The Back Corner Fade
It is indeed time. Time to quit talking all about what your team can do, won’t do, or simply can’t do. Time to pull that favorite ND t-shirt that sits in the bottom of your dresser that’s only used on game day, and time for your kids to worry about you when you shake and speak in tongues because Kelly dialed-up a pass on 1st and goal from the 2 yard line. It’s flat out time for college football to finally begin……and all is right with the world.
On the national landscape, there really isn’t much drama to begin the season. Like most season’s Alabama, OSU, and USC (after a few year absence) are all in the Top 5 poised to make a run for the BCS Final Four. Sure, there’s going to be some surprises, both teams that were supposed to be at the top going south, and teams that weren’t thought to be that good heading up the rankings. It happens every year and as long as they keep the college kids out there playing ball, it’ll continue to happen. The fun is in the journey. Like most of you, I’m glad the starters pistol is about to go off.
Actually, that gun did go off. As I do every week, I take a quick look back at what we learned from the week before. Other than Colgate’s huge win against Cal Poly, we did see one thing:
Rice is an awful football team. Yes, I realize that many of these kids have family in the Houston area and were probably concerned about far more important things than football, but if you’re going to travel half way around the world, at least put up your dukes and try to fight. Stanford is a decent football team, no question, but that good? No way.
Now, let’s get down to Week 1 and what we have to look forward to…….
Ohio St opens up shop on Thursday night, yes, Thursday night as they take to the road to play at Indiana. J.T. Barrett is in his 17th season as the QB for Bucks and he looks to revert back to his freshman form as he seemingly has digressed every year he’s been in Columbus. Buckeye fans are not happy at the fact that they have been relegated to playing during the week but, frankly, you asked for this. It was supposed to be a Friday night tussle, but OSU complained that the Buckeye faithful wouldn’t be able to watch the game as its Friday night in Ohio. Folks are simply out at the local high school games.
Michigan and Florida meet in Jerry World (sponsored by Docker’s and Visa with Doug Gottlieb doing the coin flip) in a game with so many unknowns. Michigan basically lost all their starters from that Bo like season losing to a garbage Iowa team and then getting beat by the only two really good teams they played. Florida simply can’t score points and with the suspensions to key players, it’s going to make it even that much more of an uphill battle. Word out of G-Ville that our old pal Malik Zaire is still awful in the pocket and won’t start leaving them with a red-shirt freshman in Felipe Franks or Kyle Trask. Tough decision for Dwight Yokam, err, Jim McElwain. Prediction: this game is going to suck. First team to 17 wins and it isn’t going to be because either team’s defense is that great and everything to do with brutal offenses.
West Virginia heads down to Blacksburg to take on, in my worthless opinion, an up-and-coming Virginia Tech squad. WVU will now have the services of former Florida QB, Will Grier to run the spread and should score a ton of points this season (wait, this is the Big 12, everybody scores a ton of points.) If I had a dark horse this year in making some noise nationally, I believe it’s Virginia Tech. I really like Justin Fuentes and think he’s on his way to being a top tier coach. Couple that with the fact Bud Foster always makes life difficult for opposing offenses, Tech could be the thorn in the ACC this season.
Alabama vs. Florida St. Yep, it’s going to be a good one. Alabama is their usual loaded self, and FSU, hate them or well, hate them, is going to be damn good. Obviously, losing a stud like Dalvin Cook is tough, but when you have a top notch offensive line and star in the making like Deandre Francois at QB, I think they just might be able to find someone serviceable the tote the bean. Even though FSU is going to be terrific this year, and wouldn’t surprise me to end up in the Final Four, I just think Bama finds a way to pull this out. If FSU was a wide-open spread team like Clemson was/is, I’d like them in this one. Name the last pro-style offense to beat Nick Saban. Honestly, I can’t remember one. Maybe LSU when Les won one of his 25 games that he had no business winning? Because of that, I give the nod to Alabama.
Finally, we have some football to be played in South Bend. The Temple Owls come a-calling under first year coach Geoff Collins. Collins comes from Florida with his calling card as a defensive guru to a program that already plays better than average defense. Collins has some real issues on his hands, namely how he’s going to score points. He has hinted that he might play two freshman QB’s this week that both bring different skill sets. Oh please, Geoff, please do that. Play two kids that have never been in a college game, on the road, on national TV, in front of 80,000 plus fans that aren’t pissed off at how the season is going yet, and will be in full throat. Somewhere, I’ve seen that playing two QB’s doesn’t work. I just can’t remember when. I’ll have to think about that one.
Bottom line, Notre Dame should and will win this game. It’s the first game in new systems on both sides of the ball, so I expect some hair pulling mistakes from time to time, but not enough to be cause for alarm to think they’re going to lose this one. Temple lost a ton on both sides of the ball, they have a new coach, and, obviously, it’s in South Bend. Baring ND being -3 or worse in the turnover battle, we win this one by 13-16 points. It’s not going to be a thing of beauty at all, but it’ll be a win and some MO heading into next weekend’s date with the Dawgs.
As I mentioned in the last BCF, I’m excited about this season. Sometimes the unknown can be mesmerizing, as this off season has been to me and I’m sure a great deal of ND fans. We know the defense will be better with Mike Elko…..just how much better? We have a pretty good idea that the offense is going to score points…..just how much better can it be and can Kelly stay out of the way? The special teams should be better with Polian….just how much better? The have a potentially fantastic offensive line and a three headed monster to run behind it. Will they actually use it and punch people in the mush or will it be the same old finesse football we’ve be accustom to in the Kelly Era? Will this defense be, not only in position to make plays, be actually be fundamentally sound and make tackles?
So many questions. Mike, Jaime, Matt, and Christian have given us all hints that things are heading in a positive direction. As most of you do, I trust their eyes and believe it to be true. The rubber finally hits the road this Saturday, and I for one cannot wait. It…. Is…. TIME!
Beat Temple.