It was a beautiful Sunday in Chicago. Temperature in the high 70s, no humidity, clear blue skies.
So I figure what better day to go and sit down inside my favorite dark and smoky neighborhood bar to watch my favorite dark and smoky NFL team!
And I don’t just say that for effect – the New York Jets defense should change their name to the Burnt Toasts. The Singed Seven. The Eaten For Breakfast Eleven. The Wouldn’t Even Taste Better With Apple Butter Gang (and I think just about everything tastes better with apple butter, for serious.)
For most of the game, it was like there wasn’t even a defense out there. Ronnie Brown did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. 112 yards rushing, 99 yards receiving, 3 touchdowns. The New York Jets: Your Team’s Running Back Will Have His Career Best Day Against Them, Guaranteed!
Luckily, the offense and special teams decided to play like they had in fact done so before. And, luckily, they got to play the craptacular Miami Dolphins, led by Captain Vinegar-and-Water himself, Cam Cameron.
Leon Washington ran a kick back, and looked great when handed the ball. Thomas Jones and Chad Pennington did the thing everyone thought (and Jets fans hoped) they’d do this year, and led a balanced if conservative offensive attack.
Actually, there was this strange thing going on when the Jets had the ball. You’d have to forgive most Jets fans for looking out there and saying “Run-ning game? What is this run-ning game you speak of, for we have not seen such a thing in many an epoch.” But lo, there it was. A running back getting over 100 yards the old fashioned, hard nosed way. The running game actually outgaining the passing game.
So, luckily, they won. And, luckily, it seems just about everyone else in the AFC except for New England, Indy, and Pittsburgh aren’t overwhelming great, so they could still make the playoffs (only to eventually lose to New England, Indy, or Pittsburgh, but still.)
The consensus seems to be this: Glad to win, not convinced about this team at all. Certainly not if this is how the defense keeps playing. I agree wholeheartedly with the consensus this time around.
One things for sure, though: Marshawn Lynch is due for his best day as a pro next week. And I’m sure Trent Edwards will look like the second coming of Jim Kelly, and maybe the Jets will still win, but no one will be happy when its over.
Showing posts with label Cam Cameron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cam Cameron. Show all posts
Monday, September 24, 2007
Monday, September 3, 2007
NFL Preview, Part 1
Somehow, it’s already September. Which means the summer is winding down, the days are getting short, and I’ll soon start to once again question why I chose to live in a city that gets so freakishly freakin’ cold.
On the plus side, it means the dark days of sports are also coming to an end. Baseball playoffs are soon. Another basketball season approaches.
And, of course, the NFL begins.
The NFL is by far my favorite league to follow. The season is just the right length – not too long, like the other major sports, where each game is rarely significant. Cliché as it is, it is undeniably true that every week matters. And the playoff format is the most satisfying – it doesn’t last too long, and doesn’t allow too many teams in.
Too, the quality of play is such that there are very few uncompetitive games. Some people bemoan the fact that there aren’t the dominant teams like there were in the past, but I found that boring. Who wants to basically know how the season is going to end before it even begins? That’s how it felt with those 49er and Cowboys teams that won Super Bowls in the 80s and 90s. It’s better now – no one really knows who is going to win it. There are at least six teams that could make a really good case for it now, and another six to eight that could be right there if they get lucky. If about half the league can legitimately think it has a chance to win it all, that makes for a much more compelling experience.
Not to mention how fantasy football has changed the way people are engaged with the sport. That’s a whole other column completely (which would talk about it in terms of the dawning of the Information Age) but needless to say, having some kind of competitive stake in every game adds excitement (and just wait until the day they make sports gambling legal everywhere.)
We’re excited about the start of the NFL over here at The Sherman Avenue Block Party, is what I’m getting at. So we’re going to preview all the conferences right here, to get you as excited as we are.
Without further ado, the Sherman Avenue Block Party NFL Previews!
