College Football 2013: The Season Begins, Let the Tears Begin to Fall!

[Suttree]

I'm curious about Cal in their first year post-Tedford. They're going with a true freshman QB in Goff. They had a lot of talent in the Tedford era, but things sputtered out pretty badly last year. Maynard was mostly a poor Pac-12 QB, and it was a bummer because Keenan Allen was such an obvious talent at WR.

ETA: Phil Steele says that Cal has the 3rd toughest schedule in the nation, the least experienced team in the Pac-12, and the 125th most experienced team out of 126. Ouch. It really is like they're almost starting from scratch.

Yeah this is going to be a very unique situation to watch. Tedford consistently pulled in top recruiting classes and towards the end really underachieved. Sonny Dykes and what Cal has to offer(especially with the new facilities) has them in the mix for a top class again. The talent is certainly there but the schedule is brutal. I mean look at this gauntlet to start the season:

Northwestern

Portland State

Ohio State

Oregon

then after WSU it it only gets marginally better:

UCLA

OSU

Arizona

USC

then they geat a break at CU and finish the season against Furd.

I stayed in the East Bay after graduating and have seen a number of practices. Think we will be a better more disciplined team than last year without a doubt. The Bear Raid seems to be clicking and we have a bunch of talent at RB and WR(Bigelow, Treggs, Harper). The defense looks to be strong with great depth at LB and on the DL. Pretty thin in the secondary after Kam Jackson and Stefan McClure at CB though. The OL is also a question, although the new offense gets the ball out pretty quick.

I will be there Sat night to see how it goes against NW. So far Dykes has said and done all the right things but a true frosh QB(Zach Kline waiting in the wings may end up the long term answer. Kid has a huge arm) and that schedule has most Cal fans adjusting expectations. Most of us would be very happy with 6-7 wins. If they can steal a game against NW or OSU it would be huge. It may not be as far fetched as some think...

[lokisnow]

First things first, that was an UGLY game for Lane Kiffin. I lay at least 50% of the blame on Pat Haden for not forcing Kiffin to hire an OC. but the on the field performance of the Offense is not on the QBs or the OL, it's entirely 100% on the shitty play calling.

Because the problem is not the two QB system, both are almost equally matched, it's a fairly coin flip situation. Best case scenario, perhaps you'll get lucky and the competition to win the permanent starting spot in the regular season will cause one of them to overachieve into more than they knew they could do. Look at what the competition for running back is doing for USC while Silas Redd is injured, those guys fucking killed it trying to beat each other. It was the only offensive highlight.

But look at the playcalling, look at where it was insanely, wretchedly, never-seen-a-football-game-before awful, it was all those things last night the same places it was last year (with a more loaded offense): 3rd downs and red zone (which are perhaps not terribly dissimilar from one another in plays called).

For the most part, if Kiffin can move the ball down the field and also skip the red zone without hitting a third down, USC will score. But if USC gets stuck in the red zone, Kiffin cannot call a scoring play to save his life, if USC gets stuck at a third down, Kiffin's play calls result in about a 10-15% success rate. I imagine if I looked up the stats from last years games, there would be fewer than 5 games where USC converted 30% or more of their 3rd downs.

So it was offensive play calling. Play Calling. Play Calling. Play Calling.

HIRE A FUCKING OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR ALREADY, YOU FUCK!

Just miserable. look at the unbelievable improvement on Defense when Kiffin finally hired an appropriate DC, USC is LOADED with fucking talent because Kiffin and his staff are unbelievable recruiters. But he's head coach, not OC, and he needs to relinquish the duties. Fuck, Karl Dorrell or Tyrone Willingham could do a better job at calling plays than Kiffin, I'd be surprised if they have jobs, hire them midseason already Haden, at least then Kiffin would know they're not a threat to take over the team and that he won't be fired midseason.

[Maithanet]

I think Lane's search for an OC that ended up being him was eerily similar to Dick Cheney heading the committee to choose the VP.

In both cases it was a nice preview of the kind of "out of the box" thinking we should come to expect.

[Suttree]

The funny thing about Kiffin is up until half way through last year he was being praised for how he had managed things during the sanctions and for keeping USC on track. Don't get me wrong, I often question the play calling but overall I don't think he has done a terrible job. This year will go a long way in terms of perception but some have been a bit too quick to judge IMO.

[Rhom]

The funny thing about Kiffin is up until half way through last year he was being praised for how he had managed things during the sanctions and for keeping USC on track. Don't get me wrong, I often question the play calling but overall I don't think he has done a terrible job. This year will go a long way in terms of perception but some have been a bit too quick to judge IMO.

