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http://bleacherreport.com/articles/39067-lsu-tigers-a-bcs-repeat The last time we saw Les Miles and Co. they were hoisting up the Waterford Trophy that is given to the BCS National Champion. LSU had a dominating performance over Jim Tressel's Ohio State Buckeyes, as they beat them with a little bit of trickery mixed with hard-nosed SEC football. Now they've reloaded and seek to not only become the first team in the BCS era to win three national titles, but also to win two straight. Though many of the LSU faithful believe that Miles can "get 'er done", it's going to take a little more than just belief and a warm fuzzy feeling for them to repeat. LSU will have to traverse the shark-infested SEC waters without their All-American Glenn Dorsey and stud running back Jacob Hester. Both brought toughness and swagger to their respective units, as well as quarterbacks Matt Flynn and Ryan Perrilloux. One might say, "Well, this is LSU and we don't rebuild, we reload". That definitely is true, however, having a team littered with seniors, All-Americans, and All-SEC players is invaluable and can't easily be replaced by just talent alone. Even with a team that had so many standout players, LSU still managed to lose twice, and it took a few teams to lose for them to get a spot in the BCS game. Oh...did I mention Bo Pellini is coaching Nebraska? With all that said, can LSU actually repeat and win the SEC? Lets look at a few factors. Experience Looking back at past champions in the BCS era, they all had a good or dominate defense and a good or dominate offense. Some might argue that Ohio State had a dominate defense but a terrible offense, however, a good offense to me is one that A) doesn't turn the ball over, B) plays smart, and C) wins games when it counts. You can put up all the points in the world, but if it doesn't win games, then it's meaningless. In '07, LSU had both in spades, however, this year, they have five returning starters on both offense and defense. Yes, they have stars waiting in the wings, however, last time I checked, freshmen and sophomores win games, not championships. With no Flynn and Perrilloux, Miles has to turn to either Jarret Lee or Andrew Hatch to run the show. bleacherreport 7/18/08

http://www.cfb360.com/articles/2008/07/rich-rodriguez-michigan-football-fans.html Trying to keep up with the major College Football programs can be an arduous task. What's happening at Southern California, Texas, Louisiana State, Georgia, Florida, Ohio State and Michigan during off-season workouts alone, can keep one busy. And sure, checking in on the likes of the traditional inflated expectations at schools such as Purdue, Michigan State, South Carolina, Texas A&M, and UCLA, does take place, but it simply is not worth discussing here. Those programs are almost always a day late and dollar short with regards to raw talent to win a National Title. Just the way it is. Two schools seem to have some unusual expectations for the upcoming season, most likely due to each school's tradition. Michigan and Texas fans, simmer down. Take a deep breath. Relax. Your time may yet come, but certainly not this year. The coaching trees at each institution may not be that far away from being in left field either. With Michigan, here it is short and sweet. Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez does not plan to alter his system despite the fact that he does not have the proper personnel to run his spread offense this season. Bad move. There is something called a happy medium that coach Rodriguez apparently does not grasp. A spread offense with a pocket passer running the show? Not a good idea (This article explains in more detail). And the Wolverines' win-loss record will prove that notion worthy. At absolute best, Michigan goes 7-5. More likely, Michigan goes 5-7 and stays home for the holidays (Utah will win in Ann Arbor). The funny thing is many Michigan fans still expect eight, nine, even ten or more victories this season. No, that was not a joke. Scanning numerous Michigan message boards, many Wolverine fans seem to have bought into Rodriguez's shtick. The biggest fallacy of them all, Michigan is going to Columbus, Ohio and defeating the Buckeyes this season. Oooooooooh please. Several Michigan fans truly believe that. What could possibly be in the water in Ann Arbor? In a few years, Michigan will be a good team again. This year, they are going to struggle. Period. And then there is Texas. Common knowledge around The Forty Acres notes that last season the Longhorns had little chemistry. No kidding? Texas head coach Mack Brown has yet to mentally win a big football game using Xs and Os. He's an average head coach for the upper echelon of College Football. Yes, he can recruit like few others, and he's at Texas, an easy sell for recruiting purposes, but last season the Longhorns displayed a roller coaster attitude during several games – a common theme during coach Brown's coaching career – making it easy to predict that the trend will continue. In short, the Longhorns were not mentally tough enough on offense, defense, or special teams to even come close to living up to their potential during the 2007 season. Coach Brown, as the program's CEO, must be held responsible, and he did take some heat for the team's lack of focus. Until proven otherwise, each Texas team should be considered an underachiever while under coach Brown's direction. cfb360.com 7/20/08