THE AFC NORTH
Oh, wait, I wanted to get you excited about the NFL. Maybe I shouldn’t have started with one of the more boring divisions to watch in the entire league. Oops.
This is a division full of questions. Will the Cleveland Browns ever field a competitive team again? How long before Brady Quinn sees the field? How will the Pittsburgh Steelers do in their first year with a young new head coach? Will Ben Roethlisberger bounce back from a rocky 2006 season? Can the Baltimore Ravens ever get an offense to go along with their talented defense? Will Steve McNair finally have one of his body parts actually fall off during a game? Can the Cincinnati Bengals ever get a defense to go along with their talented offense? Will there be one column about them that doesn’t make a joke about so many of them getting arrested?
Here’s my predicted answers to those questions:
Not soon. Probably by week 11 against Houston. Most likely pretty well, since they have plenty of talent. Yes, he will. With Willis McGahee they have a good chance. I’d bet yes. Not this year. Yes – this column.
My predictions in general:
If the Ravens can be at all competent on offense, they should be the best team in this division. They have consistency in their coaching, a still-dominant defense, and a talented running back in McGahee.
The Bengals and Steelers will be competitive, but they have a few too many flaws. The Bengals defense is still suspect, and it’s hard to know how the Steelers will respond to the new coach and the inconsistency that defined them last year.
The Browns will probably stink less than last year. But not by much. They just simply lack talent – look at their draft history for the last five years if you want to see a picture of incompetence. The sooner Brady Quinn can get some experience, the better off they’ll be for 2008.
THE AFC EAST
I will in no way pretend that I can objectively analyze the AFC East. For I am a fan of the New York Jets. A fan of the die-hard and somewhat obsessed variety, and have been since I was a kid.
Of course, I am not currently 13 years old, and I don’t wear a fireman hat, so I will not predict Jets 16-0, everyone else 0-16 (Jetz Ruuule!) And, frankly, no true Jets fan is ever optimistic, even as a child.
The Jets will most definitely be a frustrating team to watch. As always. Just like chocolate milkshakes, which I too love, they will give me plenty of heartburn and indigestion to go along with my enjoyment.
To start with, they significantly improved the running game with the addition of Thomas Jones. The receivers, Coles and Cotchery, are better than average. Kerry Rhodes is a great young safety, and should make the Pro Bowl. The early draft choices, Darrelle Revis and David Harris, look like they’ll contribute right away on defense.
But this year’s team has a lot of questions on their lines, offensive and defensive. What it all boils down to is this: if they can protect Chad Pennington, they will win more games then people expect. Pennington can be great, but not under pressure. He needs to have time to make reads and throw to the right place. If he’s being rushed and being hit a lot, he tends to turn the ball over. They also need to get significantly better stopping the run on defense, and I’m not sure the guys they have on the line are equipped to do it in this 3-4 defense they employ.
As for the rest of the division, it is still the New England Patriots’ to lose, as much as it pains me to say so. They made a big splash in the offseason getting Adalius Thomas and a brand new receiving corps (Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth, and Wes Welker.) They still have Tom Brady, and a very good defense. And of course their head coach, Bill Belichick, he of the three Super Bowl rings.
Yes, they have some questions, with a second-year guy as their running back and without Richard Seymour and Rodney Harrison for the first half of the season. If honesty prevailed, though, it’s hard to see what team keeps them from going far in the playoffs this year (unless, say, something horrible were to happen to Brady or Belichick, which I would never wish on them, because to wish fiery death and disease and pestilence on your opponents is beneath someone as classy as myself.)
The Buffalo Bills strike me as a team that will do better than people think. The offense started to come into its own last year, with J.P. Losman finally looking like a real starting QB. Losing McGahee will hurt them, but everyone seems to love their rookie Marshawn Lynch, and for what looks to me like good reason. They’re still pretty young, especially on defense, but it wouldn’t be a huge shock to me to see them at 7-5 going into the last month of the season fighting for a playoff spot.
