By this time next week you will be happy or sad for multiple reasons. Your favorite team will have taken the field and either given you hope for the season or made you dread the rest of it. The majority of fans will witness their teams feasting on early-season “cupcakes.” A few teams will step up to the plate in Week 1 with some great out-of-conference games, including Georgia vs. Clemson. Immediately following that game one team’s fans will place their coach on a throne while the other coach is placed on the proverbial “hot seat.” That one game for both schools could define the whole season. The “Player’s Discipline” bowl will bring some excitement with LSU challenging TCU in Dallas at the annual Cowboys Classic. If TCU wins, then Coach Patterson can just smirk at the great Les Miles as he leaves the field. Hold on, only four days away from putting this excruciating offseason behind us. Now let’s get into some news and thoughts from around the College Football Nation:
1. Now that fall camps have come to a close, most schools have decided on their starting quarterback. Let the hype begin down in Tallahassee for Jameis Winston, while out in Oklahoma we had an upset when Coach Stoops chose the Knight over the Bulldozer. Now those guys can finally prepare for their first game of the season. Maybe USC coach Lane Kiffin should take some notes on how to pick a starting quarterback, because it just baffles Wide receiver Marqise Lee that no one has been named the starter yet. Heck, even Oklahoma State made up their mind, even though they decided to use two quarterbacks for the opener. I am a big fan of coaches naming a starter, even in tight races, and just going with it. The more you put off a selection the more you delay an offense from jelling as a unit.
Michigan did not hesitate switching quarterbacks last year, and it worked out well. Just pick a guy and go.
2. Here’s one more way to get your favorite team involved at the tailgater. Sonic Drive-In is now putting logos of your favorite school on the bun. I think it is a pretty cool idea. More fast food chains should follow their lead and start making products available with college based designs. They’ll soon learn, as have a hundred other industries, consumers will purchase just about anything if it has their favorite team’s logo on it.
3. All summer I have written about Texas A&M’s high-maintenance star quarterback Johnny Manziel, so why stop now. “Johnny Football” was voted Second Team All-SEC to begin the season. Yes, second team. He won the Heisman Trophy last year and can’t catch a break in his own conference. We can all agree this happened because of all his off-season antics. It just goes to demonstrate how college athletes lack anonymity and must really think before they act. That message is being preached to all Big Ten Conference players by league commissioner Jim Delany. College athletes, especially those playing in sports with large fan bases, must operate at a higher level of behavioral standards. Operating in the spotlight means that after even one slip-up the media, school and fans will be breathing down your neck.
Players always have someone watching their every move; on- and off-field.
Enjoy these final four days of “nothing.” We will soon be basking in college football in all it’s glory. Get your charcoal hot and your drinks cold, it’s almost time for the whistle. I am still predicting, and pulling for, North Carolina to start the season with a bang by upsetting South Carolina. It would be nice. What might be a bigger upset, and one that I might like to see even more, would be TCU smothering LSU. This would really shake up the whole SEC. If either or both of these things happen in Week 1, then we are in for one heck of a season.
NATIONAL NEWS:
1. College football mailbag
2. “Johnny Football” is innocent
3. Northwestern whiteout
4. Kiffin has a second job
5. Texas A&M quarterback moving on
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Jeff Hostetler may not have won a Super Bowl with the Giants ( though his uncle of the same name did). He has been an obsessed college football fan living in Florida ever since the Gators beat FSU in the Sugar Bowl to earn the UF’s first national championship.
Ever since Jeff has immersed himself in everything possible related to college football. He enjoys watching, writing, playing, and otherwise obsessing over all things football. A graduate of the University of Florida, he brings a perspective to FishDuck free of our extreme green & yellow homerism glasses to look at the current landscape of collegiate athletics.