College Football: (Week One) The Misery Index. (OK, so your team lost...)

You know the drill (unless you are an Alabama fan) the football season starts and you are full of hope and optimism. You look at the roster, the schedule, your coaching staff (unless you are LSU) and you think "this is OUR year".  The year your team finally reaches up and grabs the brass ring of the College Football Playoff where they will then go on a run and play in the CFP Championship game. Where. They. Will. Win.

You've already planned your travel, have asked everyone in your family, in advance, for additional travel money for your birthday and Christmas.  All that's left to do is navigate 13 games (12 if you're in the Big XII). It's all out there in front of you, destiny and one of the ugliest championship trophies ever designed.

Then the mostly 18-22 year old young men on which you are basing all the aspirations of your life go out and get thumped. Not only do they just lose, they do so, in your mind, in the most soul-sucking way. All is lost. Cancel Christmas and go ahead and plow down the football stadium.  No reason to move forward now. You've made the snap-decision to give up college football for a year. You'll take up gardening, or go for long Saturday hikes instead. You're not watching this crap school's team again until they hire a coach who can actually win.

This is all well and good except, and you know this, you won't be digging in the gardenias next Saturday, you'll be doing what you always do: Watching College football and hoping against hope that you can still make it as a one-loss team.

With that in mind it's time to take a look at the misery index, the amount of trouble that teams are in given the fact that they lost a high-profile game in week one.  And while it's silly to say that any team is eliminated from the CFP after one loss, some losses are worse than others.

1. Notre Dame (Misery index: 2.0) Yes the loss to Texas was a stunner, totally unexpected to fans-of-Irish-Eyes. However.

Reasons to hope: It was a loss on the road to a team that has an outside chance to win the Big XII. Texas will be ranked after beating you and you still have that long list of cupcakes "traditional rivals" on your schedule that will allow you to pile up wins. You also have some games with the relatively soft (this year) ACC and a game against USC, which looks to be as soft as a pillow this year. (more on them later.)  Plus, you're Notre Dame, and the CFP is BEGGING to get you in because you have what every college wants, a huge, nationwide, fan-base.

Reasons to despair: You have a good QB in Kizer, but your head coach seems intent on making sure everyone gets a participation award. This means that you're sure to see Zaire play at least some on the coming weeks.

Still, if Brian Kelly can figure out that Kizer is a stud, you still have the pieces in place to get to the playoff and make a run.  Dry those Irish Eyes.

2. Ole Miss (Misery Index: 4.2) Index does not include the potential that you're going to have to vacate all wins this year due to NCAA investigation.

Reasons to hope: Lookit, despite the fact that you blew a pretty good lead on Monday Night it was clear in that collapse that there's a ton of talent on this team. Kelly is a good quarterback and Engram was a stud WR in defeat. All in all your Rebels are a good team that played a bad game. Unfortunately.....

Reasons to despair: There is a growing thought that your coach is just not hardwired to win big games. His offense is great, but it's a one-trick pony. You may never just "run out the clock" when you need to.  And your QB is related to Jim Kelly (who, BTW, was looking GREAT on TV last night. Good to see) who is best known for losing four straight Super Bowls.

Still, if you can put it together against the SEC you'll automatically get the SEC "shine" that should still get you into the playoffs.

3. LSU (Misery Index: 6.8) Les Miles' seat is uncomfortably warm right about now.

Reasons to hope: You still have Leonard Fournette, and a pretty good o-line that can carry you to the win in a LOT of games. You also have a decent defense. And your schedule is still favorable this year.

Reasons to despair: You also are coached by a man who doesn't seem to understand how to run an advanced offense, or how to properly use the assets at his disposal.  And Cam Cameron is a fossil wrapped in a relic offensively. Also, Brandon Harris is your starting QB which is a problem. A BIG problem.

On the bright side, it appears that Charlie Strong and Kevin Sumlin can possibly do enough to save their jobs so you might win the Tom Herman derby next off-season.

4. OU (Misery index: 8.0) You should BEG the preseason rankings people to rank you 11-25 in the future.

Reasons to hope: Mixon looked good, and your defense played well (at times), plus you're playing in a Big XII conference that didn't exactly appear to be world-beaters over the weekend. Plus, if UH runs the table and you do as well you might get in if the ACC, Pac-12, B1G and SEC beat themselves up. Alabama appears to be a lock, but the other three slots are still wide-open.

