With media days wrapped up for all the major conferences, we can now focus on kickoff being less than a month away. We can actually start talking about the game of football. In fact, the Week 1 match-ups are so close we can begin to deal with game plan ideas and predictions. Oh, finally!
Everyone remember those cool upgrades to Oregon’s football facilities? Well, Texas A&M wants you to forget about that and focus on the cool new upgrades they have done this off season. It looks really good. I am sure we would see fewer schools upgrading like this if the players were to be paid. Also, let’s not forget that everything is bigger in Texas. Texas A&M’s stadium upgrades should be done for this season.
While some schools are working to upgrade their football facilities and stadiums, others are looking to show some flash on the field. Air Force just might have outdone everyone with their new helmet designs. I think every school should always be open to changing their uniforms. Heaven forbid if Penn State or Alabama were to even think of changing their uniforms.
Then we have the Coaches Poll that came out this week. Did you all like what you saw? Stewart Mandel gave his two cents on who is ranked too high and too low in the polls already. Once you give Mandel’s ratings a look over you might have to agree. In my opinion, the polls should not be released until Week 7. That would give us a good idea of who the real contenders are at that time and not have teams over-ranked as they frequently are in the pre-season ratings.
Among the top contenders, Auburn will be without their starting QB for Week 1 vs. Arkansas. Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said QB Nick Marshall will not be the starter Week 1 as part of his punishment for his off season run-ins with the law. Malzahn did not say that he would “not” play in Week 1…just not starting. I imagine if Auburn somehow finds itself down 21-7 in the first half…out will run Nick Marshall to get things going.
Let’s keep things going with Auburn for one more topic. Auburn just announced they will be doing a home and home series with Clemson starting in 2016. Thanks to the playoffs we will be seeing these bigger games happening. If you look closely at the article, it looks like there are going to be some big time match-ups in Week 1 of 2016. We can thank the new playoffs for soon giving us Alabama vs. USC, LSU vs Wisconsin, UCLA vs Texas A&M, Notre Dame vs Texas and Arizona vs BYU. Look for this type of scheduling to be part of the norm as college football and the playoffs evolve. Matchups like this are going to be awesome:
Kickoff is just a little under a month away. We will have some great games to look forward to. We need to tolerate just a few more weeks of listening to NCAA trial news or which team is doing a new upgrade. I hope we can begin to get some bulletin board material for the Week 1 match-ups, we will see. It is going to be an exciting season not only for Ducks fans, but for every college football fan.
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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.