The Cynic's Guide to College Football: Preseason Predictions

Not many consider the Wednesday before Labor Day the most wonderful time of the year, but I think I can make a pretty strong case. Can’t you just feel it? As if on cue, the weather here at home suddenly dropped 20 degrees below normal. It’s almost like it knows that it’s time. My job as HHR’s resident cynic is simple—while everyone else will spend the season blowing sunshine up the butts of the media darling coaches and players, my role is to focus on the Dark Side of college football. To talk about the underachievers, wannabes and never weres. Look, anybody can write another fluff piece on Tim Tebow or discuss the pros/cons on sainthood for Pete Carroll. But it takes a sharp eye and a keen mind to find the chinks in the armor. And that’s what I’ll try to do throughout the season. That said, while I may not fawn over the anointed media darlings, I love college football. Love, love, love. It’s almost sickening. Kind of like chocolate covered bacon—this level of love may not be healthy, but it’s oh-so-good!

Football, chocolate & bacon. What's not to love?

So with football starting up tomorrow night on the Smurf Turf in Boise, I wish you a HAPPY COLLEGE FOOTBALL EVE and bring you The Cynic’s annual preseason predictions.

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1. Greener Pastures: Two high-profile transfer QBs (Arkansas’ Ryan Mallett and Syracuse’s Greg Paulus) will lead their teams to upset wins at some point this season.


2. Heizzzzzzman: Obviously, most of the early Heisman talk will focus on the Big Three of Bradford, McCoy and Tebow. The contrarian in me wants to say that the media types will develop some quarterback fatigue, decide to actually watch a game involving a non-top 5 team or otherwise pull their heads out.. But that won’t happen. While I’d love to see some non-QBs or smaller school competition, I predict we’ll have four traditional power team QBs (the Big Three plus Ohio State’s Terelle Pryor) making the trip to New York for the most yawn-inducing Heisman ceremony ever. McCoy will take home the hardware.


3. If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Buy ‘Em: Rogue Florida State boosters, realizing that the NCAA is not going to reinstate the 14 wins taken away from Bobby Bowden, will give a bunch of money to Penn State recruits and then turn themselves in, hoping to have wins taken away from Joe Paterno.


4. The Best Defense is a Good Defense: The SEC will continue it’s well-deserved reputation for bringing the nation’s top defenses. However, I foresee the defensive dominance this year having less to do with dominant Ds than with what has the potential to be some truly atrocious quarterbacking. Exhibit A: lost in the “why was Tim Tebow not a unanimous first team All-SEC player” fuss was who else was in the mix. Second team QB Jevan Snead from Ole Miss is certainly a respectable, but after that things get ugly. The vote for third team All-SEC was a tie between South Carolina’s Stephen Garcia and Kentucky’s Mike Hartline (both were benched at least once last year and combined to throw 15 TDs and 16 INTS). Really? One of these guys in the third best in the SEC? Add the facts that six SEC teams have legitimate QB controversies and five projected starters have three or fewer career starts, and 2009 could be a baptism by fire for many SEC signal callers.


5. The Next Level: Immediately following the season, Tim Tebow will forgo an opportunity to play in the NFL, instead opting to ascend directly to heaven.


Or Join the Justice League



6. But That Won't Stop Congress From Investigating: There will be no undefeated non-BCS teams this year.




Because Lord knows they don't have anything else going on right now.

7. Does This Make Me a Domer Homer?: Damn you, Lou Holtz and Beano Cook! Here I thought that I was going to be a visionary, predicting a storybook season for Notre Dame. Then you had to go and ruin it by picking the Irish in the title game. Your history of crazy ramblings not only made me question my thoughts on the Domers, but it made my pick look like I was just jumping on the Irish bandwagon, even though I had written my pick weeks before you made yours. Oh well. That’s what I get for procrastinating on posting. Yes, Coach Lou is a crazy, senile old crank. And Beano Cook, aside from serving as Jabba the Hutt’s stunt double, really hasn’t brought anything to the football table in, well, ever. But, as the old saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. First and foremost, take a look at the schedule—the Irish have only four true road games (side note: how does Notre Dame vs. Washington State get played in San Antonio?) and, aside from USC, don’t play anyone ranked higher than #28. I would be very surprised if Notre Dame isn’t a solid Vegas favorite in every game this year (again, minus USC). Plus, keep in mind that this team is not devoid of talent—they return 15 starters from a team that went 7-6 last year (and held double-digit leads in three of those losses). While I’m not ready to jump off and predict ND over USC and put the Irish in the title game, otherwise I don’t see where these two are that far off. I predict a ten or eleven-win season for the Irish and a deserved spot in a BCS bowl game.


