Spring is in the air, and with that the start of Spring Practice, and about 3 months until training camps open up. One College football fans outlook for 2004/2005 Title Contendors USC Positives - Future 1st Round QB Matt Leinhart, the triplets at RB, Norm Chow, an insane defense, incredible talent all-around Negatives - Has to rebuild the offensive line, must replace top 2 recievers, has to find a replacement for Will Poole and that DE LSU Positives - Early Doucet is possibly the best incoming reciever in the country (at least this is what I read), and he'll step right in for Clayton. They still have the other dude from the National Championship team and that starting TB is very good. Defense is the best in the NAtion Negatives - Not too many. Offense is rugged more than explosive and not built to come back from defecits. If they fall behind they might be in trouble Oklahoma Offensive line should still e powerful, Jason White should still have time to throw his deep balls, they still have great atheletes. The defense is littered with blue-chip recruits Negatives - Clayton, Tommie Harris, Derrick Strait, Teddy Lehman. 4 of the best at their positions in College football, all of them need to be replaced The Hopefuls Miami Iowa Michigan Florida Florida State
Spring football is winding down around the country. Penn State just had their Blue & White game yesterday. approx 43K showed up in sunny weather. IMHO Zack Mills put a strangle hold on the starting position as Robinson looked worse than Chris Ganter against 1st Team Defenders. Showed off some of his big arm, and even more of his innaccuracy. Fortunatly Zack Mills looked the best he ever had. His arm looked very strong and he was throwing spirals and putting nice touch on deep balls. He played 2 series and these were his numbers: 7 - 11, 118 Yards, one perfectly thrown TD 18 yards out. He also drove the team down into FG range but the kicker missed a short FG. Austin Scott reportedly looked good, 7 carries for 38 yards and an 8 yard TD. 2004 - The Year the Roar returns
well when you have one of the better/deeper defenses in the country to go up against an offense that is split in half, of course you are going to "sputter." this team will have a better running game and is loaded at wide receiver...they won't be a top 5 team but they'll hang around the top 10 all year long.
yep, saw it. All the "JoePa Must Go" folk are in revolt in Nittany Nation. Not to mention any muber of radio heads taking pot shots like "Well Ohip and Michigan just got great news, they learned that JoePa will be staying for 4 more years". Penn State is in an interesting situation. It would not be wrong to say that Joe Paterno has been the most influential person in Penn State History over the past 50 years. Actually a person on a Penn State Message Board said it best. This is what he said: Its not about wins for Penn State football when it comes to Joe Paterno. Without that man, my degree from Dear Old State would be worth about as much as a roll of Toilet Paper is worth
Henne? No idea. But he broke the hearts of Nittany Nation. We thought we had him in the bag. Oh well, we stole Anthony Morelli from Pitt instead Actually Michigan has always gotten great kids out of Pennsylvania. Marlin Jackson played ball about an hour away from State College, Steve Breaston is also from Pa. Michigan has normally been a better recruiting school than PSU
Stanford looked good in their spring game. But then again, they were playing Stanford. Which of the teams that finished in the Top 25 at the end of last season have the most returning starters?
Auburn's offense looked sharp in their spring game. Not what we're used to seeing around here. Usually the defense dominates the spring. There was 1 more scrimmage after the spring game, in which the D had the upper hand. It'll be interesting to see how Al Borges uses both Ronnie Brown and Cadillac, and how Jason Campbell reacts to the 4th offensive coordinator in as many years. The new offense Borge is installing has an emphasis on throwing to the backs out of the backfiled. He said don't be surprised to see Ronnie Brown lead the team in catches this year. Hopefully he'll be able to get the ball to Taylor, Aromashodu, Obomanu, and Mix a lot more this year. They are all very talented receivers.
its not really a good thing to have you're backs lead your team in receptions. What ever happenened to your basic pro-style offenses? You know have a base set of 2 Recievers, 1 TE, 1 FB, 1 RB. I'm positive these are the most effective offenses in the country of you have a good offensive line. Just look at Miami's National Championship Team
Oklahoma's Recruits Im glad to see that they got a top running back. http://www.soonersports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=300&KEY=&ATCLID=32154&SPID=190&SPSID=2480
You were doomed anyway. Both Chris Leak and Brodie Croyle are a year older and wiser. Seriously, don't worry about the polls- Richt will have the Dawgs ready to play. They should finish in the top five, and that's good enough for UGA.
