College Football - Aaron Torres Sports
Ok, so I know that some of you don’t like Colin Cowherd.
Ok, most of you.
Ok, none of you.
But you know what? I actually don’t think the guy is so bad.
Sure he’s pompous, egotistical and occasionally goes on mean-spirited rants. Quite frankly, he doesn’t seem to a guy that’d be very fun to get a beer with. But you’ve got to also understand that that’s just his shtick. It wouldn’t make for good radio if Cowherd agreed with what everyone said, and was always kissing his guests butts.
At the same time, what I like about him is that he’s thoughtful, and definitely looks at sports in a way most people don’t. He’s interesting. And he approaches things in different and unique ways that no one else does.
One of those different and unique ideas came in a segment on his radio show last Friday. In it, Cowherd claimed that every NFL team could be described in three words, and three words only. As he explained at the time:
“With four words you can soften,” he said. “With four words, you can weaken. Three words forces you to be brutally honestly. And you can go through every single professional sports franchise in America and three words would describe it.”
He then continued, “You could probably do it with every girl you’ve ever dated. (For example) ‘Smokin, but dim.’ ‘Really, really, cool.’ ‘Down to Earth.’”
Tt was an interesting segment, and got me thinking. Mainly, “Why couldn’t I do that with college football?” And that’s exactly what I tried here.
Understand that every analogy isn’t perfect, and the wording might not be exactly right. But the point is, that yes, you can describe a college football team in three words. And you can describe them pretty well.
Here is every team in a BCS conference (as well as a few extras at the end), described in three words.
One question that gets asked of me quite a bit is the following: “Is the NCAA worse than it’s ever been? Or is the coverage just more intense.”
I might be in the minority, but I absolutely, unequivocally think it’s the latter.
Understand that breaking NCAA rules is a tradition about as old as Clemson going to crappy bowl games. There were college basketball point shaving scandals in the 1940’s. Billy Cannon, the 1959 Heisman Trophy winner has admitted to accepting extra benefits while he was at LSU. Hell, as recently as the mid-1980’s, SMU (and other SWC schools I’m sure) were not only giving kids cash, but essentially signing them to professional contracts. Thousands were guaranteed a month, housing was set up for them and their families, the whole nine yards. As cynical as I am, I’m guessing that no college football program in 2011 has “A Payroll To Meet,” an excuse SMU once gave as a cause for their rampant cheating.
Nope, as far as I’m concerned, schools are abiding by, or at least trying to abide by the rules more than ever before. Compliance staffs are growing larger by the day. Rules awareness is as good as it’s ever been. And quite frankly, I believe that at their core, most coaches and administrators try to play by the rules. Granted, they might attempt to bend them to their advantage, but breaking them is an altogether different story.
The problem of course, is that there are too many damn rules. They govern every single thing a college coach and athlete does in their everyday lives.
For coaches, the NCAA dictates how much you can call recruits; at what time of day you can call them; what time of year you can reach out. When a kid gets to campus the NCAA dictates everything for a player as well. What they’re allowed to accept; how much they can accept; who they can accept it from. The list is quite literally never-ending. Do yourself a favor and try to track down an NCAA rulebook sometime. The thing has more addendums, additions and post-scripts than you could ever imagine.
Which is why it’s refreshing that new NCAA President Mark Emmert is at least trying to make some changes.
For those of you who haven’t been following, Emmert spent the last two days hanging with 50 or so of your favorite Athletic Director and school President types, with the goal of getting this crazy quagmire that is the NCAA fixed up. If Emmert has his way, those changes will comes sooner, rather than later.
After revealing the first half of my Preseason Top 25 on Wednesday, it's time to share the second half today. Here are my Top 15 teams heading into the 2011 season, in an especially long (some would say too long) preview piece.
One important thing to remember: These rankings aren't necessarily a reflection of how I think teams will end the year. It doesn't mean that the teams I have ranked No.'s 1 and 2 will play for the title. All it means is that these are the teams that I think are the best today, in the first week of August.
Enjoy.
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15. Oklahoma State:
How you feel about Oklahoma State depends on how you feel on one fundamental question in football: Do great players make a successful team? Great coaching? Or somewhere in the middle?