The Miami Dolphins should be absolutely awful. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy in new coach Cam Cameron (see my post below.) I sincerely hope they become the laughingstocks of the league. Looking at their depth chart, I’d say that it’s a distinct possibility.
As a note to our readers, I will be doing plenty of Jets blogging throughout the season. None of that will be nearly as rational as I tried to make this preview.
The rest of the divisions will have previews posted this week. Stay tuned!
On the plus side, it means the dark days of sports are also coming to an end. Baseball playoffs are soon. Another basketball season approaches.
And, of course, the NFL begins.
The NFL is by far my favorite league to follow. The season is just the right length – not too long, like the other major sports, where each game is rarely significant. Cliché as it is, it is undeniably true that every week matters. And the playoff format is the most satisfying – it doesn’t last too long, and doesn’t allow too many teams in.
Too, the quality of play is such that there are very few uncompetitive games. Some people bemoan the fact that there aren’t the dominant teams like there were in the past, but I found that boring. Who wants to basically know how the season is going to end before it even begins? That’s how it felt with those 49er and Cowboys teams that won Super Bowls in the 80s and 90s. It’s better now – no one really knows who is going to win it. There are at least six teams that could make a really good case for it now, and another six to eight that could be right there if they get lucky. If about half the league can legitimately think it has a chance to win it all, that makes for a much more compelling experience.
Not to mention how fantasy football has changed the way people are engaged with the sport. That’s a whole other column completely (which would talk about it in terms of the dawning of the Information Age) but needless to say, having some kind of competitive stake in every game adds excitement (and just wait until the day they make sports gambling legal everywhere.)
We’re excited about the start of the NFL over here at The Sherman Avenue Block Party, is what I’m getting at. So we’re going to preview all the conferences right here, to get you as excited as we are.
Without further ado, the Sherman Avenue Block Party NFL Previews!
THE AFC NORTH
Oh, wait, I wanted to get you excited about the NFL. Maybe I shouldn’t have started with one of the more boring divisions to watch in the entire league. Oops.
This is a division full of questions. Will the Cleveland Browns ever field a competitive team again? How long before Brady Quinn sees the field? How will the Pittsburgh Steelers do in their first year with a young new head coach? Will Ben Roethlisberger bounce back from a rocky 2006 season? Can the Baltimore Ravens ever get an offense to go along with their talented defense? Will Steve McNair finally have one of his body parts actually fall off during a game? Can the Cincinnati Bengals ever get a defense to go along with their talented offense? Will there be one column about them that doesn’t make a joke about so many of them getting arrested?
Here’s my predicted answers to those questions:
Not soon. Probably by week 11 against Houston. Most likely pretty well, since they have plenty of talent. Yes, he will. With Willis McGahee they have a good chance. I’d bet yes. Not this year. Yes – this column.
My predictions in general:
If the Ravens can be at all competent on offense, they should be the best team in this division. They have consistency in their coaching, a still-dominant defense, and a talented running back in McGahee.
The Bengals and Steelers will be competitive, but they have a few too many flaws. The Bengals defense is still suspect, and it’s hard to know how the Steelers will respond to the new coach and the inconsistency that defined them last year.
The Browns will probably stink less than last year. But not by much. They just simply lack talent – look at their draft history for the last five years if you want to see a picture of incompetence. The sooner Brady Quinn can get some experience, the better off they’ll be for 2008.
THE AFC EAST
I will in no way pretend that I can objectively analyze the AFC East. For I am a fan of the New York Jets. A fan of the die-hard and somewhat obsessed variety, and have been since I was a kid.
Of course, I am not currently 13 years old, and I don’t wear a fireman hat, so I will not predict Jets 16-0, everyone else 0-16 (Jetz Ruuule!) And, frankly, no true Jets fan is ever optimistic, even as a child.
The Jets will most definitely be a frustrating team to watch. As always. Just like chocolate milkshakes, which I too love, they will give me plenty of heartburn and indigestion to go along with my enjoyment.
