Did I miss anything?

So, I, Billy O., have been out of the loop lately. The only constructive thing I've done in the last week is to order my copy of Phil Steele via priority mail. It will be in hand next Tuesday. I will then retire to my basement to read, re-read, and completely memorize the entire thing. Unfortunately, its already been reported that Florida is Phil's #1 team. I hate Phil Steele.

Tebow, not as satanic as thought

Much to my chagrin, it appears that Tim Tebow is not only an amazing athlete and record-breaking college QB (see: Heisman as a soph and about 1000 combined TDs last year), but he's also a good dude. Man, just typing that sentence hurt my fingertips... not to mention my pride. But I try to call it like a see it, and Timmy Touchdown appears to be one of those guys that's as good as advertised.

This spring, Tim accompanied his father on mission trips to the Phillipines, where he helped administer vital aid to the malnourished and impoverished children of the area. Not only that, but he (along with his brothers) also helped his father at the orphanage the Tebow family operates in Southeast Asia. Tim has said that trips like this help keep him grounded, and that it reminds him just how lucky he-- and moreover all of us-- truly are. Good lessons to learn, but not many in his position-- sporting "gods" who have the world by the balls-- seem to learn them, and certainly not at his young age.

Compare "Dr. Tebow" to some of his contemporaries in the sports world, and it pretty quickly starts to make you queasy. On one end of the spectrum, you have the superstars who want nothing more but to be a normal college student every once in a while. Take this pic of UNC hoops all-everything Tyler "Psycho T" Hansborough taking part in some fraternal shenanigans as proof positive that the allure of normalcy can be intoxicating. And anyone who's ever been to the bars along High Street in Columbus after a Buckeyes home win can tell you that this college-age euphoria isn't limited to Tobacco Road. Kids will be kids, and to a certain extent, I'm more than fine with that. I played small school college sports, and I lived for Saturday nights after home games... to either celebrate a hard-fought "W" or drown a devastating "L."

On the opposite end of thi spectrum you have the likes of OSU's inprisoned former RB Maurice Clarrett, LSU's idiotic former QB Ryan Perrilloux, and former USC star and current Arizona Cardinals QB Matt Leinart. Guys like this never seem to realize their lucky lot in life, don't care enough to alter their crash courses with infamy, or simply prefer to rock the casbah and take advantage of every privilege afforded them. Interesting character studies each, but that's not where I'm heading with this. That's another post at another time.

Bottom line, college football needs more people like Tim Tebow. Plain and simple. I only hope that the Terrell Pryor's of the world can grow into not only formidable players but also (and most importantly) admirable men.

Bobby Bowden is a hard ass

Bobby Bowden is the harvester of sorrow. One small mistake by his players and they know that they will never see the field again. His quick enforcement and keen eye for keeping problems minimized make him so badass that Dog the Bounty Hunter trembles in his midst. Never before has this nation seen someone so ruthlessly efficient in addressing infractions

Bobby "Executioner" Bowden's most recent brand of punishment came at the expense of the notorious Preston Parker. Preston, or as is his friends like to call him, PP, was arrested for having a loaded .45 caliber and bag of weed. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the Executioner doesn't want those types of misdeeds on his team. No sirree, that stuff just don't fly at The Florida State University.

With the quick sword of Justice, the Executioner suspended PP. For 2 meaningless games against Western Carolina and Chattanooga. Are you f'ing kidding me? FSU is a team full of losers and thugs whose only competition for douchebaggery is another ACC school that is coming on hard in the stretch run (I'm looking at you Virginia Polytechnic Institute and yes, that was a double entendre referencing Marcus Vick's dalliance with a 15 year old).

Quick...name a player for Western Carolina or Chattanooga. Hell, just tell me which division they play in? Those teams don't even show up in Phil Steele's preview (on newstands in June!). Have some balls, Bobby, and lay down an example for your team. At this rate, I guess it takes at least a crime of violence to miss the Wake Forest game.

Enough, Congress, get back to work!!!

Okay, this might not make sense for my first post to the awesome blog that is College Football Heaven, but here we go anyways…

Consider this an open letter to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa), Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Ca), or any other knucklehead on the Hill that decides to focus their massive egos and pomposity on the world of sports. I have one word for you, and despite my better instincts in admitting this, I’m going to steal from the immortal Diana Ross to say it: stop! Or, maybe you’d prefer Aretha Franklin’s line from The Blues Brothers: you better think! Or, maybe… okay, enough with the wit. I’ll just say it straight out. Stop it. Just stop it. Take a step back from the abyss, have some pride in what you were elected to do, and start focusing on things that really matter. I’m here to plead with you to act with deference to your position and stop all the B-S.