Reasons to despair: It is really starting to appear that Bob Stoops should have fired Mike Stoops instead of Brent Venables a few years back. And Baker Mayfield showed early signs of having a Trevor Knight "Oh my Gawd" fall apart year following a good year. Plus, UT-Austin looked pretty damn salty against Notre Dame, and you couldn't even beat them LAST year when they weren't that good.

To be honest this feels like an 8-4 OU team, which is what we see when they play without that chip on their shoulder all too frequently.

5. USC (Misery index: 9.9) Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here. (Sort of)

Reasons to hope: OK, you lost, 52 to freaking 6.  But this is Alabama and they have a history of doing this to teams in week one. Plus, the only team in the Pac-12 that looks to be pretty good was Stanford.

Reasons to despair: Where to we start? You got housed by Alabama and your team didn't just seem to quit, they rolled up into the football equivalent of the fetal position. There was a time that you couldn't even cleanly execute the center/QB exchange. Also, Son of "Love Coach" appears to be slightly in over his head. This wasn't just a whooping, it was a soul-sucking whooping.

On the bright side, you have the Los Angeles Rams to distract you this year.


Extra Credit: Mississippi State. (Misery index: off the scale) This, is bad.

Reasons to hope: Wait until NEXT year!!!!

Reasons to despair: You just got beat by a school that's only been playing tackle football since 2009. AND you were a 20+ point favorite to boot. Add to this the fact that your head coach is desperately searching for a way out of town and you have a long, ugly road ahead of you.


Oh well everyone:  On to Week 2!!!!

College Football: (Week 1) We made it out alive.

College football Saturday kicked off at 7:30AM EST and finally finished Sunday morning at 4:30AM EST. That means if you were somehow able to watch it all you gorged on 21 hours of non-stop, continuous football action.

Congrats.

I, did not.  In fact I started the day with Game Day on ESPN, watched UH/OU and then spent the rest of the day cooking food, drinking various forms of alcohol and figuring out where to set my 3 TV's to get the biggest bang for the buck.

There were a lot of choices.

I've recapped most of them on my last post so I'll just stick to Sunday and Monday here, and then throw some dirt on the first FIVE of the season which started, as most do, rather less good than planned.

If there was a theme on Saturday, Sunday and Monday night it was this:  Bad coaching makes good teams into bad teams very quickly. Whether it's Gus Malzahn doing questionable things with his quarterback rotation, or running the High School based, Wing-T offense (Odessa Permian represent) or Brian Kelly inexplicably going back to the Zaire well or even Hugh Freeze refusing to slow down his offenses tempo when he had a lead and the situation called for it, many of the losses that we saw were the result of bad coaching on the part of the losing side.

This is not to take anything away from Clemson, UT-Austin or Florida State. All three teams looked good and each is going to have a say in their conference championships methinks. But bad coaching is always bad coaching and it seems to be a constant when evaluating the losing side.

Before you suggest that I'm piling on, that's not true, because I've got my own personal bad to own up to:  Last week's Five.

1. Tulane on the ML for the upset over Wake Forest. L (0-1) - OK, to be fair, had I gone conservative and picked Tulane to cover (+17) the 3-7 score would have made me look smart. Instead, I pulled the trigger on the upset call failing to realize that Tulane has one of the worst offensive lines in the history of man.

2. FIU to cover 9.5. L (0-2) - For one half this was looking like a great pick. Then the 2nd half happened and FIU crumbled. The final score was 34-13 as it just took Indiana a little bit to get their offense on track. c'est la vie.

3. Clemson to cover -7.5. L (0-3) - Yet another pick that looked halfway decent late, until it didn't. It's not exactly a back-door loss as much as it's overestimating how bad Auburn was. They aren't that bad and their defense is better than I gave them credit for. In fact, they should have won this game.

4. Arkansas State to cover -3.5. L (0-4) - Not only did the Red Wolves not cover, they got destroyed 31-10 by a Toledo team that I think is only 2nd tier in the MAC, at best. I had ArkSt in with a chance at the Sun Belt Title. I'm going to have to rethink that over the next few weeks.

5. Houston to cover 12. W (1-4) - If only I had made this my "upset special" we might have been on to something.  By now I'm sure you've seen the highlights of the game. But what you didn't see was how the Cougars physically dominated the Sooners in almost all aspects of the game.  It hasn't been covered much in the media, but the hit that a UH put on Perine that knocked him out of the game was sudden and stunning. That's the type of hit that Perine typically puts on his opposition.


