Over the last few seasons, the big non-conference has become endangered except in a few instances. There are many reasons for this including money, fear of taking a loss when a team may need to be undefeated to play for the national title and schedules being made years in advance then having one or both teams fall off making games like this season's Colorado-Georgia game a lot less intriguing than it seemed it would be when the schedule was created.
Also, in past season's recently, there has been one big non-conference game or maybe two that have overshadowed all the rest. Those who follow college football closely remember these. Last season it was the opening week game between Virginia Tech and Alabama and USC's week 2 trip to Ohio St. The year before that it was the beginning of that USC-Ohio St. series in Los Angeles. Previous years have included games like Ohio St.-Texas, USC-Auburn and Tennessee-Miami.
This year's big game or games I should say after the jump
This season, we do have one big one before Super Saturday with Boise St. facing Virginia Tech at a quasi-neutral field in Washington D.C., but September 11 (week 2) is the big day. Here is a brief look at what is happening that day and what channel the games are likely to be on.
5 star can't miss games (rankings are from the Aubievegas top 25 published Tuesday)
2Ohio St. vs 12Miami (confirmed 2:40 CT, 12:40 PT, ESPN)
This is one of three 5 star games on the day. In it, Ohio St. plays its most difficult non-conference game of the season (by far) with Terrelle Pryor attempting to carve up the Miami defense like he did the Oregon defense in the Rose Bowl. Miami is led by quarterback Jacory Harris and a talented group of skill position players looking to take the next step from extremely talented but young and inconsistent to juggernaut offense. The game should come down to whether the Miami offense can generate enough offense on the road against what should be another stellar Ohio St. defense to put any real pressure on Pryor to score.
1Alabama vs 19Penn St. (time uncertain, definitely a primetime game on ESPN)
The question here comes down to the Alabama defense versus the Penn St. offense. The Alabama offense returns nearly everybody and the Penn St. defense is always good (even when the team stunk in the early 2000s). The question is whether Penn St., with no real proven ability on the offensive line and a new quarterback will be able to score against an Alabama defense that lost all of its leaders and most of its production from a year ago.
13Oklahoma vs 21Florida St. (almost certainly 2:30 CT, 12:30 PT, possible national ABC game)
Both teams here are seemingly on the upswing after a disappointing season last year. Oklahoma should have the advantage at home and its offense should be able to attack the vulnerable Florida St. defense very well. Meanwhile, Florida St. likely has one more year of big offense/no defense shootouts in front of it like last season's 48-44 loss to Georgia Tech. This game will come down to the defense and who can make a stop or two at a critical time. Oklahoma's new defensive starters or Florida St.'s untalented returning starters.
4 star game (name teams that people want to watch but could easily turn into a blowout)
9Oregon at Tennessee (6:00 CT, 3:00 PT, confirmed for ESPN2)
Both teams have loads of questions. For Tennessee, is there anyone left? There are no quarterbacks with any experience on the roster, the running game has been decimated by transfers after Lane Kiffin's departure and the defense lost much of its nucleus either to graduation or to early draft entry. For Oregon, the problems are at quarterback and are they disciplined enough? This will be the first real test for either Lance Thomas or Nate Costa (yes I know he started the UCLA game last year and it was a very ugly win against a team with no offense to speak of). Can they handle what will be a very hostile environment (nothing in the Pac-10 except their own stadium is a hostile as Tennessee) and can they thrive if Tennessee commits to stopping the run game? The other Oregon question is of course can they stay disciplined. Off the field issues have clouded the picture, and in last season's early showcase game against Boise St., there was the LaGarrete Blount meltdown to deal with.
3 star games (will be highly entertaining affair between name teams that could be a little down this season still better than the average non-conference game)
Colorado at Cal (2:30 CT, 12:30 PT, confirmed for Fox Sports Net)
Colorado needs a win to get off on the right foot (making the large assumption they beat Colorado St. week 1) and attempt to save their coach's job. Cal needs early wins to build confidence early after another late-season collapse left them searching for answers.
Michigan at Notre Dame (2:30 CT, 12:30 PT on the Notre Dame Network, NBC)
The story lines in this game are likely to exceed the quality of play even though it could be a face-paced, high-intensity, entertaining shootout like last season was. Among those story lines are how Brian Kelly will do in his first season coaching Notre Dame, if Rich Rodriguez will survive as coach at Michigan, and can either of these teams return to its former lofty perch in the college football world anytime soon?
Syracuse at Washington (likely for a primetime game on Versus)
Both of these teams are still in their rebuilding states, much as they were three seasons ago when Washington traveled across the country to steamroll the Orange in a Friday night opener. The difference now is that both started over last season with new coaches, but Washington showed much greater improvement. The winner here should be expected to get back to a bowl game while the loser could have a difficult time considering Washington is playing its usual death march non-conference schedule (this is the easy game to go along with a road trip to BYU to start the year and a home game with Nebraska the week after this one) while Syracuse needs 7 wins for a bowl game this season because of the presence of two FCS teams on its schedule.
South Florida at Florida (time and channel TBA, I have no speculation)
South Florida is likely to put a lot of emphasis on this game like its did last years game with Florida St. The Bulls desperately want to be considered even with the big three Florida powers and one of the ways to do that is to beat them. Florida is rebuilding a bit this season while South Florida has a new coach trying to get the ball rolling with one of the better teams in the Big East.
There are plenty of other big match-ups on this day, but there is no time to list them all. The in-conference battles (including Auburn-Mississippi St., South Carolina-Georgia and UCLA-Stanford) will be covered in conference previews starting next week with the SEC while some other big name games (such as USC-Virginia are likely to be such blowouts that they are inconsequential despite the presence of major teams).
No comments:
Post a Comment