If you think great players make a successful team than you look at Oklahoma State and say, “Wow, they return 10 starters on offense. They’ve got the most physically imposing wide receiver in college football. And yeh their quarterback might be older than Pangaea, but he’s got a hose for an arm. This team could very well win the Big XII title.”
If you think great coaches make a successful team, than you look at Oklahoma State and say, “Dana Holgorsen is a genius. His quarterbacks at Texas Tech put up ridiculous stats. Case Keenum threw for 1,400 more yards than any other quarterback in college football under Holgorsen’s watch (the single craziest stat I think I’ve ever seen). And he took a quarterback who was older than Pangaea and turned him into a Heisman candidate. Sure he may seem a little weird, and I find it somewhat strange that his Wikipedia lists him as having three kids but no wife. But my goodness this man can coach.”
As for me, well I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. I don’t think you can give Holgorsen all the credit for Oklahoma State’s success last year, since the Pokes won nine games in each of the two years before he got there (and may have won more in 2009 if Dez Bryant wasn’t stupidly suspended). At the same time, let’s get real here for a second. Brandon Weeden is older than Pangaea!!! He hadn’t played any meaningful football in close to a decade before last season. And he threw for almost 4,300 yards last year!! (I can’t stop using exclamation points!!) Holgorsen had to have something to do with that.
In the end, I guess if there’s a gun to my head, I’m leaning more toward the coach making the success, more so than the players. I just can’t see the Pokes getting back to 11 wins this year.
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Quite frankly, I don’t know if there’s anything harder in sports than trying to put together a preseason Top 25 in college football. There are just too many factors to consider. Who’s returning? Who graduated? What’s the schedule look like? Is my team coached by Ron Zook or not? Again, there are a million factors.
This year is no exception. Looking up and down the board, every team has an issue. Some lost key players, others are going through coaching changes and a bunch are switching conferences. Honestly, I don’t even know if there are 25 teams worthy of the Top 25. But I’m going to try anyway, as I reveal the first half of my preseason Top 25 today.
Understand that this isn’t an exact science, and these rankings don’t necessarily indicate how I think a team will finish the season. Just how good they are today. For example, anyone who reads my articles or listens to my podcasts, knows I like Georgia coming into this year. Based on how I think certain players will improve, and how I expect their schedule to play to out, I believe they will win the SEC East. At the same time, there is no tangible way that you can say that today, on August 3, 2011, they’re better than South Carolina. You can’t. Therefore, South Carolina will be ranked ahead of them. Same with some other teams from different conferences.
Either way, with camps opening up, and Joe Schad again, begrudgingly becoming a part of my everyday routine, it’s time to talk some football. Here is Part I of my Top 25, teams 25-16. Part II will run on Friday, as I reveal my Top 15 teams.
Again, this isn’t an exact science, but it is a fun jumping off point.
I’ll be the first to admit that when all of the allegations against Ohio State’s football program started leaking earlier this year, I was as guilty as anyone of a quick, knee-jerk reaction.
When Jim Tressel went down like a disgraced Senator (see what I did there?), and Terrelle Pryor was accused of trying to autograph and sell anything that wasn’t bolted to the ground, I thought for sure that the Ohio State football dominance was over. So long Big Ten titles. See ya, regular BCS bowl game appearances. Hello major NCAA investigation. The way I saw it, all you had to do was take USC’s punishment from last summer, multiply it by 1.5, and that’s what Ohio State would end up with. Bowl bans, scholarship losses, a major overhaul of the entire Athletics Department. Anything and everything. You name it.
Which is why when I read the report on the findings from an NCAA investigation over the weekend, I was absolutely stunned.
Not only did it not appear that Ohio State wasn’t going to get hit with major sanctions, quite frankly, it doesn't appear they should be. If anything, Ohio State was running an Athletics Department, gulp, about as efficiently as you can.
Crazy, right? Well go ahead and read the report.
In it, we find a program that not only tried to do things the right way, but if anything, went above and beyond protocol to try and abide by the rules. We find a school which hammered home the ramifications of wrongdoing like an elementary school teacher lecturing her class before a field trip. The report also details the life of a coach that appeared to be some combination of scared, naïve and ignorant, someone who was undoubtedly concerned about his players, but not entirely sure how to handle them.