So, it's 1-4 to start the season which is actually an improvement over an 0-5 start last year.  The good news? I rebounded in week 2 and for much of the rest of the season.  Let's see if we can do the same starting next week.

On paper the list of games next week is not near as strong as what we had this week. But it's still college football, and it will still be chock full of surprises.

Now, let's all go get some rest.

College Football: Thoughts on Saturday, Sept 3rd

By the time the Alabama game ended I was bleary eyed. It had been a long, long day of college football. A spectacular day full of upsets, blowouts, close games and 3 OT thrillers. And while I admit that I didn't stay up for the last one, Wyoming beat NIU in 3OT's somewhere around 3:30 AM CST, I did watch quite a lot of it.  Here are my thoughts on the same:

1. Alabama is good, Nick Saban is evil.  The win over USC proved some things that I thought would be true. Clay Helton, son of Love Coach, is not going to be the head coach to get the Trojans back to the top of the mountain. Alabama is going to be incredibly good, Lane Kiffin is a good OC, and is going to get a HC job again, and promptly run another program into the ground.

2.The SEC is NOT good  this year. Outside of Alabama who looked good? LSU and Auburn have no offense and lost because of it. Florida might have a good team, but they're weak at the skill positions. (Del Rio is overrated as a QB IMO). Miss State has a coach who wants out so badly he can't hardly stand it (and they have no QB). Georgia and Texas aTm looked pretty good, but do you think either can beat Bama?

3. The Big XII had an awful first Saturday, with OU losing and TCU struggling. Only Baylor won big, against lesser competition. They desperately need Texas to look good against Notre Dame today. Otherwise they might want to invite Houston to join this year, if they want a place in the CFP that is. Oh, and Kansas won a game for the first time in almost two years.

4. Houston is good. The biggest surprise to me is not that UH won, it's that they looked to be a physical match for the Sooners. Houston had just as many, if not more athletes on the field as the Sooners, and they appeared to be better, stronger, faster throughout the lineup. Want to see something scary? Go find the video of the Houston LB knocking OU running back Perine out of the game in the 1st half. Usually you see Perine giving those hits, not taking them.  Herman has a monster on his hands.

5. Good day for the B1G. Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin all looked good. And yes, there are questions about Michigan State (who struggled) and we know that there are bad teams in this conference (Hi Rutgers!) but the big guns looked like big guns and if things continue then "The Game" this year could be spectacular.

6. The ACC is not going to be very good.  The UNC loss hurt, and the Clemson win was not spectacular. In fact, outside of Clemson it's hard to look at the ACC and say that they have any other team that's belonging in the Top 10.Miami looked good, but against lesser competition. The ACC is looking to Florida State...and hoping.

7. The PAC 12 had an awful day.  And I'm not just talking about USC. Washington State lost to an FCS opponent for the 2nd straight year, Arizona lost to BYU. Oregon and Arizona State looked average.  And UCLA's vaunted offense struggled in College Station vs. the Aggies. At least it appears that Stanford is a real contender.

8. All of that said, it's JUST ONE DAY, and every year we're reminded that an early loss, especially in week one, is not the worst thing in the world. Nor is an early win the biggest sign of future success.

9. We need to ban preseason polls. They make no sense, are not worth anything, and they skew the conversation. Clemson did not look like the #2 team in the country, and two of the top 5 lost.  Let's skip the polls and just play the first 5 or so weeks before we worry about ranking teams.

10. Yesterday was a long, exciting, spectacular day. I can't wait for next week where the matchups are nowhere near as exciting, but still should provide a surprise or three.

11. My five this week was a shambles, as it is week one every year.  That said, in all games I did better than average. What I need to do (again) is improve my confidence rankings. I'll have a full 5 write-up later today or tomorrow.

12, Two final thoughts.....
       1. Some Kansas fans rushed the field after beating FCS Rhode Island, a team who went 1-10 last year.  While it is funny, and Kansas fans are lashing out on social media, you can kind of understand why they did this. Their last win was 34-14 over Iowa State. November 8, 2014.
      2. The best thing you're going to see from yesterday was Nebraska's missing man formation in memory of teammate Sam Foltz, who was tragically killed in a car accident in the off season.  Well done Huskers.