To start with, they significantly improved the running game with the addition of Thomas Jones. The receivers, Coles and Cotchery, are better than average. Kerry Rhodes is a great young safety, and should make the Pro Bowl. The early draft choices, Darrelle Revis and David Harris, look like they’ll contribute right away on defense.
But this year’s team has a lot of questions on their lines, offensive and defensive. What it all boils down to is this: if they can protect Chad Pennington, they will win more games then people expect. Pennington can be great, but not under pressure. He needs to have time to make reads and throw to the right place. If he’s being rushed and being hit a lot, he tends to turn the ball over. They also need to get significantly better stopping the run on defense, and I’m not sure the guys they have on the line are equipped to do it in this 3-4 defense they employ.
As for the rest of the division, it is still the New England Patriots’ to lose, as much as it pains me to say so. They made a big splash in the offseason getting Adalius Thomas and a brand new receiving corps (Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth, and Wes Welker.) They still have Tom Brady, and a very good defense. And of course their head coach, Bill Belichick, he of the three Super Bowl rings.
Yes, they have some questions, with a second-year guy as their running back and without Richard Seymour and Rodney Harrison for the first half of the season. If honesty prevailed, though, it’s hard to see what team keeps them from going far in the playoffs this year (unless, say, something horrible were to happen to Brady or Belichick, which I would never wish on them, because to wish fiery death and disease and pestilence on your opponents is beneath someone as classy as myself.)
The Buffalo Bills strike me as a team that will do better than people think. The offense started to come into its own last year, with J.P. Losman finally looking like a real starting QB. Losing McGahee will hurt them, but everyone seems to love their rookie Marshawn Lynch, and for what looks to me like good reason. They’re still pretty young, especially on defense, but it wouldn’t be a huge shock to me to see them at 7-5 going into the last month of the season fighting for a playoff spot.
The Miami Dolphins should be absolutely awful. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy in new coach Cam Cameron (see my post below.) I sincerely hope they become the laughingstocks of the league. Looking at their depth chart, I’d say that it’s a distinct possibility.
As a note to our readers, I will be doing plenty of Jets blogging throughout the season. None of that will be nearly as rational as I tried to make this preview.
The rest of the divisions will have previews posted this week. Stay tuned!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
College Football Preview, Part 1
Welcome to the Sherman Avenue Block Party college football preview! We’ll be covering most of the major conferences, and you can expect in depth analysis, informed insight, and highly opinionated opinions.
Well, you can expect all that when Kris, aka The Innovator, posts about college football. Not so much from me.
I’m the least likely candidate to kick off the Sherman Avenue Block Party college football previews. My relationship to college football is as a casual fan. Let me briefly explain how I got there:
1) Nature
Like all the writers here, I grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York City area. Teaneck is not a college football town, and New York is not a college football city. There are no local colleges that play high-level football. Teaneck High School was much more of a basketball school than a football school (no offense if you’re reading this, Mssrs. Elegbe and Wellington) so we did not have a natural allegiance to a college where our town-mates went to play.
2) Nurture
My parents did not go to colleges with big college football traditions. Nor are my parents sports fans. So there was no college team I was raised to root for.
3) Personal Experience
I went to Indiana University. Not a football school in the slightest – Indiana earns its reputation as a basketball state. It also isn’t much fun rooting for a team that routinely got beat handily and embarrassingly by other Big Ten schools; so most IU students simply didn’t pay attention.
4) More Personal Experience.
During my sophomore year at Indiana, I worked for a catering company that provided dinner for the football team in a room under the stadium Monday through Thursday nights. I had to set the room up, then work behind a buffet line serving, then do some dishes. They got this dinner service the whole year, not just during the season.
It was quite the crap job, but it was solid money for only three or four hours a night, close to where I lived (my apartment was only a couple blocks from the stadium), and the lady that ran the room let us take all kinds of free food home, so my grocery bills were minimal.
