March 27, 2006

Too early for college football? Never.

The blogpoll folks have re-emerged and have posted a roundtable discussion over at Schembechler Hall

1) It's early, but thus far, which offseason change or changes in college football are you most excited about?

- I am excited about three things: 12 games, Fox doing the BCS, and the 5th BCS game. Anytime you can get more football, broadcast by a better network that is setting the stage to eventually solve the national championship debate in college football, you have to be all for it.

2) With spring practice underway, what are the three concerns about your team that are causing you the most anxiety?

- Any Notre Dame fan worth anything is fretting over the defense. Not one unit, not just one position, but the whole damn thing. Charlie came in and taught the Irish how to compete on offense, now lets hope he can work the magic on defense. There are a few playmakers on the defense (S Tom Zbikowski and LB Maurice Crum), however a lot of the Irish success was built upon inept teams not being able to handle the pressure of scoring every time they had the ball or we were just playing bad offensive teams. Lets face it, Notre Dame fans, we only played two complete teams - USC and Ohio State. (Michigan fans: Time to decide, are you good or not?)

- The second worry is about the expectations of the bandwagon fans. Look I remember the Holtz years when Notre Dame was a beast. We also just completed the wildly inconsistent Davie and Willingham years when Notre Dame could be very good and very bad. Now everyone is ready to anoint this team national champions. Hold on. There is work to be done everywhere. This is still a team that doesn't go very deep without losing quality in a hurry. Yes, attitude change is a great thing, but I hope the team will stay hungry because its that drive that can push the Irish to another BCS appearance.

- The schedule is always a concern. While Michigan is off winning another MAC title, and Florida State plays four-letter patsies , the Irish will play another killer. However, we best not thump our chests too mightily. Notice that Penn State, Michigan, and UCLA all venture to South Bend. The road games against Georgia Tech and Michigan State are certainly winnable. (Lord knows the Irish will be motivated against the Spartans after this.) And yes, we do play the service academies, which will bring the barrage of quotes from my head basketball coach where I work as the SID.

Still, I would love to see anyone else play seven bowl teams in a given year.

3) Care to take a stab at a preseason top five?

- Always the sucker to put out material that I will later contradict I will say that Oklahoma, USC, Ohio State, Auburn, and LSU look pretty tough.

1 comment:

The College Game said...

In a sense, those don't count for Michigan because the Big Ten forces them to play the conference.

But Western Michigan, Ball State, c'mon.

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Heavenly time period: College football season until the championship game of March Madness.