Granted, with that said, I understand most of you probably didn't have time to read the report, and most don't have the time now. Therefore, I'll go ahead and give you the nitty-gritty details here, so we can figure out what happened, and what it means going forward.
It’s time to do some Ohio State myth-busting.
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By my count, it’s been roughly five days, 120 hours and 19 hot dogs consumed since Yahoo Sports once again cracked open of college football’s elite programs like a soft boiled egg on Friday afternoon. That’s right, Dan Wetzel and Charles (can we call him “Chuck?") Robinson were at it again, providing more fireworks with the written word than any lame riverfront party over the weekend.
The school on the other end of this particular explosion was Oregon, and by know you know the details of their situation as well as I do. The Ducks have been locked in a weird web for months now, trading “he said, she said’s,” with a “scouting service,” director named Willie Lyles. With both sides sharing different takes on their relationship, we don’t know much, but what we do know is simple: Lyles’ scouting service provided Oregon little in actual materials (most everything the school presented to the public a few weeks ago was two years outdated), but did provide access to plenty of quality players. Included were All-American running back LaMichael James (who finished third in last year’s Heisman Trophy race), and super-recruit Lache Seastrunk, who just completed his freshman year in Eugene. Each is expected to be a major contributor on one of college football’s top teams in the fall.
But as for everything else that was shared by Yahoo, and what it means for everyone involved? Well that’s where it gets fishy.
Let’s start at the top, and start with what went down Friday.
Blame Rory McIlroy.
After spending last week running around like a housewife with her hair on fire, I made sure to clear my schedule Sunday to watch the final round of the U.S. Open. What a nice, relaxing way to spend Fathers Day, right?
Well, sort of. If by “relaxing,” you mean boring.
Sorry but it’s true. As much as I enjoy golf, and as much as I love the media fawning over Rory McIlroy like a sorority girl at a frat party, Sunday really didn’t bring much to the table. Well, unless you were looking to take a nap…or actually spend time with your dad on Father’s Day. Which, let’s be honest, isn’t for all of us.
Anyway, with five hours of my afternoon all of a sudden clear, I started browsing the internet (and no, not for anything like that), when I came across this video on YouTube from last year’s Tennessee-LSU game.
Wow.
It’s funny, because when that game actually happened, I remember writing that it was “just about the worst loss I could ever imagine,” but after seeing it again, it seemed almost worse. Kind of like watching a 10-car pile-up unfold in front of your eyes, only if you knew what the crash was coming, it happened in slow motion, and you weren’t allowed to turn away. Tennessee fans, I’m truly, truly sorry.
Of course at the same time, you can’t talk about that game without talking Les Miles.
Understand that I love Les Miles about as much as one man can platonically love another. I love his Hat. I love all the goofy trick plays that somehow, inexplicably work. I love the postgame interviews. And apparently I’m not the only one who loves him. Last week while I was doing a radio interview, the host brought Miles up completely out of the blue, and we ended up having a five minute conversation about him. Why did we do that? Because he’s freakin’ Les Miles, that’s why. No further explanation needed.
Last week I wrote an article called “The What If Game,” which explained how one victory by Pittsburgh over West Virginia altered the course of college football history as we knew it. Elite programs were changed for the better and worse, championships were swung, and coaches hired and fired. In particular, Ohio State, Michigan and West Virginia are still picking up the pieces from that one game, nearly four full years later.
Well, based on the success of that article, and based on how much fun I had doing it, I decided it was time for another “What If,” article, with this “what if” even bigger than the last. This one affected at least three Heisman Trophies (and as many as five) and altered four BCS National Championships. Yes, I’m serious.
So what force of nature could’ve had that effect on the sport we love? Well, Tim Tebow obviously.
To which I ask the question, What If Tim Tebow had decided to play his college football at the University of Alabama, instead of Florida? As crazy as it sounds, it almost happened.
Don’t believe me? I can’t blame you, since up until a week ago I never thought Tebow had truly considered playing college ball anywhere but Gainesville myself. After all, he grew up an hour from the campus and his parents met there. He had Florida stuff wall-papering his bedroom as a kid. Why would Tim Tebow ever go anywhere but Gaineville?
