westgatehusker
Special Teams Player
in stewart mandels latest article in which he rates the 11 conferences he puts the Big 12, 5!!!! behind SEC, Pac 10, Big 10, and Big East
1) SEC: Simply put, this year's SEC could be the toughest conference in history. I'm not exaggerating. It's extremely rare for a league to not only boast so many quality teams at the top (LSU, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee) but also so little dead weight at the bottom. Really, it's just Mississippi State. You've got two former national championship coaches, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban, leading what may be only the seventh- or eighth-best teams in the league. Kentucky won eight games last year. And Vandy is no longer a gimme (just ask Georgia). It's a perfect storm for the SEC right now with so many accomplished coaches, so much elite talent and so many returning veterans all at once.
2) Pac-10: I've always felt one reason the Pac-10 doesn't get taken seriously by most of the country is that outside of USC, no one has been able to stay consistently good recently. At the same time, however, no one has been consistently bad, either. In other words, the league's image is a victim of its own balance. USC appears to be the cream of the crop again this year, but remember, the Trojans lost to two Pac-10 teams last year, UCLA and Oregon State, both of which return the vast majority of their starters. Cal is loaded on offense yet again. And I expect Oregon, Arizona State (which now has Dennis Erickson), Arizona and possibly Washington to all be factors as well.
3) Big Ten: Remember the 1990s and early 2000s? For the only time in its history, the Big Ten was actually fairly wide open, with everyone from Northwestern to Purdue to Illinois winning titles. Now, the league has gone back to being top-heavy. Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State could all be top-10 teams, Penn State won't be far off, but then there's a pretty drastic drop-off. I do expect Iowa to do a bit of damage, but nearly half the teams the league (Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana) are basically irrelevant.
4) Big East: Obviously, it's impossible for the Big East to go as deep as the other leagues because it has so few teams, and thus its ranking suffers. The top four teams -- Louisville, West Virginia, Rutgers and USF -- stack up with any league outside of the SEC. All four are legitimate preseason top-25 teams in my mind, and three of them could be BCS-caliber. The Cardinals and Mountaineers have already shown their offenses are as explosive as any in the country, but I have a hunch Rutgers might wind up winning the title because it has a defense to go with its potential All-America running back.
5) Big 12: Earlier this decade, I really thought the Big 12 was going to emerge as the best conference in the country. But due in large part to Dennis Franchione's thus-far disappointing tenure at Texas A&M, the South Division has remained largely a two-team show (though Texas Tech is a consistent second-tier bowl team), and the North has yet to fully recover from its all-out implosion a few years ago. Nebraska should be a top-20 team, but I'm not convinced the Huskers are ready to contend nationally yet, Missouri should again be good but not great and the jury's still out on the likes of Kansas State and Kansas.
6) ACC: The conference will be better than it was last year due to several high-profile coaching changes and more experienced teams, but it is still probably a year away from becoming a true force nationally. Virginia Tech should be a top-10 team, but after that it's anyone's best guess who will emerge as legitimate top-20 teams and who will remain mired in mediocrity out of a pack that includes Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Maryland.
he also mentions later on that he is most looking forward to the USC Nebraska game in the non conference season.
the last couple The last couple of seasons, we have seen an influx in big non-conference games to start the season. Which game are you most eager to see. For me, it's Virginia Tech at LSU on Sept. 8!
--Joshua, Richmond, Va.
That's going to be a good one, all right. I don't know who's going to win, but I bet the final score will be something like 10-9. I also think it's going to be an extremely important moment for the Virginia Tech community in its ongoing healing process. Assuming that's the "game of the week" nationally (Notre Dame-Penn State will get plenty of attention as well, but those teams aren't going to be ranked in the Top 10), I can only imagine how uplifting it will be for Hokies fans to see their school return to the national spotlight for something besides the recent tragedy.
The non-conference game I'm looking forward to most, however, is USC at Nebraska the following weekend. The Trojans are the expected preseason No. 1 team, but they're not without questions, particularly on offense. This will be just their second game of the season, and the first one is against Idaho, so this will truly be the first chance to gauge the 2007 Trojans. I also think this game will serve as a referendum on Bill Callahan's mostly stormy tenure in Lincoln. I thought Huskers fans got a little bit ahead of themselves last year in thinking their team would give USC any sort of scare in L.A. in what was then the start of Callahan's third season. At this point, however, it's year four, he's got his recruits and he's finally got a stud quarterback in Sam Keller. It's reasonable to expect that Nebraska -- one of the most storied programs of all-time -- should not roll over for anyone, even the No. 1 team in the country.