College Football: The Morning After (Best Opening Weekend In a While)

ESPN, as they do, is hyping this college football opening as THE BEST OPENING WEEKEND EVER!!  And while I'm not sure about that, ever being a long time after all, I do know that the schedule of games this long opening weekend is pretty strong.  As is typically the case, with no pre-season games, revolving-door rosters, we're bound to get a shock or three as good teams who will probably end up the season pretty strong stumble out of the gate.

Because of this fact all of the analysis and voodoo that college football "experts" and betting "experts" claim to have boils down, in many cases, to blind, random, luck on week one.

Last night was a good example of that.  As Tennessee struggled to squeak past Appalachian State in overtime, winning by falling on a fumble by their own QB in the end zone, people who predicted the Volunteers to run away with the game had egg on their faces, and touts who gave out App State on the ML were proclaiming themselves geniuses. And then the final drive happened, and the App State ML touts faded away while the App State "cover" folks told us that they knew it all the time and we could know it too for just $500 for the entire season.

All of this is fine except, they didn't know it. NO ONE knew it. This is a game that I passed on because Tennessee is just too much of an unknown. I THINK they're going to be good by the end of the season (and they survived here) but I'm not sure. I will say this, which should cheer up Vols fans. People forget that it was the same Michigan team that lost to App State that finished 9-3 which included a win over the then Tim Tebow-led (and Urban Meyer coached) Florida Gators in the Gator Bowl.  So, they have that going for them.

Louisville looked good but they looked good against the 125th power-ranked team in the country. To be honest, playing a tough FCS team might have been a tougher out than Charlotte. Leonard Jackson appears to be the honest, real-deal at QB though. It will be interesting to see what he can do against better.

My "FIVE" had a rough start. I picked Tulane on the ML, which, in retrospect was a mistake. Had I picked them to cover I would have been feeling much better about the state of things this morning. I was right about one thing however: Wake Forest isn't going to be very good. The thing that I was wrong about was that Tulane had any talent on the roster at all.  Offensively anyway. I still think there's going to be value in betting toward Willie Fitz's side, but to cover, not to win with that pitiful offense.

FIU looked like they were going to salvage my start against Indiana, until halftime, when they suddenly decided to just up and stop playing. The result was a missed cover leaving me with an 0-2 start and looking toward tonight's Toledo/Arkansas State (ASU to cover) tie to get me off the ground so I have a CHANCE on Saturday to have a winning first week. I always start slow however, I think the last two years I've gone 0-5 in week one (due, in part, to stupid decisions [see above]) so there's always hope (and week 2).

Coach Mason of Vanderbilt should be on the hot seat. His team did everything imaginable last night to NOT win the game against South Carolina.  Speaking of the Gamecocks, they looked horrible. They were sloppy, inefficient, offensively inept. In essence, a Will Muschamp team.

Either Minnesota is not as good as we thought or Oregon State is better than we thought. I'm not sure which is true yet.

Connecticut, (24-21 over Maine), Cincinnati (28-7 over Tennessee Martin) and Rice (beat 46-14 by Western Kentucky) all showed poorly and gave rise to a lot of Big XII expansion jokes on social media last night.  But one game, even a poorly played one, shouldn't matter. In fact it doesn't matter. That's why UH, even IF OU houses them, which I don't think will happen, and Cincinnati still appear to be the front-runners to me.

4 more days left in this opening weekend. Pace yourself.

The Five: Kicking off 2016 with a bang (hopefully)

With college football starting Thursday September 1st it's never a bad idea to kick off this year's 5 in style.

As a reminder, I will be handicapping 5 games that will count toward my season-long stats. These are games that I do not necessarily consider plays, but games in which I feel fairly confident about. The idea, at the end of the season, is to finish north of 53% which would be a profitable season by Las Vegas standards, taking into account the Vig.  I'll keep running tabs every week as to my progress and the posts will remain up including the date/time of posting although they're probably written well before the post is actually published. In most cases I'm probably writing this on Wednesday evening. (I will guarantee that it's almost in all cases for that matter).

As such, all lines will be taken from 5Dimes.com via oddsshark and will be accurate as of 7:00PM Central Time the Wednesday before the games start. (That's what time it is right now, as I'm writing this on Wed. August 31st and I plan to make it a routine and keep it that way.) If there's any deviation from this, I will note it in the individual post.

Reminder: These picks are for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered either an invitation for wagering, or a solicitation of a wager which would be illegal.

Disclaimer: If you're taking pick advice from a rotund, 40-something accountant from Houston, get some professional help.

And so, without further ado:

The First Five of the 2016 College Football Season!