But after reading parts of his biography, “Through My Eyes,” Tebow makes it abundantly clear just how open he was in the recruiting process, and just how torn he was between his final two schools.
One story in particular stood out. On the day of the announcement, Tebow still hadn’t made a college decision, and after initially calling Mike Shula at Alabama to tell him he’d selected Florida, Tebow had a change of heart. He dialed Urban Meyer to tell him he’d be heading to Alabama, and started chatting with him, but before Tebow could get out the words, a funny thing happened…Meyer’s phone died. Unable to communicate, Tebow was forced to the podium, and at the last second decided to ride his gut. He chose Florida.
So what if Tebow had said “Alabama,” instead?
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By now, you’ve probably learned more about Terrelle Pryor than you ever cared to.
You know about the cars. You know about the tats. And you know about the checks and balances that should never be seen in a 21-year-old’s bank account (Well, unless their last name is “Hilton,” or “Kardashian,” of course). Like so much in our society these days, we all probably know a little too much about Terrelle Pryor at this point.
However, after announcing he was leaving Ohio State earlier week, just about the only thing we don’t is what’s next.
For all the questions he left behind in Columbus, Pryor has just as many going forward. Will he enter the NFL’s Supplemental Draft? Will he work out with a private quarterback coach in secrecy for the next few months? Or will he just buy a Greek island and simply disappear for a while? Because really, if there’s one 21-year-old with the cash to pull that last one off, it’s got to be Pryor, right?
Just about the only thing that no one seems to be seriously considering is the possibility of Pryor going up North to play in the Canadian Football League. And quite frankly, I can’t blame anyone for thinking that way.
From a pure football standpoint, Canada seems like the worst possible choice. If Pryor succeeds, the assumption will just be, “Ehh, it’s Canada. They’ve got wacky rules, and funny team names and goal posts in the middle of the end zone. Who cares?”
And if Pryor fails? Two words: Uh Oh. His stock is already low. Imagine what laying an egg in Canada would do? How do you say, “He’ll never play quarterback in America again,” in Canadian? Is it the same? I’m not sure.
So with all that as a background, what I’m going to say next may surprise you.
ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons is famous for a lot of things: His far-fetched and sometimes outrageous theories. His blatant Boston homerism. And of course a unique and brilliant writing style that has made him a cult hit with readers everywhere.
Of all the things Simmons has written, one of my personal favorite articles is called “The What If,” game, a series of hypothetical scenarios and “What if’s,” that could’ve changed the course of the NBA and its history as we knew it. First debuted on ESPN.com and later in his best-selling, “The Book of Basketball,” Simmons tackles interesting What-If subjects like “What if Portland hadn’t taken Sam Bowie with the No. 2 pick in the 1984 NBA Draft,” and “What if the Phoenix Suns hadn’t gotten rid of Joe Johnson at the beginning of the Steve Nash era.” Fun stuff like that.
Obviously the “What If Game,” extends to other sports too, with maybe none more interesting than college football. Just with how the nature of the game works (how one recruit can impact championships, how one loss can cost you an entire season), there are a million “What if’s” that keep college football fans up and night, and give people like me something to constantly write about. What if Tim Tebow selected Alabama over Florida in 2006 (A real possibility at the time)? What if Cam Newton had ended up at Mississippi State instead of Auburn, or never left Florida at all? What if the Bush Push was unsuccessful? What if. What if. What if.
However, the greatest “What if,” that no one ever talks about involves a handful of programs that are in a world of trouble right now. It’s hard to believe, but with both Ohio State and West Virginia imploding in front of our eyes over the last few weeks, and Michigan re-building after the disastrous Rich Rodriguez/Greg Robinson era practically burned Ann Arbor to the ground, all three schools faced the same turning point, just over four years ago.
Which leads to this: What if West Virginia beat Pitt on December 1, 2007?
As crazy as it sounds, that one, innocuous, seemingly meaningless game altered a BCS National Championship, countless conference championships, and the future of some of the nation’s top programs, coaches and recruits.
So what happened exactly? Let’s look back on that day, and see how it impacted the future of college football as we now know it.
Let’s go back to December 1, 2007.
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