I Can't Contain My Excitement...

The official kickoff to college football season is next Thursday September 2. The game I'll be watching that night is Marshall @ Ohio State. But the real start of the season for me is Saturday September 4 with Uconn @ Michigan (3:30 kickoff). I'm very eager that weekend with three of my fellow umich grads coming to stay with us - this includes a half-day of work on Friday and Monday (Labor Day) off.

Uconn is ranked preseaon #22 and Umich is unranked. However, umich is favored by 3 points probably because it is a home game and we always get a little more respect than a uconn type team from the vegas pollsters.

Michigan had one of the best offenses in the big ten last year and we have nearly all of our players returning including Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson. We should be able to score a lot of points again. However, our defense is a HUGE question mark. Not only were we HORRIBLE last year but we lost our two best players (Brandon Graham and Donovan Warren) to the NFL. So I expect the defense to be weak again; we will need to outscore the opposition to win. Fingers crossed.

Finally, on Monday September 6 we have Boise State @ Va Tech. While normally I don't have too much interest these two teams, this game is on my watchlist. Why? Because I am not a fan of the current BCS format. And if Boise (preseaon #4) can beat a Va Tech (preseason #5), then they are likely to finish the season undefeated. And with a preseaon ranking of #4, it is likely they could be #1 or #2 to finish out the season, forcing a bid into the BCS championship game. It is likely Boise can't beat an Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, or Florida. This will result in folks being upset with Boise making it into the BCS championship game, and could force the decision-makers to open up the BCS to be a 4-team playoff or something to that effect. While I'm glad we are guaranteed to have a 1-2 matchup, I think the flaw with this sytem is that you could have three undefeated teams with one on the outside looking in, or zero undefeated teams and several one-loss teams with only two of them playing for the national title. I think if you had a system which allowed for 4 teams or more in a small playoff it would take care of all those problems.