1. Tulane @ Wake Forest (-17) - Tulane might be an angle that I work hard in the early going. Their head coach has a history of turning programs into winners quickly.  Plus, I don't think Wake Forest is all that good.  Tulane 27 Wake Forest 17.  Tulane on the ML for the upset.

2. Indiana (-9.5) @ Florida International. There are a couple of things that I look for in a 5 upset First is a favorite with a weakness, 2nd is an underdog that can exploit said weakness. You have both in FIU. Indiana 35 FIU 31. FIU to cover 9.5

3. Clemson (-7.5) @ Auburn. In order to think Auburn can cover you have to think they're going to be pretty good this year.  I don't and they shouldn't.  Clemson 45 Auburn 17. Clemson to cover 7.5

4. Toledo @ Arkansas State (-3.5) There's a lot to like about a strong MAC vs. Sunbelt matchup, especially an Ark State team that could surprise some people this year.  Toledo 24 Ark State 38. Arkansas State to cover -3.5

5. Oklahoma (-12) @ Houston. I've been pushing this game as one of the early season games of the year for a while now. I think it's a game of the year type and I truly think that Houston can win outright.  For entertainment purposes however....Oklahoma 33 Houston 31. Houston to cover 12.

Of course, these five aren't the ONLY games being played during one of the better opening weekends in recent college football memory.  As will be the norm, I'll look at some of the other games (and the Michigan game) but they don't count toward the season stats. Some of these games ALMOST made the 5 but were eliminated due to an uncertainty, or just a funny feeling I had handicapping.



Georgia Tech (-3) @ Boston College. Boston College is going to have a spectacular defense, Georgia Tech is going to test that with what should be their best team to date. Georgia Tech to cover in Ireland, but only by a little. GaTech 17 Boston College 9

Missouri @ West Virginia (-10) Every year I want to believe that WVU is the real deal and every year I just cannot do it. The reason for this is because I think Dana Holgerson is a fantastic offensive coordinator, but a horrible head coach.  That said, Mizzou is going to suck.  Mizzou 10 WVU 45. (Left out of the 5 due to the Holgerson factor)

UCLA @ Texas aTm (-3). aTm is a popular pick here, but Aggie fans are relying on Trevor Freaking Knight.  And Sumlin is losing this team.  Give me Rosen and my questions about Mora as a HC any day.  UCLA 38 aTm 24 (Knight with 3 INT's in the game)

LSU (-10) @ Wisconsin. Fournette is amazing, LSU needs a quarterback. Lather, rinse repeat.  But Wisky is no slouch itself running the ball right? We've seen the pondering B1G team vs. the fast/athletic SEC story before. LSU 31 Wisc 3. (out of the 5 because LSU's QB could throw a dozen INT's, or none.)

Georgia (-2.5) @ North Carolina. This one could go any which way to be honest. I think UNC is going to win their ACC division this year, I have no idea what to expect from Georgia. Georgia 17 UNC 31. (But I would lay off this game way off. Like, on the other side of town off)

USC @ Alabama (-11.5). We've seen this game before: Alabama is a big opening favorite against a name opponent on week one. The pundits try to talk themselves into believing it will be a close game. Trust me, it won't. USC is overrated.  USC 10 Alabama 38. (Unless USC is for real.  Then...watch out)

Clemson (-7.5) @ Auburn. If you pick Auburn you have to think the Tigers/War Eagle/Plainsmen are going to be good. They're not. Clemson 45 Auburn 3 (Only thing keeping me from putting this in my five is prior history with Clemson. They're a 'me' killer.)

Notre Dame (-3) @ Texas. The sexy upset pick for just about every pundit who doesn't work for NBC. (Who has the ND football contract you see). I think Texas is better, and should make a bowl game, but this game won't advance that argument.  ND 28 Texas 14.

Brigham Young @ Arizona (-1.5). Taysom Hill gets the start for BYU. This is a feel good story and the team is much better with him in the lineup. But coach RichRod has a real team this year in the PAC12. BYU 24 Arizona 28. (Too close to call.)

Ole Miss @ Florida State (-4). Honestly, I'm surprised the line is this close. Ole Miss 13 Florida State 27. (My worry is if Ole Miss comes out angry due to all of the negative press they've absorbed.)


And finally.......

