September 5, 2006

So the first week of the 2006 college football season is in the books. There were some surprises, some upsets, but in the end the big boys are still standing. Here are some things that I observed from the first weekend.

- Ohio State’s offense is really really really good. They scored 28 points against Northern Illinois before you got comfortable in your seat. Troy Smith looked like a bona fide Heisman candidate, granted it was only Northern Illinois, but still you get the picture. Ted Ginn made all the explosive plays he was supposed to and the offense looked like a well oiled machine. We will see however, this Saturday, how good the offense really is. Even though Texas has lost on of its top defensive players in Tarell Brown, #2 Texas will give the Buckeyes all they can. Must See Game of The Week.
- Penn State will surprise a lot of people. Now I am not ready to say that Penn State will beat Notre Dame this weekend, but they will make some noise in the Big Ten. They have a growing QB (Anthony Morelli), a strong set of WRs led by Derrick Williams, and their defense is returning star LB Paul Posluszny. I think they make this weekend’s game close but once again Notre Dame pulls it out.
- Speaking of Notre Dame is it just me or is Notre Dame the biggest lighting rod in college football. You either love this team or hate them. I really think that they are getting the short end of the stick in the new rankings. They go to a big-time school (Georgia Tech) from a big-time conference and they managed to pull out a victory. Notre Dame continues to play one of the hardest schedules in America, and yet when they play a tough game they get penalized. Miami lost to Georgia Tech, so ask them how easy the Yellow Jackets are to play.
- Enough ranting about Notre Dame though, let’s talk about Cal. Lee Corso actually picked them to be in the National Championship, wow. What did he see? Because what I saw was a team that had no identity on offense, and on defense, they looked like they needed tackling drills. Now I understand letting WR Robert Meachem break a tackle and score, but to score consecutive touchdowns to essentially ice the game is inexcusable. I mean if they can’t tackle Tennessee, what’s going to happen when they face Pac-10 offenses like Oregon and USC. This isn’t a good way to start the season, but then again they know that already.
- To wrap up my thoughts on college football, The Florida State- Miami game needs to be moved back to the month of October. The quality of the game has seriously deteriorated since being moved to September, and I have begun to miss the fun and great offensive and defensive games instead of the defensive slugfests we have grow used to watching.

Now its time for the “big boys”. The NFL season starts on Thursday and I can not wait. Though the premiere game will be deprived of a little star power now that Ben Roethlisberger has went under the knife for an emergency appendectomy. Well Miami will definitely showcase its new star, Daunte Culpepper. He looked very good in preseason, but that was just preseason.

What’s the deal with Deion Branch and the New England Patriots? The Patriots are under the salary cap by a huge amount. Now that the Patriots have been shown how much the league thinks of Branch, give the man his due and get him on your football team. Give Tom Brady another weapon and gear up for another Super Bowl run.

Finally I’ll end this blog talking about Tiger Woods. Man, this guy is going to end up (if he keeps this pace, hell even half of this pace will be a great career) the best athlete of all time. He now has 12 majors, just six shy of the all-time record of 18 held by Jack Nicklaus. The scary part is that Tiger is only 30, turning 31 in December, meaning that he will potentially have 20-30+ years to win six majors. The way he strings wins in bunches; remember he also had a stretch of six consecutive wins spanning the 1999-2000 golf seasons; it’s highly likely that he will crush the all time record. And this will be done with his mind as well as his athletic skills. He has learned to not only out play everyone, but out-think everyone as well. In his sport, where they design courses specifically to help out the field, that might be the greatest skill of all.

Well, well, well. This marks the end of this blog. Feel free to make comments as they are appreciated. Until next time, peace.