Kicking Off

Football is back! Actual football where they keep score and the records count and everything! Shit damn yes fucking Hell Ya!

In this case, its College Football, which is kicking off its season and football season at large this fine weekend. Sweet lord its finally here!

Sadly, College football on opening weekend is about 50% tease, 35% bleech and a meager 15% good. For months we prepare, learning the best teams, best players, best storylines. Who's a Heisman favorite? What program is gonna turn it around? What coaches are on the hotseat? We read blogs and websites and media guides and preseason magazines and watch TV previews and think and scheme and anticipate. And when kickoff weekend finally gets here we are rewarded with....


Oklahoma 57, Chattanooga 2.

Sigh.

Not to sound too much like Greggggggg Easterbrook here, *shudder*, but its a damn shame that so many of these early games consist of Powerhouse U beating the tar out of some Directional school. I understand why this happens, as College Football is all about wins and money, the former leading to the latter. But still, watching # 1 Georgia battle against mighty Georgia Southern or Penn State perform their annual early season mugging, this time at the expense of Coastal Carolina (now with football for 5 whole years!) is kinda deflating. The worst thing about all this is when they do those "Player of the Week" nominee commercials on ESPN and they show some five star recruit at a big school tearing through a defense which wouldn't challenge some High School teams. This is supposed to be impressive?

Happily, its not all bad. There were some legitimate games this weekend, including some conference games in the Pac-10 which were fun to watch. Kudos to Alabama/Clemson, USC/Virginia, Illinois/Missouri, Kentucky/Louisville, UCLA/Tenn and all the other big schools which challenged themselves with non-cupcake games out of conference. In addition, there were non-BCS teams which challenged (and in some cases beat!) BCS schools, including ECU, Bowling Green, Arkansas State and Utah. Congrats to the (sorta) little guys.

The game of the weekend (so far) was either ECU vs. Va Tech or Missouri vs. Illinois. I kinda figured ECU had a shot at the upset but wasn't bold enough to call it. While it certainly qualifies as an upset, to say it was totally surprising would be wrong I think. ECU is a good football team and Va Tech is good but not great. The fighting Zooks gave it a good effort but Missouri was too much to handle.

The biggest dissapointment was Clemson. Good God did Alabama kick the crap out of them. It was 34 to 10, and it wasn't even that close. Clemson came in ranked #9 (exhbit 3284343324 as to why preseason rankings are stupid) and was manhandled in every aspect of the game. Clemson has some good running backs, who were completely shut down by the Tide. Their passing game sucks too much to make up for this, and Alabama ran over them when they were on offense. The most shocking thing was time of possession, which Alabama won 41:13 to 18:47!!!!

Sadly, now everyone will be jerking off Nick Saban and Alabama for a while. I grant that they are a good team. Bad teams do not dominate BCS teams like that. How good are they? I don't know, you don't know, and anyone who says they know is a liar. Some fans will be stupid enough to claim that Alabama is great because they just mugged the #9 team in the land. Of course, #9 teams in the land do not get mugged like that on national television. Maybe Clemson really is a rank worthy team, but damned if they looked like it last night. Alabama probably deserves to be ranked fairly high, but to claim anything based on last weeks polls is ludicrious.

Mark my words, however, this is going to happen. I'm looking at Alabama's schedule and its safe to say they should win their next 3 games. Then they play at current #1 Georgia. By that game they should be 4-0, as should Georgia, and their will be whining all over Tuscaloosa as to why they aren't ranked # 1 or # 2 in the land. Georgia will still be number 1 most likely, though at the rate they are losing starters to injury they may be starting the Yell Leaders on offense by that point in the year. If Bama wins (god forbid) or even plays it close Between the Hedges, they will get more insufferable. A win and they'll probably get to 6-0 before a tough opening stretch.

By that time the noise will be deafening, and there will be plenty of bitching about OSU, USC, Florida, Oklahoma and other schools being ranked ahead of them and denying them their holy birthright of being the the BCS title game. Tide fans will curse the polls, the BCS, McCain, Obama, Putin and the Martians for this horrible injustice. Never mind that the Season is only half over and they have a bear of closing schedule. Never mind that if they really are so good they'll win out, including winning the SEC title game, and go straight to the Big Game. Then, after all this bitching, Bama will spit the bit in at least 2 remaining games, end up in a mid to low level bowl game, and the world will be in order again. If they lose to Georgia but not horribly they will hold that "moral victory" and waive it around all year, like a lamprey stuck on the Great White Shark that is Georgia. As long as Georgia wins they will claim that they are just as good because they almost beat them at Georgia. Maybe this is true (probably not), but it will be the most important loss in history.

I don't mean to pick on Tide fans (maybe a little) but I know how this works. I'll say this now, to all fans of all teams: calm down people. You're team is slighted by West Coast/East Coast/Anti Hick/Pro Redneck bias in the national media? Tough. Get to the end of the year undefeated and we'll talk. Until then, being 5-0 means exactly squat.

In closing, I have a bad feeling about the UCLA/Tennessee game tomorrow. UCLA is down to QB number.... hell I don't even know. Their defense and receivers are decent but their O-line is all new. Not Brand New as in straight out of the showroom, "new" as in I just picked it up at Salvation Army because they were nice enough to take my dad's old suit collection in trade. Good luck Bruins, you'll need it.