During my sophomore year, the football team was beyond awful. They were losing by huge margins, and I’m pretty sure they lost the homecoming game to Michigan 38-0. Yet a lot of these guys were beyond assholes, walking around super-fucking-cocky like they were somebody. Not all of them, mind you, but a majority of them. In my mind, shouldn’t they have been apologetic, humbled by their inarguable failure and with their status as embarrassments to the student body? In their minds, no, I guess not.
The coach was fired after the dismal season. The new coach they brought in to bring some degree of glory to the program was a man named Cam Cameron.
Just looking at him, you could tell that Cam Cameron was a smug, arrogant motherfucker. He looked like the kind of guy that doesn’t tip the valet after parking his Jag for him. The kind of guy that wouldn’t look out of place at some WASP-y yacht club wearing topsiders and a blue blazer. The kind of guy that probably drinks vinegar and water he’s such a douche.
One day, as I’m standing on the buffet line serving food, just doing my job, Cameron comes up to one of the linebackers that I’m serving. Here’s the exchange:
COACH CAMERON
You going to be going to class, Jabar?
LINEBACKER
Oh, yeah, coach. You know me.
COACH CAMERON
Because if you don’t, you know, we’ll have you working back there.
He said that like I wasn’t standing right there.
But I was in fact standing right there. And I didn’t take kindly to the insinuation that only dumb non-class-going people would end up working in food service.
I mean, the nerve of this guy, insulting my intelligence to my face? Like I wasn’t obviously a student who wasn’t lucky enough to have the thing I was good at warrant a free admission to college, so I had to work to help pay my bills. Like I wasn’t vastly more likely to succeed at the thing I was at college for than this group of guys who wouldn’t even sniff the CFL once their eligibility was up.
So later on I complained to the lady that ran the room. She was cool, though she was one of those kind of crazy white trash ladies that if I saw her on Springer it wouldn’t have shocked me. She complained loudly, and it ended with Cameron writing us an apology letter.
But fuck an apology letter. And fuck him. I carry grudges.
(And by the way, it pleases me to no end that he is now the coach of my most hated NFL team, the Miami Dolphins. It’s like a two-for-one sale at the Hate Store. After he got booed for drafting Ted Ginn, Jr. I smiled for a week.)
My point is, I am not deeply invested in college football. And without that level of investment, I can’t bring myself to follow it too closely. Plus I find the quality of play inferior to that of the NFL.
Not to say that I ignore college football. I do look at the scores for the top 25. I do watch some games when I’m home on Saturdays. I try to catch the big exciting match-ups, your Texas-Ohio States, your USC-Notre Dames, and so on. SEC football intrigues me because of the insanely passionate fan bases. The atmosphere at college games can be really exhilarating, even watching on TV. The history and long-standing rivalries also are fun to follow – watching season-long storylines develop and unfold, weaving intricate narratives and causing such emotional response from so many people.
So there it is. I pay attention, but not that closely. I’m a causal college football fan. And here is a casual college football fan’s preview of the Big Ten and Pac Ten conferences.
BIG TEN
Michigan and Ohio State will most likely be the best teams in the conference, and be vying for a national championship. That’s how it pretty much always is.
Penn State might be okay, depending on how senile Joe Paterno really is. But they typically field a good team. Though if their running back is good, it’s probably best not to draft him into the NFL, as he will suck (look under Enis, Curtis and Thomas, Blair.)
Wisconsin will probably have a really good offensive line, and win a bunch of games early on, then they will lose a game they shouldn’t have lost, because they almost always seem to do that. All of their games will be unwatchable, as all sports programs at the University of Wisconsin are boring yet effective.
Iowa and Michigan State might be pretty good or might suck horribly, sometimes in the same game.
No one cares about football at Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, or Northwestern, unless you go/went there, and even then, maybe.
Fuck Indiana football.
