Three Weeks Until Kickoff!

The college football season is fast approaching, with the first games to be held the last weekend of this month. Yes, the lull from the January bowl games to Labor Day is about over, giving fans from Athens to Laramie and everywhere else a chance to cheer on their favorite teams.

LSU was crowned champion last season despite doing what no other #1 team had done previously — they lost two twice before knocking off Ohio State 38-24 in the BCS title game.

LSU Opens Light

This year, LSU starts the season on August 30th against Appalachian State (ASU), the top team from the formerly known as 1-AA division. That ASU team started the 2007 season with a shocking victory on the University of Michigan’s field, but don’t expect LSU to be caught looking when the Mountaineers from Boone, NC come to town. LSU follows up its opening contest with games against Troy and North Texas before heading into SEC play.

Early Season Tilt

With major college football now a twelve game season, most schools are electing to pad their schedules with a subdivision team or a weak BCS team in a bid to get that extra win and position themselves for a higher post season bowl opportunity. Not so with Ohio State and USC who will be meeting each other, Rose Bowl style, at the L.A. Coliseum on Saturday, September 13th.

Both schools have a decent conference schedule this year with most of their toughest games at home. Whether worthy of that distinction or not, the winner of this tilt will be an early season favorite to play at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, FL on January 8, 2009. Me thinks that several other programs will take exception to this theory, including several powerhouses from the SEC.

Any Fight Left In The Irish?

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish made history last year, but not the kind of history the Irish are noted for.  Fresh off a 10-3 season in 2006, Irish faithful expected much in 2007, but got very little. Three wins to be exact and a heart-wrenching home loss to Navy. The arm of Jimmy Clausen will guide the troops this year, but it is the defense that needs the most improvement, a unit that gave up 29 points per game last season.

Sporting News says that the Irish are the #28 team on their Top 50 list for 2008 and NBC recently extended their exclusive TV contract with the university through the 2015 season. Expect the team to forget last season as soon as they take the field when they open up against San Diego State on September 6th.

Big East, Not The Least

A few years back when the Big East Conference lost its top three teams, the Miami Hurricanes, Boston College Eagles, and Virginia Tech Hokies, most pundits said that the conference’s ability to compete on the national level would be limited to only one team: the West Virginia Mountaineers. Since the Big 3 fled for the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big East’s fortunes have actually improved while the ACC still remains a full step behind the SEC.

This year, West Virginia is expected to shine, but the South Florida Bulls are right up there as well. In addition, a renewed Pitt Panther team should be bowl bound while UConn, Rutgers, Louisville, and Cincinnati, battle for the two remaining post season positions.  Speaking of Rutgers, will Ray Rice’s early exit to the NFL hurt the team and will the State of New Jersey find enough money to fully fund the stadium upgrade?

Lots Of Coverage This Fall

SayCampusLife will keep an eye on big time college football this fall, but we’ll throw in a few surprises including some smaller school programs and other tidbits. The season starts early, but by the time the first fall chill is in the air, we’ll have a good idea just how far some of these teams will go.

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Tags: ACC, ASU, Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 10, Big East, college sports, Fighting Irish, football, Louisville Cardinals, LSU Tigers, Navy, NCAA, Notre Dame, Ohio State Buckeyes, Pac 10, Pitt Panthers, Rutgers Scarlet Knights, San Diego State, SEC, South Florida Bulls, Sporting News, UConn Huskies, USC Trojans, West Virginia Mountaineers

The bowl games are over (all 32 of them) ending what some have called the most turbulent year in memory. Starting with Michigan’s stunning loss to Appalachian State and ending with the crowning of LSU as national champions, the year was a roller coaster one as high ranked teams seemed to lose on a weekly basis. Indeed, LSU is the first team in the history of major college football to be crowned the national champion with two losses.

The major college teams, what are now called BCS (bowl champion series) division schools, rake in hundreds of millions of dollars each year in revenue thanks to ticket sales, promotional offers, championship games, and the bowl games. Throw in clothing rights and other advertising options and the revenue generated each year is probably in the billions of dollars.

Those universities fielding a high ranked team can expect to reap more than ten million dollars from a major bowl appearance alone.  Teams that were selected for the Fiesta, Orange, Sugar, Rose, and BCS Bowls each earned $17 million from the bowls, an amount many college administrators salivate over.

One administrator, Michael F. Adams of Georgia, apparently has had enough with the current system and is calling for an eight-team playoff system to be introduced citing inequity of the current set up. What Adams doesn’t mention is that his Georgia Bulldogs, who also lost twice this season, wasn’t in a position to compete for the national championship. Although the Bulldogs had the opportunity to play in the high-paying Sugar Bowl, it wasn’t enough.

Some see Adams’ call for a playoff system to be hypocritical. Columnist Jason Whitlock, for example, said as much and is urging that the NCAA “adopt” top high school football and basketball athletes by providing them with a college prep education. As only a handful of college players ever make it to the pro ranks, most will graduate college with barely the skills to make it in life.

Whitlock’s call, in my opinion, is refreshing as much as it is revealing. College sports, enjoyed by millions, benefits the coffers of the universities more than the future of its student-athletes. Like Whitlock, I believe paying college students to play isn’t the way to go, but making sure that they are equipped to compete in the world later on makes perfect sense.

Will the universities go with Whitlock’s suggestions? Probably not.  Instead, we’re likely to see more money pour into college sports with little residual benefit for the players.

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Tags: college bowl games, college football, college search, Jason Whitlock, Kansas City Star, LSU Tigers, NCAA Football, Ohio State Buckeyes, scholarship search