2014-2015 NCAA College Football Thread

[cubby]

The season starts up this month, first official game is Aug 27th (go Abeline Christian! - ) and then some pretty interesting games to follow into the first full weekend.

Biggest issue is the start of the NCAA Playoff Series; but of course will include early Heisman candidates, including any dark horses (or repeats) along with whether the SEC will continue it's dominance in the national champion games or whether there is another league that can start to topple them; along with hundreds of other topics.

It should be another great season!

[Pendulous]

I have low expectations for Florida, and lower than usual for Alabama. Just too much lost the past two years to the draft, and so far nothing that has been proven. I can see three easy losses for Florida: Alabama, LSU, and FSU. I don't see Auburn doing as well either. I can't wait to see how Texas A&M and Missouri continue into the SEC.

[Xibu]

Iowa Hawkeyes with the easiest schedule in existance. See you boys in the playoffs.

[ItachiZaku]

Penciling in Duke Johnson for heisman, unless Stacy Coley repeats what he did last season and steals some of his shiny. A lot will depend on the QB situation, the spring game was trash on all levels of quarterbacking, but Kaaya is pushing Heaps, so we'll just have to see. We have an early season confidence booster when we travel to Lincoln (I should be at that game, but $400 a ticket? damn), as the Cornhuskers just lost 3 defensive starters for the season, btu Abdullah is going to be really tough (our defense was garbage last season). I hope Denzel is up for the challenge.

As always, there is no reason for my Canes to not win it all. Nothing on the schedule scares me. That means we'll probably finish 9-4 or some shit as we fuck ourselves out of a few wins.

[xskarma]

Aha, a College thread!

I'm still pretty new to football, but have been increasingly involved in following the pros and had toyed with the idea to start following college football to get a better knowledge of where all those pros are coming from and what the hype is all about when the draft happens (which is a part of the NFL I love).

So, deciding to follow college ball I needed a team to follow, since that gives some direction to my viewing and gives me a more then casual interest. I wanted a pro style college team, since that's the kind of game play I enjoy seeing, not the spread offence crap most college teams play. At first I was going to follow Michigan, since that's where Tom Brady came from, so that was a nice tie to it for me, but then I read about the QB for Oregon State, and how he absolutely nailed a competition for accuracy in Peyton Manning's football camp this year. Story in question.

So, that intrigued me, and I decided I was going to follow what this guy was going to do this year, and see if my impression that this guy might be the best QB coming out next year was going to come to fruition or not, or if he had all the arm talent, but not enough of the mental make up to excell in the pros.

TL;DR: I'm going to try and watch (and support!) Oregon State this season. Yay!

First game is Saturday, and I have no clue what I'm getting into, so should be fun

[TheFNK]

Guys!

Meaningful Football is back!!!

[TheFNK]

There should be no preseason rankings. Watching SC vs. Texas A&M there is no way SC looks like a top 10 team. That D is getting shredded.

Yeah they are beating up on that Freshman secondary

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Look I know S Carolina was ranked #9 and so A&M beating them at #21 is supposed to be SUPER MEGA STUNNER UPSET OF THE CENTURY.

But we all know those preseason rankings are worthless so maybe turn the hyperbole down a bit there sports media.

[Pendulous]

xskarma, interesting choice. Good luck with it.

South Carolina looked like shit, but it's still one game. Jitters, not seeing TAMU, a number of factors could have contributed. But no, ESPN, the new qb for TAMU isn't the next Johnny football because he had one great game. Couldn't hype it more.

[xskarma]

xskarma, interesting choice. Good luck with it.

Spanks. I was just looking at the conference Oregon State is in (I only knew they played Oregon too, which seemed fun as that's a more nationally known school) and it turns out the conference also holds USC and Stanford and UCLA, which are all well known schools that have produced several pro players I know (and in Stanford's case several linemen drafted for the Patriots) and there's also Arizona (where Gronkowski played for college).

So there's more reasons to watch these games then just 1 more or less randomly picked QB. I do have to acknowledge though that I might not last watching college football. It's an experimental thing.

What's the best place to follow general College Football news though? I'm using ESPN right now, but they seem to make it hard to follow specific conferences not named SEC. =/

[ItachiZaku]

TL;DR: I'm going to try and watch (and support!) Oregon State this season. Yay!

Many years ago I bought an Oregon State Beavers jersey for 3 reasons:
1. Coached by former Hurricanes coach Dennis Erickson
2. Beat the shit out of Notre Dame in the bowl game
3. BEAVERS!

They did produce Steven Jackson, so you at least have one pro worth mentioning. Good luck, they play in a tough conference this year, and like you said, a lot of well known teams in there as well.

[Pendulous]

Alabama's defense can't seem to stop West Virginia's no huddle offense.

[TheFNK]

Alabama's defense can't seem to stop West Virginia's no huddle offense.

Bama looks middling overall. Yates looks pretty good. But they aren't impressive otherwise.

[xskarma]

First I was too early cause I botched the timezone conversion, and then I was half an hour late to start watching only to find the game had actually progressed to the last 2 minutes of the first half allready.

So, not seen how it happened, but Oregon State is actually behind against Portland state, and the team didn't look all that great in the few snaps I saw. Hope they set things straight in the second half. =/

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My god, what have I done?! Can I still change my rooting interest? I'm not seeing anything positive by the Oregon State offense, and they are supposedly against inferior competition right now. Don't even want to know how these guys will look when they are up against a real defense. I mean I saw some UCLA earlier in the break, and their defense would murder this offense I think.

[Pendulous]

You can change it on a whim, karma, if you should so desire. Portland State is, like, a 2a school (or whatever they call it nowadays), so that's a little depressing.

Sims is also making some bad decisions and bad throws, and Alabama is getting some really bad calls going their way. Hopefully it's things that can be fixed by playing more together, since there are a lot of new starters, including Sims.

[xskarma]

Okay, so the team has been doing some nice things on defense at least, forcing turnovers. After such a turnover they just took a dump off to the RB 20+ yards for a TD, so maybe they can salvage this.

Still, I was going to watch this team for the posibility of excellent QB play, and have seen very little of that so far. He's not leading his recievers but seems to play reactively only delivering when they are pretty much allready open. Something to monitor the rest of the way. =/

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Yeesh, what a quality of play. I've now seen 6 turnovers allready I think, both fumbles and interceptions, and I missed pretty much the whole first half!

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Well Oregon State won the game easily in the end, but it wasn't all that pretty.

Things I learned: Brandin Cooks played for OS last year, which is a cool fact cause I like that guy and expect big things from him on the Saints. And they don't actually play UCLA this year, for some reason (scheduling I'm guessing) so they dodge that defensive bullet.

Next up for Oregon State: Hawaii. (apparently they have a soft start to the season)

[Pendulous]

A lot of teams schedule baby games early on, for warm-ups basically.

[TheFNK]

Things I learned: Brandin Cooks played for OS last year, which is a cool fact cause I like that guy and expect big things from him on the Saints.

You and me both!

WHO DAT!

[cubby]

The problem is that with no preseason games, these are some of the first touches some of these guys have seen. Alabama, UCLA and Ohio St all looked bad, but we need more than the first game of the season to really get a feel for them. And even then, nothing is sacred - which is why college ball rules.

I have nothing to say about S. Carolina, even with first game jitters, should have been better.

[xuros]

Refs in that fucking LSU Wis game are horrible. How the fuck do you not call a PI when the DB RUNS INTO THE reciever and knocks him down and does not make a play for the ball before the ball gets there.

[Pendulous]

Florida/Idaho was officially canceled due to weather. Oh well.