8. Coaching Carousel: After being passed over by Nebraska and Auburn the last two years, Buffalo head coach Turner Gill will be announced as the head coach at a major BCS program before 2009 is out. Brett Bielema (Wisconsin), Todd Dodge (North Texas) and Steve Kragthorpe (Louisville) will all be fired at the end of the season. Steve Spurrier (South Carolina) and Al Groh (Virginia) will retire. Dan Hawkins (Colorado) will keep his job despite failing to live up to his “ten wins and no excuses” pledge. After his second straight losing season, Rich Rodriguez (Michigan) will keep his job but will be on a very hot seat going into 2010. (Note: this prediction was made prior to the NCAA workout violation allegations. So I can’t be held responsible if something big breaks because of that.)


9. The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth. Or at Least Steal a W: At least three FCS schools will upset FBS teams. I hate these I-A vs. I-AA games as much as anyone. As a result, I can appreciate the irony of “big boy” schools getting upset in these money games. So it will do my heart good to see Richmond beat Duke (does that really count as an upset?), William and Mary beat Virginia and, in the irony of all ironies, Massachussetts beating Kansas State in Bill Snyder’s first game back.


10. When Pigs Fly: At least one team will have to forfeit a game, or at least play severely undermanned, due to a swine flu outbreak among the team.



So is this payback for that whole "pigskin" thing?


The Easy Way Out: I’d love to pick a big upset for the national championship. I hate chalk. I didn’t even like going to my wife’s classroom when she was a teacher. But I just can’t do it. I just think that Florida, Oklahoma and Texas are just so head-and-shoulders above everyone else, I can’t see a national champion coming from outside that three. Trust me, I hope I’m wrong—I’d love to see lots of drama this year, but I just don’t think it’ll happen. Texas and Florida will both run the table to the title game, where the Longhorns score a 27-21 victory and make Matthew McConaughey even more annoying.

Who knew?

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Among other notes this season:

• Someone will accidentally trip over a weapon of mass destruction in Iraq. The CIA will reveal who really killed JFK. NASA will release definitive proof of intelligent life on other planets. All of those are more likely to happen this season than the NCAA actually doing anything on the investigation into alleged improper benefits given to Reggie Bush while at USC.


• The best name in college football: Nebraska DT Ndamukong Suh. He’s 6-4, 300 pounds of bad man. In the Ngema tribe in Cameroon from which Suh’s father comes, Ndamukong translates as “House of Spears.” It doesn’t get much more badass than that.

A Boy Named Suh. I dare you to call him that to his face.

• Akron is the unanimous winner of the award for strangest named place to play your home games: Summa Field at InfoCision Stadium.


• Game Most Likely to Resemble Tecmo Super Bowl: Houston @ Oklahoma State 9/12. Last year, these two offenses combined for over 1050 yards and 81 points per game. Meanwhile, the two defenses gave up a combined 819 yards and 59 points per game. First team to 100, wins.

National Championship: Florida vs. Texas
Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma vs. USC
Sugar Bowl: Alabama vs. Notre Dame
Orange Bowl: Georgia Tech vs. South Florida

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HHR celebrates Bowl Weekend

Everyone has been asking which bowl will be the most important this weekend. Here is my prediction...



This one right here.

Kickoff is around 1:20am. Should finish up around 10:30 a.m. New Year's Day.

Happy New Year to all!

Separated at Birth: Alamo Bowl Edition

Texas A & M Apologizes For Paterno "Death Bed" Comment.

Still no apology from HHR for JoePa/Simon Birch comparison.

