By Fernie Ruano Jr.
It’s late-August, and if you’re a hardcore college football geek you’re probably in the living room right now doing cartwheels in your Florida Gators’ fleece jacket, if you’re not hatching up a last-minute strategy to sneak into Nick Saban’s office and put a special sauce in his Little Debbie snack box or mailing Urban Meyer a “Get Well’ card.
However, there’s a small possibility you don’t give a shit about the Gators – How dare you? – but are still counting down the minutes to the start of the 2014 season even though your favorite team’s QB drives a BMW and you don’t, the starting RB at your alma mater has gotten laid more in the last week than you have over the past 12 years and that same starting running back has the blonde, perky cheerleader’s phone number on speed dial, while you’re racing home with your daughter’s dry-cleaned skirt so your wife can take her to football practice. I’ve done pretty well for myself in the sack since 1998, but I feel your pain, otherwise, because whether you’re stupid enough to think the Gators are going to win the SEC East (me!) just a year removed from losing seven straight games to end the season, including one to GEORGIA SOUTHERN, believe Notre Dame players actually go to class, are a masochist and think Alabama should start construction on another Saban statue (okay, maybe) or brave enough to accept Jameis Winston’s invitation to a lobster tail dinner, we can all agree on one thing:
WE’RE HAPPY AS $#%% COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS BACK!Yes, I know the National Cash cow (Professional) Athletic Association can still rub you the wrong way from time to time, namely with all the conference exit settlements, half-hearted player suspensions, player transfers and courtroom BJING, if not their collective notion that college football players are truly student-athletes. But we can cue the band to that song on another day, because it’s COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON BITCH and Will Muschamp is scared to death, as is Michigan’s Brady Hoke and West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen.
But we can discuss coaches getting fired, when they actually get fired. For now... The guy with the hot wife who promised to turn USC around after two-timing Tennessee and now is kind of Nick Saban’s bitch returns to Neyland Stadium to Oct. 25 as Bama’s offensive coordinator. I rather be out drinking with Lane Kiffin on that third Saturday in October, rather than sitting next to him in the booth.
It’s year No. 1 of the playoff system and while a lot of us are going in like a 3-year-old into a pool for the first time, anything is better than that BCS garbage, no? Unless of course, we end up with eight undefeated teams this season, therefore making each member of the 13-person committee want to eat Doak Campbell Stadium-grass out of a pickle juice jar. My take: Playoff or not, I can’t really see the SEC getting railroaded in favor of say Oklahoma or UCLA…
Winston could be all-shrimped out, but question is if the reigning Heisman Trophy winner can lead the Seminoles to a second straight national championship and win another of those stupid-looking trophies. If he does, Winston will join Archie Griffin (1974-75) as the only college football players ever to do so. ..
Now that Charlie Strong owns the state of Texas and 12 of Jerry Jones’ girlfriends, can he actually coach the Longhorns back up the rankings? He better do it quickly, or a bit quicker than Bobby Petrino at Louisville and Chris Peterson at Washington, for starters. And hopefully Petrino stays off his motorcycle and training room coeds. ..I’m rooting for Miami’s Al Golden, but his squad down in Coral Gables has too many holes to expect anything more than eight or nine wins… Urban Meyer is in year No. 3 of his long-term project in Columbus and he’ll have to grind it out this season with his much-hyped starting QB Braxton Miller, who is out for the season with a shoulder injury. Good luck, Urban! And more of the same to Maryland and Rutgers, both new members of the Big Ten.
Drumroll, please....Florida State vs. Oklahoma
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