(4) Oregon (11-1, 8-1 Pac 12) vs (5) Kansas State (11-1, 8-1 Big 12)

Thursday January 3rd, 8:30 EST ESPN

The History:  The Tositos Fiesta Bowl has been a staple in Glendale, AZ for 42 years.  A group from Arizona State originally pitched the idea to the NCAA in 1968 but the NCAA rejected the proposal.  One year later the NCAA approved the bowl as part of their annnual bowl games.  The Fiesta Bowl is played at The University of Phoenix Stadium and has hosted 7 National Championship games (Does anyone remember 2002?) since it was first played in 1971. Not only is this Fiesta Bowl important to college footbal, it is important to the Glendale area.  Over a 5 year span the bowl has generated over $1 Billion in the Glendale economy.

Oregon Scouting Report:  Chip Kelly once again has his Ducks offense in the Top 5 in the nation.  Freshman QB Marcus Mariota leads … [Read More]

In this year’s edition of the Battle For Los Angeles, the upstart UCLA Bruins jumped out to a quick lead and held on to “upset” the Trojans by ten points on a gray day in Pasadena.  While the Bruins obviously have been playing much better football this year, you’ve also got to wonder if the trajectories of the programs have now crossed, particularly given some of the issues that continue to swirl at Southern Cal.… [Read More]

Well, that happened.

While a lot of people were saying that Alabama was ripe for a loss against a Texas A&M team that’s been playing really well over the past few weeks, most of this felt like lip service. You know, the kind of things that ESPN makes one person say on the Gameday set in order to appear unbiased.

And then- “Johnny Football”.

There are a lot of reasons why Alabama lost- coming off of an emotional win on the road in Death Valley, LSU’s offense showed a lot of people the issues that the Tide have in their secondary, Saban’s fear of the high speed offense is based on his knowledge of his team’s weaknesses; but the fact of the matter is that the Aggies outplayed Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, in several key areas of the game.

The Crimson Tide defensive … [Read More]

Urban’s attitude

A lot has been said about the Big Ten being weak and the Buckeye schedule being light. I can’t argue much about either of those points. When writing last week’s entry, the thought crossed my mind that this (past) week against Illinois could be the week when it all comes together and the “Urbanization” of the Buckeyes begins to take shape.

For me, the real transformation to this program completely becoming Urban Meyer’s will be when we no longer see games like Purdue or California. … [Read More]

This has been identified as the first “Shakedown Saturday” of the season, and we knew early on that this would be a heck of a week for college football. While #1 Alabama sat idle, the rest of the top 10 was involved in contests amongst themselves… where commentators chose to ignore the fact that this was destined to happen when you put all the teams in one conference in the top ten because they’re in that conference.  But I digress..

Let’s start with the state of Florida, which went 1-2 on the weekend, and saw two “they’re back!!!” programs fall by the wayside.  The exception to this, of course, … [Read More]

We continue the journey across the nation to get you ready for kickoff in less than two weeks. Today, Gary weighs in on the newest incarnation of the Big 12 conference.

With all the Conference re-aligning going on it has been tough to keep track of what team is going where. Many conferences are taking on small changes while many are undergoing complete makeovers. Today, we take a look at the Big 12 conference, which has changed drastically over the last couple of years.

Baylor Bears
2011 Record 10-3
Pre-Season Rank: NR
Head coach Art Briles has his work cut out for him after losing all three of his stars from last year’s offense. QB Robert Griffin III, WR Kendall Wright, and RB Terrance Ganaway all lead the Bears at their respective positions and have all left for the NFL. The Baylor offense still returns three talented wide receivers in … [Read More]

The story this week was big upsets, both with teams falling from the ranks of the undefeated and teams rising to the occasion against expectations.  So let’s start in that vein, and with a little “howdy do” to our newest BFFs from the Iowa State contingency, who turned the tables on a Texas Tech team coming off a huge upset on their own. And it wasn’t just a “win” against the #20 Red Raiders, but a 41-7 demolition of Tommy Tuberville’s squadron… must have been a bit presumptuous to start the “Mike … [Read More]

This maybe the most difficult region that I have ever tried to predict in recent memory.  On the 1 line is a very solid Pitt Panthers team, but they are a team that can struggle offensively at times.  If they face someone that gets hot from deep not sure they can keep up.  Then you have a 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 seeds that are so similar that it would be hard to call any win by them an upset.  I’m not sure that any team is favored by 8 points or more, with most … [Read More]