1) SEC: Simply put, this year's SEC could be the toughest conference in history. I'm not exaggerating. It's extremely rare for a league to not only boast so many quality teams at the top (LSU, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee) but also so little dead weight at the bottom. Really, it's just Mississippi State. You've got two former national championship coaches, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban, leading what may be only the seventh- or eighth-best teams in the league. Kentucky won eight games last year. And Vandy is no longer a gimme (just ask Georgia). It's a perfect storm for the SEC right now with so many accomplished coaches, so much elite talent and so many returning veterans all at once.
2) Pac-10: I've always felt one reason the Pac-10 doesn't get taken seriously by most of the country is that outside of USC, no one has been able to stay consistently good recently. At the same time, however, no one has been consistently bad, either. In other words, the league's image is a victim of its own balance. USC appears to be the cream of the crop again this year, but remember, the Trojans lost to two Pac-10 teams last year, UCLA and Oregon State, both of which return the vast majority of their starters. Cal is loaded on offense yet again. And I expect Oregon, Arizona State (which now has Dennis Erickson), Arizona and possibly Washington to all be factors as well.
3) Big Ten: Remember the 1990s and early 2000s? For the only time in its history, the Big Ten was actually fairly wide open, with everyone from Northwestern to Purdue to Illinois winning titles. Now, the league has gone back to being top-heavy. Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State could all be top-10 teams, Penn State won't be far off, but then there's a pretty drastic drop-off. I do expect Iowa to do a bit of damage, but nearly half the teams the league (Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana) are basically irrelevant.
4) Big East: Obviously, it's impossible for the Big East to go as deep as the other leagues because it has so few teams, and thus its ranking suffers. The top four teams -- Louisville, West Virginia, Rutgers and USF -- stack up with any league outside of the SEC. All four are legitimate preseason top-25 teams in my mind, and three of them could be BCS-caliber. The Cardinals and Mountaineers have already shown their offenses are as explosive as any in the country, but I have a hunch Rutgers might wind up winning the title because it has a defense to go with its potential All-America running back.
5) Big 12: Earlier this decade, I really thought the Big 12 was going to emerge as the best conference in the country. But due in large part to Dennis Franchione's thus-far disappointing tenure at Texas A&M, the South Division has remained largely a two-team show (though Texas Tech is a consistent second-tier bowl team), and the North has yet to fully recover from its all-out implosion a few years ago. Nebraska should be a top-20 team, but I'm not convinced the Huskers are ready to contend nationally yet, Missouri should again be good but not great and the jury's still out on the likes of Kansas State and Kansas.
6) ACC: The conference will be better than it was last year due to several high-profile coaching changes and more experienced teams, but it is still probably a year away from becoming a true force nationally. Virginia Tech should be a top-10 team, but after that it's anyone's best guess who will emerge as legitimate top-20 teams and who will remain mired in mediocrity out of a pack that includes Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and Maryland.
he also mentions later on that he is most looking forward to the USC Nebraska game in the non conference season.
the last couple The last couple of seasons, we have seen an influx in big non-conference games to start the season. Which game are you most eager to see. For me, it's Virginia Tech at LSU on Sept. 8!
--Joshua, Richmond, Va.
That's going to be a good one, all right. I don't know who's going to win, but I bet the final score will be something like 10-9. I also think it's going to be an extremely important moment for the Virginia Tech community in its ongoing healing process. Assuming that's the "game of the week" nationally (Notre Dame-Penn State will get plenty of attention as well, but those teams aren't going to be ranked in the Top 10), I can only imagine how uplifting it will be for Hokies fans to see their school return to the national spotlight for something besides the recent tragedy.
The non-conference game I'm looking forward to most, however, is USC at Nebraska the following weekend. The Trojans are the expected preseason No. 1 team, but they're not without questions, particularly on offense. This will be just their second game of the season, and the first one is against Idaho, so this will truly be the first chance to gauge the 2007 Trojans. I also think this game will serve as a referendum on Bill Callahan's mostly stormy tenure in Lincoln. I thought Huskers fans got a little bit ahead of themselves last year in thinking their team would give USC any sort of scare in L.A. in what was then the start of Callahan's third season. At this point, however, it's year four, he's got his recruits and he's finally got a stud quarterback in Sam Keller. It's reasonable to expect that Nebraska -- one of the most storied programs of all-time -- should not roll over for anyone, even the No. 1 team in the country.