Rev's Review at the Halfway Point

LSU Is Really, Really Good

So far, the preseason questions about the Tigers’ ability to replace stars from last year’s Sugar Bowl winning squad seem to have been answered. Senior QB Matt Flynn is playing as well as any QB in the country and the Tiger defense is absolutely dominating opponents. They pummeled Virginia Tech, a preseason top 10 team, 41-0. They withstood Florida’s best shot this past weekend to stay unbeaten at 6-0. They are, without a doubt, the top team in the country.

Upsets Everywhere

We’ve seen five year’s worth of major upsets packed into one season:

Appalachian State beating Michigan – The football equivalent of a 16 seed beating a 1 in the NCAA basketball tournament. Division II App. St. derailed Michigan’s national title run before it even began and opened up serious questions about Lloyd Carr’s long-term longevity in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines seem to have righted the ship since this opening game debacle, but the upset will live on as one of the greatest of all time.

Stanford beating USC – Ending the longest home winning streak in the country is something special. Doing it as a 41 point underdog is simply unheard of. This was bound to happen to USC at one point or another this season, but it’s a shock that the letdown happened against Stanford.

Syracuse beating Louisville – Syracuse is quite possibly the worst team among the BCS conferences. Yet their sole win came against Louisville, on the road, and as a 37.5 point dog. The game seriously exposed Louisville for what they are – not a good team.

Heisman Race Wide Open

This race is about as wide open as it could be at the moment. None of the players on the pre-season hype list have done a lot to distinguish themselves through the halfway point in the season. Arkansas RB Darren McFadden is probably still the guy to beat, but don’t be surprised to see other names like Cal WR DeSean Jackson or Florida QB Tim Tebow thrown into the mix.

Best Press Conference

Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State.



Gundy’s “I’m a Man!!!” rant was ridiculous enough to earn a spot in the Denny Green “Crown their Asses!” pantheon of all-time great post-game press conference blowups.

Biggest Surprise(s)

Illinois. Consecutive 2-win seasons did little to inspire faithful among the Illini faithful in Champaign. However, much maligned coach Ron Zook has finally gotten his team on track, securing the first major win of his tenure with an upset of then ranked no. 5 Wisconsin this past weekend. The Illini are 5-1, and with games against Michigan and Ohio State still looming, they could be in a position to shake up the Big Ten title race.

South Florida/Cincinnati/Connecticut. The Big East trio are all undefeated and tied for the conference lead. Preseason favorites West Virginia, Rutgers and Louisville, on the other hand, have all suffered conference losses so far.

Boston College. Also 6-0 and leading the ACC. QB Matt Ryan has been on fire as of late, and his inspired play has moved him squarely into the discussion for many of the major postseason awards lists (Heisman?).

Biggest Disappointment

Louisville. The Cards entered the season as a top-10 team and a favorite to reach a BCS bowl for the second year in a row. 6 games in, they’re struggling mightily at 3-3 with bowl eligibility looking less and less likely every week. The defense has been torched repeatedly, surrendering an average of over 40 points a game in their losses. Senior QB Brian Brohm is the lone bright spot on the team, having thrown for 2,400 yards and 20 TDs thus far. However, new Cards coach Steve Kragthorpe appears to be way in over his head with this team, and many in the normally supportive Louisville fan base are clamoring for his removal.

What to Watch For

• Can LSU stay undefeated? It’s entirely conceivable to see them lose to either Auburn, Alabama or Arkansas. Plus, a possible blood-feud rematch with Florida could happen in the SEC championship game.
• Can Cal win the Pac-10? With USC blowing the game against Stanford, the Golden Bears’ destiny is entirely in their hands.
• Will a mid-major get a shot at the BCS? Boise State proved last year that the little guys can indeed play great football at the highest level. Hawaii is the only non-BCS school in both polls at the moment, and it looks like they’ll have to stay unblemished to make it to crash the BCS party.
• Is Ohio State for real? They destroy all the teams they are supposed to beat, but it doesn’t seem as if they’ve been tested at all this season.
• Will Kentucky flame out? The Cats currently stand at 5-1, but they face a brutal closing stretch that includes games against LSU, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.
• Where will Notre Dame end up? It’s been a sorry season thus far for the Irish, to say the least.

-posted by Rev. Shaw Moore