You want a prediction? Hold on, let me get a coin. (flips coin) Michigan wins the Big Ten. Why not?
PAC TEN
I defy any casual college football fan to name all the schools in the Pac Ten without consulting the Internets.
USC is in the Pac Ten. They’ll probably be good again, though one day someone will have to explain to this Jets fan how Pete Carroll can be a genius head coach
UCLA is in the Pac Ten. Sometimes they are okay at football for a basketball school – every once in a while they get a great QB they ride for a while. This year? I don’t know.
Cal is in the Pac Ten. People usually predict Cal will be better than everyone thinks. Then they aren’t.
Then there’s a whole bunch of other Pac Ten teams that can be okay occasionally, like Oregon, or Washington, or Arizona State, or Oregon State. Arizona usually isn’t much of a football school (and you know it, Matt.) Neither is Stanford or Washington State. At most, maybe two of these teams will be worth watching for more than a minute or two.
If there are any other schools in the Pac Ten, I don’t care about them. Are they even on TV ever?
USC most likely wins the conference, unless this is the year Cal decides that exceeding expectations is much more fun than not meeting them.
And there you have it, the casual fan’s preview of the Big Ten and Pac Ten conferences.
We’ll be posting college football previews this week, and NFL previews next week. So look out for it!
Well, you can expect all that when Kris, aka The Innovator, posts about college football. Not so much from me.
I’m the least likely candidate to kick off the Sherman Avenue Block Party college football previews. My relationship to college football is as a casual fan. Let me briefly explain how I got there:
1) Nature
Like all the writers here, I grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York City area. Teaneck is not a college football town, and New York is not a college football city. There are no local colleges that play high-level football. Teaneck High School was much more of a basketball school than a football school (no offense if you’re reading this, Mssrs. Elegbe and Wellington) so we did not have a natural allegiance to a college where our town-mates went to play.
2) Nurture
My parents did not go to colleges with big college football traditions. Nor are my parents sports fans. So there was no college team I was raised to root for.
3) Personal Experience
I went to Indiana University. Not a football school in the slightest – Indiana earns its reputation as a basketball state. It also isn’t much fun rooting for a team that routinely got beat handily and embarrassingly by other Big Ten schools; so most IU students simply didn’t pay attention.
4) More Personal Experience.
During my sophomore year at Indiana, I worked for a catering company that provided dinner for the football team in a room under the stadium Monday through Thursday nights. I had to set the room up, then work behind a buffet line serving, then do some dishes. They got this dinner service the whole year, not just during the season.
It was quite the crap job, but it was solid money for only three or four hours a night, close to where I lived (my apartment was only a couple blocks from the stadium), and the lady that ran the room let us take all kinds of free food home, so my grocery bills were minimal.
During my sophomore year, the football team was beyond awful. They were losing by huge margins, and I’m pretty sure they lost the homecoming game to Michigan 38-0. Yet a lot of these guys were beyond assholes, walking around super-fucking-cocky like they were somebody. Not all of them, mind you, but a majority of them. In my mind, shouldn’t they have been apologetic, humbled by their inarguable failure and with their status as embarrassments to the student body? In their minds, no, I guess not.
The coach was fired after the dismal season. The new coach they brought in to bring some degree of glory to the program was a man named Cam Cameron.
Just looking at him, you could tell that Cam Cameron was a smug, arrogant motherfucker. He looked like the kind of guy that doesn’t tip the valet after parking his Jag for him. The kind of guy that wouldn’t look out of place at some WASP-y yacht club wearing topsiders and a blue blazer. The kind of guy that probably drinks vinegar and water he’s such a douche.
One day, as I’m standing on the buffet line serving food, just doing my job, Cameron comes up to one of the linebackers that I’m serving. Here’s the exchange:
COACH CAMERON
You going to be going to class, Jabar?
LINEBACKER
Oh, yeah, coach. You know me.
COACH CAMERON
Because if you don’t, you know, we’ll have you working back there.