Hawai'i @ Michigan (-40.5) After watching Hawai'i flail around against Cal it's easy to see why people are saying Michigan will beat them by 80.  I don't think that happens on the 1st game of the season with a new QB in place.  Much of the optimism surrounding Michigan has to do with how they finished the year last year. People are quick to forget that Michigan team got progressively better as the year went on. Largely due to the improving play of Rudock.  The Wolverines should win comfortably, but it will be closer than 40 methinks.  Hawai'i 7 Michigan 38.




Good luck to all of you if you're choosing to wager this Holiday weekend.

College Football: The UFC/Boxing Fight Card View of Full Weekend 1.

College football is back.  And, if you're like me, this makes this weekend one of the better weekends of the year.  It doesn't hurt that there are watchable games on tonight through Monday.  Good games even. Some you might not have considered.

When I think of this weekend I think of either a UFC or boxing fight card.  From that view, let's take a look at some of the more interesting match-ups.

Thursday, September 1st. (The Pre-show)

The UFC does this more than boxing, it schedules fights on a "pre" show that's either streamed online or aired on an alternate channel before the Pay-Per-View.  That's how I view Thursday.  Here are the key matches. Which also provides a guideline for what I plan to watch this weekend.

Opening bout: Appalachian State vs. Tennessee (6:30PM CT, SEC Network)

Tennessee is a prospect from whom big things are expected this year. App State is the plucky underdog that was very good in a smaller promotion, but is trying to prove themselves in the big leagues. App State has a puncher's chance, but I think the Vols are just too good.

Bout 2: Indiana @ Florida International (6:30PM CT, ESPNU)

You've maybe heard of one of these fighters, at least you THINK you remember something about them but, you're not sure.  One thing is for sure, there could be some offensive fireworks here.

Bout 3: Rice @ Western Kentucky (7:00PM CT, CBSSN)

Two guys who made their bones battling it out in smaller promotions go at it in the most undercard of undercard bouts. This is like when Legacy and XFC square off in MMA. I give the edge to Western Kentucky here, but I think Rice scores a little.

Bout 4: South Carolina @ Vanderbilt (7:00PM CT, ESPN)

Hey, you know these guys right? The one was a former title contender with a big name that got dropped, but is promising to come back stronger than ever. The 2nd is a plucky contender who is always a tough out.  I have Vanderbilt in this with a good chance to knock off the aging former contender. South Carolina has a long way to go.

Bout 5: Oregon State @ Minnesota (8:00PM CT, BTN)

This will be billed as the "main event" of the evening but we all know that the prior bout was the best one. Imagine a shop-worn, beaten up, but flashy. former contender facing off against a tough, tough man. Oregon State is going to head to Minnesota to get whipped. It's a paycheck fight.

Friday, September 2nd. (The undercard)

These games are going to be more hit and miss. There are a lot of mismatches designed to promote prospects, and fights where a prospect plays against a last-minute replacement fighter. Still, there's some hope.

Bout 6: Army @ Temple (6:00PM CT, CBSSN)

Army is the aged old pro, fighting because that's all they know how to do. Temple is a career mid-card fighter looking for one more run.  Temple rolls.

Bout 7: Colorado vs. Colorado State. (7:00PM, CT, ESPN)

It's no secret that these two fighters don't like one another all that well, they grew up together in the same neighborhood, trained at the same gym etc. And while both have fallen on hard times they still can be expected to put on a show. Plus, one of them, at least, appears to be on the cusp of a career resurgence. Should be an interesting game to watch.

Bout 8: Kansas State @ Stanford (8:00PM, CT, FS1)

Kansas State is the old, former champion limping into the hometown of the upstart challenger in search of one last fight. As we kick off coach Bill Snyder's final year let's hope for his sake that they still have at least a puncher's chance this year. Probably not in this game against the Cardinal but somewhere.

Bout 9: Toledo @ Arkansas State (8:00PM, CT, ESPNU)

Again, while the game above would have been the main event, I think this has the potential to be the much better game. These are two fighters that, when you hear their names, you THINK you remember seeing them once before but aren't sure. I think this is going to be a spectacular game with Arkansas State getting the win.

Saturday, September 3rd (Fight Night)

It's madness. I touch on a lot of these games in my Week 1 Five, but to my mind there are four main events, OU vs. Houston, Wisconsin vs. LSU, UCLA vs. aTm, and Alabama vs USC.

But, there are a TON of other good games on Saturday, and college football always has a way of providing a surprise or three.

Then, the best part?  There are still games to come on Sunday and Monday.


College Football is back.  Thank goodness.