If the nation’s 2017 No. 1 recruit, running back Najee Harris from Antioch, California, stays true to his verbal commitment to the Alabama Crimson Tide, he will follow QB Blake Barnett as another recent top-rated California high school football player opting to play for St. Nick Saban. Indeed, Blake was “committed” to Notre Dame and then to Oregon (for a nano-second) before he tripped to Alabama, was seduced by …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out The czars who run college football must be ecstatic! With just a week to go in the regular college football season, the landscape is a complete mess. For the post-season lineup, there’s all sorts of room for drama, unfairness, passing out of unjust rewards, snubbing, hypocrisy — pretty much everything that we’re supposed to like about college …
Gambling is speculative at best, but if someone wanted to get rich quick last weekend, the opportunity was there. After Oregon and Alabama – the two winningest college football programs of the decade — both dropped their conference openers, they found themselves on an unfamiliar side of public opinion, or more specifically, of the Vegas odds-makers’ opinion. Oregon was a mere six-and-a-half point favorite over …
Predicting a game is hard … ask any athletic director in college football, who are often required to anticipate the quality of their opponents as far as a decade ahead. Contrast that challenge with the fact that TV networks rarely make scheduling decisions sooner than 12 days before broadcast. The variables are myriad. From weather to attendance, to finance … …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out This is the third annual preseason report on teams that I don’t think are going to live up to the hype. Why bother to read another preseason projection? So far — for 2013 and 2014 — I’m 5 for 6 in picking overrated teams. And this is the swimsuit edition. Or is that “addition” — hard to …
It is a run of historically unprecedented success for the Ducks. Five straight eleven-win seasons. Seven straight ten-win seasons. Four consecutive BCS bowl appearances during that run. Yet in every season going back nearly a decade, Oregon’s success has often come in spite of its play in November rather than because of it. Consider these November speedbumps: 2006: 7-2 after …
In a week when Mississippi State and Alabama were bound to mix up the College Playoff picture, it was another contender who watched its Playoff hopes vanish among the Giant Killers. Final Four Playoff Contenders – Alabama clears path with win over No.1 MSU Alabama – Coming off of an overtime win in Death Valley against LSU, Alabama headed home with …
Three-and-Out opens with a look at teams I predict will underachieve in 2014. Does my opinion mean anything? Well, here is a link to my hex on three teams for 2013. To sum it up for those of you in too much of a hurry to read the link, the teams I predicted would not meet preseason hype last year …