Finally, someone knows that the Hawkeyes are title contenders!...now, if we don't lose to Iowa State or Michigan State or Ohio State or any dang state... Actually, are you sure we have an offense? Or at least an offensive line (the coach's kid=starting center=out for year?! Anyway, Leak's got a long way to go to be Nathan Chandler, much less...what was that guy's name...Chuck Long...no, the guy I'm thinking of...he was more mobile... At least we can count on easy wins like Michigan and Penn St. [typo edit]
Yeah, like they needed to be older and wiser to beat us. Hopefully, one day Richt or somebody can discover what makes UGA play with their heads up their arses when it comes to the Gators. But I'm not holding my breath.
What's sad is that I have to endure another summer of David-Greene-for-Heisman hype, before watching it fizzle out a month after the season starts.
Actually, I don't think you're giving the Spurrier-era Gators enough credit. 1)When you take 90s conference strength into account, Florida was the best team in the nation during his tenure. They were better overall than perennial SEC powerhouses like Yew Tee and Bama (both of whom won national titles during this period), let alone the Georgia/LSU/Arkansas/Auburn tier. 2)Spurrier was better at his job than Donnan or Goff. The man literally began a winning tradition in the NCAA's best conference. But Spurrier's gone now, Shula's in over his head, Yew Tee is fixin' to go down to NCAA probation (I give it 3-5 years), and Richt is as good as any coach in the nation, including Nick Saban. That gives UGA an opportunity to keep the throne warm until either Saban proves he can win consistently (let's face it- Tennessee choked like Cass Elliott in the 2001 title game) or Bama gets rid of Shula.
I was thinking more about the last couple of games against UF, not the whole Spurrier era. There is a reason that Dawg fans call him the "evil genius." It's hate but hate mixed with respect. There is no doubt Spurrier was a very good coach and miles better than Goof or Donnan. In addition to being a better coach, he was a better recruiter than the UGA coaches there during his time at UF (although his success helped build on this). All of this combined to allow the Gators to dominate UGA during the Spurrier years. That being said, in the last few years the talent gap has narrowed, if not evened up, yet UGA seems to play badly when they have to face UF. In a way, that's more frustrating than when we played against Spurrier and expected to get our arses kicked. Hopefully Richt will correct this so at least we're not shooting ourselves in the foot (penalties, turnovers) when we play UF. We'll see. I have a lot of faith in Richt but was worried a bit that they seemed very unprepared against LSU in the SEC Championship after playing them so tough in Baton Rouge earlier in the year. Part of me wonders if at least some of the difference in that game was Saban learning more from the earlier game than Richt did.
IMO, UGA's title was a year too early. I don't think the 2002 Dawgs were near as good as they were in 2003 (even tho they lost the title game), and I don't think the 2002 loss to UF was a fluke. The 2003 loss, perhaps. But if you look at some of UGA's other close 2002 games: 1. Clemson in OT. 2. South Carolina allows a wild take away/INT/TD by Pollack, then fumbles on the UGA goal line on the last play. 3. Bama late. The Tide wins this game in normal circumstances. 4. Auburn? Uh-uh. That's offensive pass interference. A bad call, period. 5. Florida. The 2002 team won more than its share of close games and played Arkansas (please) for the title. They were a very good team that had a lot of good fortune. But if they'd gone to Jacksonville with two losses (like maybe they should have), or finished the season with four, would you still consider the Florida loss a head issue? Now, in 2003, they played like favorites and won like favorites against most everyone and lost to a much younger Gator team. If we want to talk headcase about the 2003 UGA-UF matchup, maybe. But that's still just one year- I just don't see any pattern other than Spurrier's coaching. What was the overall series from 1970-1990? The gap was there because Georgia's talent was split three ways: UGA, UF and AU. Auburn's early 90s probation hurts them and helps UGA to this day. Auburn recruited heavily and successfully in Georgia during the Dye era, and won multiple SEC titles in the mid-80s. Richt's arrival, Spurrier's departure and the 2002 title seems to have convinced a lot of Georgia talent to stay home. I don't know if Saban's the reason, but LSU was just a better team than Georgia late in the season. The only teams that would have beaten them decisively are USC and Michigan.