He was preseason number 1 last year...

The season did not go as expected. I can understand the heat.

[Eponine]

The funny thing about Kiffin is up until half way through last year he was being praised for how he had managed things during the sanctions and for keeping USC on track. Don't get me wrong, I often question the play calling but overall I don't think he has done a terrible job. This year will go a long way in terms of perception but some have been a bit too quick to judge IMO.

The play calling is a symptom of the problem, not the ultimate problem itself. The best head coach isn't the one who can do well at the most things himself, but the one who can match the right assistants to the right tasks that fit into the overall goals for the program. It doesn't seem that Kiffin can do that, and if he can't, it doesn't matter what else he's personally good at.

[lokisnow]

and the only successful passing play of the game, Kessler's TD pass, wasn't a Kiffin call, Kessler audibled it.

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/college-football/story/_/id/9614281/no-resolution-qb-battle-usc-trojans

[Ramsay B.]

PTI just asked if Clowney lost the Heisman after yesterday's game. Obnoxious.

[Gold Storm]

Yeah, that hit was amateur hour. ESPN has already started their love affair with Clowney. Breaking down the South Carolina highlights focused around him, which is fine, but showing plays where he actually gets blocked? They will make us hate him...

They were told to bring up Clowney all the time. He was their talking point and it got very annoying.

Oh yea, if you ever asked yourself, how cool would it be if a Eastern European metal group ever sang Rocky Top and how great it would sound. Question answered:

[Ded As Ned]

I'm watching Texas Tech vs. SMU and I was surprised to see none other than Hal Mumme calling plays for SMU! Glad to see him back in BCS football.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Awful game btw. Hard to tell who is worse. Looks like SMU but can't say 100%.

As a TCU fan I would like them both to lose.

[Gold Storm]

Damn KState looks very bad against North Dakota

[SkynJay]

North Dakota seems to upset a bigger school every year. Quite a program they have up there.

[SkynJay]

There is the upset. Love it.

[Gold Storm]

wow Snyder might retire for reals after this year

[wolverine]

Hats off to my alma mater they played a hell of a game tonight. Hail the Bison!

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

It makes my conference look bad, but damn I love to see an FCS beat a (non-TCU) FBS team. Especially when they leave it all on the field like the Bison did.

[Ded As Ned]

Wow they pulled it off eh? I was in bed already, have to work a few hours today to finish out the work week.

It gets real today though boys and girls! May all your teams fare as well as you'd have them! Except for Louisville and the upper echelon SEC of course. and WKU.

GO BIG BLUE!

[wolverine]

What all goes into determining if a team is FCS or FBS? According to Wikipedia there is an attendance component and it is based on number of scholarships. I see teams like NDSU and Appalachian St. (they are in the process of going D1) have far exceeded the attendance requirement to be FBS teams.

"The method by which the NCAA determines whether a school is Bowl or Championship subdivision is first by attendance numbers and then by scholarships.^[36] For attendance reporting methods, the NCAA allows schools to report either total tickets sold or the number of persons in attendance at the games. They require a minimum average of 15,000 people in attendance every other year.^[36] These numbers get posted to the NCAA statistics website for football each year. With the new rules starting in the 2006 season, the number of Bowl Subdivision schools could drop in the future if those schools are not able to pull in enough fans into the games. Additionally, 8 schools in the Championship subdivision had enough attendance to be moved up in 2005 (although they would need to either compete as independents or join a conference in order to do so)."

When a university goes D1 do they have to enter FCS, formerly Division 1AA, first? NDSU has not been D1 for very long.

[Black Wolf Smith]

What all goes into determining if a team is FCS or FBS? According to Wikipedia there is an attendance component and it is based on number of scholarships. I see teams like NDSU and Appalachian St. (they are in the process of going D1) have far exceeded the attendance requirement to be FBS teams.

When a university goes D1 do they have to enter FCS, formerly Division 1AA, first? NDSU has not been D1 for very long.

Short answer is money. Georgia Southern is also moving up (not sure if its this year or next) GSU was the power house in the late '90's/early '00's, but didn't want to spend the money it took to move up, but after 10 years and looking at Marshall (and others) who had moved up and made more money, even thou a new study showed the were likely better off where the were, they pony up the start up money.

No IIRC FCU went straight to I-A when they started playing FB, but again they are bigger then Miami, and had the money.

As for NDSU, love it. not App St over Michigan good, but not many are that good.