It’s mind-boggling to me that in a day and age where over 4000 of our men and women have been lost in Iraq, gas is sky-rocketing towards $4-a-gallon, and the housing bubble hasn’t only popped but imploded, that the most powerful governing body in the world would choose to spend what few days it does work looking into whether Jose Canseco ever injected Roger Clemens with steroids, HGH, insulin, Botox, or whatever it is crazy celebrities do at parties these days. Or, how they can claim national best interest in “investigating” Matt Walsh’s videography. Personally, I could care less if he taped the Rams walkthrough, their cheerleaders in the Edward Jones Dome showers, or even Georgia Frontiere’s lavish funeral. I don’t care, and neither should they.

How does all this relate to our chosen love of college football? Quite easily, actually. It wasn’t but a month ago that Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), and Mike Simpson (R-ID) announced their plans to look into the corruption that is the Bowl Champion Series. Collusion at the top, they claim. To any college football aficianado (like the fellows you’ll find posting here), this sounds all-too-familiar, right? But before we go off endorsing them hauling BCS commissioners like the Big 10’s Jim Delany or the SEC’s Paul Atkins in front of the House Commission on Whatever, we need to understand that their support of a playoff isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. I’m no fan of the current system and have heard no viable reason why a limited tournament couldn’t be instituted by the end of the current contract, but is this really the job of 110th Congress? I don’t think so, and I bet you don’t either.

Enough of the rant. Sports are an American mainstay, and I get that more than anyone, but college football is not the purview of Capitol Hill. It belongs in places like Baton Rouge and Columbus. That’s it. You do your job, distinguished men and women of Congress, and let we college football fans do ours!

A non-prediction prediction predicated on a selection process

I also guarantee that there will be one SEC team in the BCS. I further guarantee that there will be one team from the following conferences in the BCS: Big Ten, Big Twelve, Big East, ACC, and Pac 10. I will further hypothesize that Notre Dame will be in the BCS if it is in the top 8 of the final BCS standings. Finally, I would even go so far as to say that a team from Conference USA, MAC, MWC, Sun Belt or WAC will be in the BCS if it is in the top 12 of the final BCS standings or if it is in the top 16 of those standings and ranked higher than a champion of a big-boy football school.

Weiss could cure AIDS and cancer....

....and I would still think he is a knuckle dragging, stomach stappling, knees buckling from the extra 150 he's carrying around...and I would still think he is a terrible, overrated, unworthy college football coach. He might be a good father, but I could care less.

So, William Outstanding brought out some stats about Boeckman. Overall, his numbers were not very good against the better teams.

Michigan- 50 yards, o tds, 1 int
Illinois- 156 yards, 0 tds, 3 ints
LSU- 208 yard, 2 tds, 2 ints (all came after it was 31-10 near the end of the 3rd quarter)

Yikes. I just think they are a bit overrated for #2. Mostly based on schedule.

As for the power of the SEC, I have no doubt 1 SEC school will be in the BCS. I think it will be Florida or Georgia. Georgia lost no one. Florida lost a couple.

Time is ticking...the season will be upon us.

Oh gosh, thank you for the TT youtube. What an a-hole. His mother must be proud.

The almost perfect blog topic

So, say you are out drinking...and I mean really, really drinking. Like LSU drunk, not just Arkansas drunk.

and when you are drinking, you see the following message scroll along the bottom of the screen:

"Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis Appointed To President's Committee For People With Intellectual Disabilities"

WHAAAAAAT??? Could there be a more apt or appropriate idea from the White House. You are so excited about this perfect combination of your ideas and thoughts that you remember this even after your drunken stupor. You are completely convinced that George W. Bush is doing the Lord's work by pointing out that Charlie Weis is a mouthbreathing idiot and holding Fatty McIrish out to the public for ridicule. Honestly, lets go for 3 terms for W if he is this brilliant.

Then you sit down to start writing a blog post. You do a little (obviously very little, in case you haven't seen our posts) research. And, you find out that Charlie Weis has a developmentally disabled kid.

OUCH. I'm a jackass.

Ask yourself what you do next. Do you post this with this information with the same sarcastic wit or do you hold back?

Answer: You hold back...its like I just found the Wizard of Oz was really some dude behind a curtain. But for Weis' daughter, this post would be a record setter for length, cruelty, and incomprehensible ramblings.

However, its a dad trying to do something for his daughter and other similarly situated kids. I'm actually happy for Charlie and hope he and his family are able to help for those less fortunate.

So, in summary, Charlie Weis may not be that bad of person, however, I fully reserve the right to pile on after ND goes 9-3 against a tissue soft schedule.