http://weisnd.blogspot.com/2008/07/most-overrated-coaches-in-america.html Yesterday's discussion of the best coaches in the game got me thinking a little bit about a different topic of discussion when it comes to college football. This topic is a little more enjoyable for me because it's a subject that the mainstream media hates to talk about. There is nothing more uncomfortable for mainstream media types than to go on the record and call out a coach for not getting it done. And yet as a college football fan, there is nothing more frustrating than hearing the media gush over coaches who fans know is not all they are cracked up to be. Guys like Chris Fowler (who I like by the way) absolutely love to pooh pooh the fans whenever fans start getting upset about the performance of their coach. You'll start hearing stuff like "nothing is ever good enough for (insert team here) fans" and "loyalty is a long lost art among college football fans" and "fans will jump all over you at the first sign of trouble." As a college football fan, I usually find those statements insulting (especially when they are directed at the fans of my team) because we know as well as anyone if our coach is getting the job done. In the spirit of open discussion, let's tear down some barriers and throw out a list of college football's most overrated coaches. 1) Mack Brown - The reason I wanted to start with Mack Brown is because he's the perfect example of a coach who has an absolute pristine reputation with the mainstream media but probably faces a lot more grumbling at home in Austin with his own fans. Let me start by saying that I don't think Mack Brown is a bad coach, and it would be silly for me to say that he hasn't been successful at Texas. The guy has put together a 103-25 record in 10 years in Texas and has averaged over 10 wins per season. He got the job done with the national title in 2005, and has never won fewer than 9 games at Texas. He's also 7-3 in bowl games, and 19-11 overall in rivalry games against Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech. When you consider that he took over a Texas program that was in the doldrums when he got there, he has delivered big time results at Texas. By all accounts, he is very popular in Austin and pretty much has a lifetime contract at Texas. So why am I putting him on this list again?? Because it's Texas!! You're talking about a university that is king in one of the three richest states for high school football talent in the country. Texas high school football is probably the most intense high school football in the country, and just about every one of those kids dreams of putting on those burnt orange colors and playing in Austin. Yea, A&M and Oklahoma and maybe some schools like ND, LSU, and Arkansas might get down there and pluck away a few blue chippers, but the vast majority of the top talent in the state wants to go to Texas. In other words, the head coach at Texas has his pick of the litter. There's no other situation like it in the country. The Florida schools are all cannibalizing each other for players in Florida, and the same applies in California to some degree. There's fans of all different teams throughout those states. In Texas, it's Longhorn football, and Mack Brown barely has to step out of his backyard to put together a top 5 recruiting class. In the Big 12, Texas is always going to have the best access to talent in the conference. I'm not saying that it's easy to win 10 games a year at any school, including Texas, but isn't it safe to say that there are a lot of quality coaches who could do what Mack Brown has done?? Mack Brown has been a success at Texas, but let's not go overboard here. The guy has won 1 Big 12 championship in 10 years. ONE. Read that again. What "legendary" coach has only won one conference title in a ten year span?? Stoops has won five Big 12 titles in the same time frame. Mack Brown deserves better than the "Mr. February" label that he sometimes gets tagged with, but you have to admit that he hasn't produced a lot of powerhouses with the talent at his disposal. Mack has his national title, but let's not kid ourselves. We all watched Texas that year. They won a national title for one reason and one reason only. VINCE YOUNG. I've never seen a player carry a team more than Vince Young did that year. He turned Texas from a program that always came up small in the big moments into one that found ways to get it done. Other than the Vince Young era, Mack Brown has been "Mr. Holiday Bowl." There's nothing wrong with that, but if you compare Mack Brown's achievements to his national reputation, there's a noticeable gap there. There are probably many Texas fans who insist that Mack Brown is the best thing ever to happen to Texas football, but I would bet there is a vocal minority who think he probably could be doing more with the resources available at Texas. WeisNotreDame.com 7/19/08

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/39077-four-college-football-conferences-id-like-to-see Part of being an amateur sports blogger means I am free to write about whatever I want. As you might have guessed, I get bored a lot. So what's a sports geek to do on a Friday night? Write about college football and some new radical changes I would make if I were the merciless God of the College Football Universe! 4. The SEC sans Vandy. What to do? Who replaces them? We can trade them to the ACC for either Clemson or Georgia Tech. We can trade them to the Big East for Louisville. Maybe even swap them to the Sun Belt conference in exchange for Troy. 3. Notre Dame, Army, and Navy all move to the Big East. Kick the competition up a notch. Have two geographical divisions: The Big East East and the Big East West. It's time Notre Dame learned they're not so special and should play a conference schedule like everyone else. They can still have some decent non-conference games, and since they play Navy every year anyway, it's not really that much different. 2. The BOMC: Battle of the Mascots Conference On one side, we have the more vigorous names. They can be teams named after incredibly vicious animals like the Michigan Wolverines or Wisconsin Badgers. They can be teams named after natural disasters like the Iowa State Cyclones and the Miami Hurricanes. I think it'd be good to have teams named after angry ethnicities such as Notre Dame or the UL-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns. I'd also like Duke Blue Devils and the Arizona State Sun Devils, as I have this thing for semi-blasphemous team names. On the other side are teams whose mascots couldn't punch their way out of paper bags. Teams named after inanimate objects like Ohio State, or Stanford and their illustrious Tree, which is certain to cause arborphobic teams to quake with terror. Also included are some of the wimpier bird names like the Temple Owls (this is football, not the Secret of NIMH), Oregon Ducks, and the Louisville Cardinals. I'd also like to add the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. Even with "Demon" added to the name, you can't help but think of some guy in a suit on his way to church. A stipulation in this conference is that any win may be contested by the losing team and it immediately goes into a literal sudden-death overtime. During this portion of the game, gladiatorial combat ensues between mascots. We know what Hurricanes do to tree, but have you ever stopped to think about what a snarling, hissing badger would do to a duck? bleacherreport 7/18/08