College Football 2013

[eagle eye]

College football began on Thursday with the most interesting matchup between South Carolina and North Carolina with the Gamecocks coming out on top but the prevailing story of the night was the play of Heisman hopeful Jadeveon Clowney. He was criticized for being "gassed" during game on a hot, humid Carolina night and the feeling he took plays off. To me, this is a load of crap and Clowney played well in the So Carolina's win. He just didn't have the boo-ya hit in the game he did in the bowl game vs Michigan this past January in the Outback Bowl.

The season may have kicked off on Thursday but today is the first full day of ball and it's great. Right now the most interesting games on TV are the OK St match up at home vs the Mississippi State Bulldogs. It's the first matchup between Big 12 and SEC team this year and will go a long way to establishing the Big 12 as player in the BCS.

Speaking of SEC, Johnny Maziel has come in after his first half suspension vs Rice to go 6-8 with 3 TDs as Texas A&M is leading the Owls 45-20, oops 52-20 in the third quarter.

There is another interesting game going on, to me anyway, Penn State is facing Syracuse in University Park, Pennsylvania. In 2012 the Nittany Lions went 8-4 on the season including 6-2 in the Big Ten with notable victories over Iowa, Wisconsin, Purdue and Northwestern. This had to come as a big surprise to people who thought Penn St would go straight into the dumpster over the scandal that rocked the college and the NCAA sanctions that crushed a football program that wasn't at fault in the whole Sandusky child molestation ordeal. I felt the football program was unjustly punished for what was essencially a criminal case the team had no part in. I will be very interested to see how the team plays in the second year of its 5 year NCAA sanctions which includes the loss of 40 scholarships over the next 4 years including 2013. I hope Penn St continue to surprise and win.

[KABrother88]

That Penn State v Syracuse game was actually held a MetLife stadium but being a Penn State fan I came away very impressed...started a freshman QB with our All-B1G WR suspended for the first half...Hackenberg looked like a freshman in the first half. The sanctions go to another level next year. Everyone knows about the bowl ban and loss of scholarships each year but starting in 2014 they must remain at or below 65 scholarship players for 4 years. So even after they can play in a bowl they will be short handed. I have hated every aspect of how the NCAA has handled this situation that they had no business being involve in...then they just used the Freeh Report (which is starting to kinda sound like hogwash) without doing any of their own investigation...now I have another complaint of how they have handled this situation..PSU was at 65 scholarship players going into this season (scholarship limit doesn't start until next year) and the university asked the NCAA if they would start that 4 year sanction this year ad it was denied...the whole point of making this start in 2014 is so you will allow students on scholarships to be able to graduate and be out of the program by this time but they since they allowed anyone to transfer last year that didn't really matter...any way rant over...PSU with a solid win to start the year...hoping for a repeat of last year

[eagle eye]

I couldn't agree with you more KABrother88. The football program itself was not involved and it shouldn't have been sanctioned the way it was. This was clearly a criminal matter in which Sandusky, Paterno and leaders of the college should have been prosecuted. Sandusky for being the purp and Paterno and company for aiding a abetting during and after the fact. The local police chickened out of that one except for Sandusky and now the football team is paying the price.

How about the 2nd matchup of the day between the Big 12 and the SEC. A late game at what the Dallas media calls the "Death Star" between TCU and LSU was a pretty good game until late. It became obvious by the end of the 3rd quarter TCU didn't have the firepower to compete with the Tigers. The final 37-27 score was a pretty respectable showing for TCU. (I saw the game because I taped it.) BTW the Big 12 was 1-1 yesterday because in the early game Ok State beat Miss St 21-3. Love to see the SEC taken down a notch!

Of course how can I not mention the nail biter in Beaumont last night? We barely squeaked that one out didn't we? Nice weather and a very encouraging outcome. As some have posted in The Red Zone let's see what happens next week when the opponent is a little better. I'll start to worry about next week on Tuesday or Wednesday. Right now, I just want to bask in a dominating 1-0 start to the season.

One last question, is Wyoming that good or is Nebraska that bad? The Cornhuskers sent the Wyoming team home thanking their lucky stars they played at home and escaped with a 3 point win. I sort of look for Nebraska to fall a little bit in the rankings this week.