Its Friday

So go ahead and ring the bell

Spring Polls = Useless

Dear Commish,

Obviously in your many learned years, you still haven't realized that springtime polls are about as useful as tits on a bull. In order to directly address your concerns, I must point you to another fine blog called "Buckeye Commentary." If you follow this link, you will see a composite spreadsheet of all the major websites spring rankings. What do you see? Well, you see that Ohio State is a concensus Top 3 team. Now, look at the teams with the composite scores. The SEC has 5 teams and the Big 10 has 4 teams that make the composite Top 25. The whole conference strength debate is tiresome and deserving of its own post, so I will only briefly address your unsupported allegations.

Who had a better year last year, Todd Boeckman or Matt Stafford? Look at the stats:

Boeckman: 181/299 (63.9%), 2,379 passing yards, 7.96 yards per attempt, 25 TD, 14 Int and a QB rating of 148.95

Stafford: 194/348 (55.7%), 2,523 pass yards, 7.25 yards per attempt, 19 TD, 10 Int and a QB rating of 128.93

How about your comment regarding Boeckman not being able to compare to a SEC champion QB. Once again, a completely unsupported argument that shows a lack of dedication to research or facts. Here are your Matt Flynn stats: 202/359 (56.3%), 2,407 yards, 6.71 yards per attempt, 21 TD, 11 Int and QB rating of 125.76.

Now, as to the viability of preseason polls, lets look at last years preseason polls. We can all make educated guesses, but look at how the experts did last year. After reviewing the link, you can tell that there were 11 teams that were expected to be good but weren't even ranked in the Top 25 at the end of the year. Almost half of the teams that the "experts" thought would be good...weren't so good. That's just one of the things that makes college football amazing. You don't know who is going to be good from year to year (not that I won't try like hell during my exclusive 35 team preview to be published in mid-June on this very site).

As for your final point, you are honestly willing to bet that the winner of UF/UGA gets into the BCS Championship game. I am willing to take that bet. The loser of the bet has to go drinking in a shirt provided by the winner and there must be a digital camera available to memorialize the outing.

True...it's a down time...but we must press

Okay, I've always thought Stewart Mandel was a bit of an idiot. Then he went and picked Ohio State #2 coming out of the spring. Boeckman is still the quarterback!!!

Jeezz. He gets paid to write that crap....unbelievable. William, you watched the Red and Gray or whatever color of the week you call it. B-man stinks. No arm, no accuracy. That will work in the Big-11. Not in the SEC Championship....I mean the BCS Championship game.


The winner of the Florida/Georgia game will win the BCS. Mark it down.

We picked a bad time to start a college football blog

As the headline says, this is a bad time to start a college football blog. We are in the nuclear winter that is (a) a dead recruiting period; (b) all of the spring practices are over; and (c) the only things going on are idiots getting kicked off of teams or projections of next year's draft.

Seriously, is there anything going on? Sportscenter had a special on Nick Saban. Ugh. That's not news. I'm sure there will also be specials on Les Miles, Rich Rodriguez, Steve Spurrier, and maybe even Paul Johnson thrown in for good measure.

That said, why did we start this blog? Its because there is one thing that permeates every day of our collective thinking and it is college football. Sure, the Commish and I vehemently disagree regarding the merits of conferences, styles of play, and whether jorts are an essential element of any wardrobe, but we both agree that college football is the king of fandom. Anyone can root for a professional team, but not everyone had the stamina to root for a college program. In college, the names change more frequently, you may or may not have a connection to a big-time program, and a region's identity is more closely connected to the team. As an example, lets compare two random places. When you think of Madison, Wisconsin, you think of the Bret Bielema and the Badger football team. Before that, you knew Madison was the home to the fat guy that looked like he should be on the Sopranos and that Brooks Bollinger was the starting QB for 87 consecutive years. In contract, Washington, DC elicits thoughts of corrupt politicians, high crime rates, and horrible traffic. If you think of the Redskins first, you are a mouth-breather.

Hopefully, there will be some more interesting news this week, other than the consistently undeserved praise heaped on Matt Stafford for being an average QB on an underachieving team.

Caleb Campbell cont

William, I must also comment on this situation. Mr. Campbell, Cadet Campbell, owes service, time, dedication, to serve in harms way, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, or elsewhere where terror rears it's ugly head.

This is a systemic problem that the Academies need to address. Tax payers are paying their hard earned money so the West Points, Colorado Springs's, and Annapolis's can train combat ready leaders. Not 3rd string NFL players!!!! ESPN was calling this a feel good story. What a shame.

Uncle Sam is sending troops on 3rd...4th...5th tours of duty. They are undermanned, overworked, overstressed, and we are letting one guy out of his commitment to play football? While I love football and appreciate what football does at the collegiate level, there is a huge difference between UT, FSU, UF, USC....and West Point. Football should not drive policy or decisions....but it does. Football equals money....and exposure. Caleb should serve his time...at least one tour of duty in combat...then come back a hero and play football. Long live Roger Staubach...or David Robinson....Tidwell.

Drop the pads, pick up a rifle, and join your classmates after graduation in combat.