He said that like I wasn’t standing right there.
But I was in fact standing right there. And I didn’t take kindly to the insinuation that only dumb non-class-going people would end up working in food service.
I mean, the nerve of this guy, insulting my intelligence to my face? Like I wasn’t obviously a student who wasn’t lucky enough to have the thing I was good at warrant a free admission to college, so I had to work to help pay my bills. Like I wasn’t vastly more likely to succeed at the thing I was at college for than this group of guys who wouldn’t even sniff the CFL once their eligibility was up.
So later on I complained to the lady that ran the room. She was cool, though she was one of those kind of crazy white trash ladies that if I saw her on Springer it wouldn’t have shocked me. She complained loudly, and it ended with Cameron writing us an apology letter.
But fuck an apology letter. And fuck him. I carry grudges.
(And by the way, it pleases me to no end that he is now the coach of my most hated NFL team, the Miami Dolphins. It’s like a two-for-one sale at the Hate Store. After he got booed for drafting Ted Ginn, Jr. I smiled for a week.)
My point is, I am not deeply invested in college football. And without that level of investment, I can’t bring myself to follow it too closely. Plus I find the quality of play inferior to that of the NFL.
Not to say that I ignore college football. I do look at the scores for the top 25. I do watch some games when I’m home on Saturdays. I try to catch the big exciting match-ups, your Texas-Ohio States, your USC-Notre Dames, and so on. SEC football intrigues me because of the insanely passionate fan bases. The atmosphere at college games can be really exhilarating, even watching on TV. The history and long-standing rivalries also are fun to follow – watching season-long storylines develop and unfold, weaving intricate narratives and causing such emotional response from so many people.
So there it is. I pay attention, but not that closely. I’m a causal college football fan. And here is a casual college football fan’s preview of the Big Ten and Pac Ten conferences.
BIG TEN
Michigan and Ohio State will most likely be the best teams in the conference, and be vying for a national championship. That’s how it pretty much always is.
Penn State might be okay, depending on how senile Joe Paterno really is. But they typically field a good team. Though if their running back is good, it’s probably best not to draft him into the NFL, as he will suck (look under Enis, Curtis and Thomas, Blair.)
Wisconsin will probably have a really good offensive line, and win a bunch of games early on, then they will lose a game they shouldn’t have lost, because they almost always seem to do that. All of their games will be unwatchable, as all sports programs at the University of Wisconsin are boring yet effective.
Iowa and Michigan State might be pretty good or might suck horribly, sometimes in the same game.
No one cares about football at Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, or Northwestern, unless you go/went there, and even then, maybe.
Fuck Indiana football.
You want a prediction? Hold on, let me get a coin. (flips coin) Michigan wins the Big Ten. Why not?
PAC TEN
I defy any casual college football fan to name all the schools in the Pac Ten without consulting the Internets.
USC is in the Pac Ten. They’ll probably be good again, though one day someone will have to explain to this Jets fan how Pete Carroll can be a genius head coach
UCLA is in the Pac Ten. Sometimes they are okay at football for a basketball school – every once in a while they get a great QB they ride for a while. This year? I don’t know.
Cal is in the Pac Ten. People usually predict Cal will be better than everyone thinks. Then they aren’t.
Then there’s a whole bunch of other Pac Ten teams that can be okay occasionally, like Oregon, or Washington, or Arizona State, or Oregon State. Arizona usually isn’t much of a football school (and you know it, Matt.) Neither is Stanford or Washington State. At most, maybe two of these teams will be worth watching for more than a minute or two.
If there are any other schools in the Pac Ten, I don’t care about them. Are they even on TV ever?
USC most likely wins the conference, unless this is the year Cal decides that exceeding expectations is much more fun than not meeting them.
And there you have it, the casual fan’s preview of the Big Ten and Pac Ten conferences.
We’ll be posting college football previews this week, and NFL previews next week. So look out for it!
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