida, Florida State, and Tennessee, Miami's going to lose at least one of those games, if not all three. I think they lose to Florida and Tennessee, but beat FSU, who I don't think is that good. If Miami thinks playing at Virginia Tech or Boston College is tough, wait until they enter The Swamp. The one thing the Canes didn't do last year was go into a hostile environment and beat a good team on the road convincingly. Florida and Tennessee are more talented than Virginia Tech is, and The Swamp and Neyland Stadium are MUCH harder places to play. Besides, I think Miami's taken alot of hits in the off-season. Losing Frank Gore and 60% of the offensive line means that Dorsey will probably have to carry more of the load, and I'm still not convinced he's a great quarterback. And Miami's secondary is very young an inexperienced. I wouldn't be too sure the Gators won't be very ready for Miami, either. They play UAB the week before, so they'll get a chance to work out some of the kinks. That's a big advantage over the Canes, many of whom will be making their first collegiate starts. For Florida, it comes down to the line of scrimmage. The offensive line is HUGE (they average about 6-5, 320) and talented, but it's also young. They have to keep Miami's front seven off of Grossman and open up a few holes for Graham. And defensively, they can't get pushed around like they were against Tennessee last year. If those two things happen, I think Florida wins - possibly in a rout.
One thing I need to add. I thought the Miami-Tenn. game was in the Orange Bowl, it's at Neyland. Is the game at the Swamp in prime time? If so, that makes Miami's task more difficult for sure.
I can't wait for the college football season to start. Anxious to see how Wisconsin will fare this year after a disappointing 5-7 last year. They got a tough non-conference schedule with Fresno State, West Virginia, Northern Illinois, and Arizona. Not as tough as Miami's nonconference schedule, but pretty tough. Anyone going to set up a college football prediction thing this year?
I love the smack going on in the MAC. Marshall acts like it owns the league. Central Florida's coach saying they should breeze through the conference undefeated and they will only worry about their nonconference opponents. And, Toledo, while not saying anything at the moment, will almost certainly cheap shot their way through the schedule like they did last year, earning the indignation of everyone else. Gotta love it.
yeah, that pissed me off when I saw the rankings. Some Florida backwater idiot sports writers ( FIVE OF THEM!!!) actually gave them first place votes! My college football life would be complete to see someone break Bobby Bowden's neck or to have the NCAA finally REALLY come down on the school and ban them from division 1 forever!
watch as all these teams with the "great young qbs" fall short of a team with two decent qbs, three break out backs and the best defense in the nation, even with losing two all americans. Watching Simms cry on the sideline again this October 12th will be oh-so great... And a prediction: Most defensive touchdowns scored record will be set on August 30th, OU at Tulsa. It's going to be very very very ug.