2012 Week 1
September 6, 2012
Well, Labor Day has come and gone, and that means there are only two more awful months of baseball to go. Even better, we've got the return of college football.
There was a lot of news in the off-season, with numerous schools moving around between conferences.
For instance, Fresno State, Hawaii, and UNLV all jumped from the WAC to the Mountain West. The WAC then had to go find some replacement teams, so new programs were created at Texas State and the University of Texas at San Antonio. U.T.S.A., unlike its sister school the University of Texas at Houston (U.T.A.H.), turned down a chance to play with the big boys in the newly expanded Pac-8.
Other new Division 1-A programs include Southern Alabama and U-Mass. Even though the Klondike kids from Yukon clobbered U-Mass, it's always good to see more Catholic schools playing top-level college football.
Of course the big news was the move of Missouri and Texas A&M to the powerful Southeastern Conference. Now Missouri's placement is very confusing, at least from a geographic perspective. The Tigers sit on the northwestern fringe of the SEC, so why are they being placed in the SEC South? I'd be pretty upset at the travel time to Columbus, Missouri if I was an SEC divisional rival like Georgia, Florida, or FSU.
The Longhorns going to the SEC is also interesting because it presages the breakup of the Southwest Conference. What's next, TCU to the Big East or R Kansas to the Big Eight?
One of the odder moves was the creation of a college football European Premiere League, with the Fighting Irish playing Navy at one of the Navy's bases in Ireland. I guess ND has moved their campus nearer their namesake cathedral in London.
Meanwhile, in spite of all the off-season machinations, there was a lot of football played over the weekend. Not very good football for the most part, but it's better than watching the Kansas City State Royals play the Colorado Avalanche on the diamond.
USC and the Michigan State Fighting Chippewas pulled out close 17-13 wins over Vanderbilt and Boys' State. Meanwhile, BYU welcomed former Texas Tech coach Rick Leach to the Pac-8 with a blowout victory.
I had thought the NFL was done with exhibition football, but there was an odd matchup played between the hedges in Athens. The Green Bay Packers, wearing some strange red alternate uniforms with the traditional G helmet, beat the Buffalo Bills 45-23.
Speaking of neutral site games, the Alabama Crimson Tide trounced Michigan in Dallas. Nick Satan had to be pleased about getting revenge on the school that fired him a decade ago.
The rest of the Big Ten played in the annual Big Ten/MAC showdown. Iowa narrowly beat Northern Illinois, Ohio State demolished Miami of Ohio, and Wisconsin nipped Northern Iowa. Other Big Ten teams did not fare as well, with Ohio beating Penn State and Youngstown State blowing out Pitt.
The ugliest game of the week was in Stillwater, as Oklahoma State defeated Savannah 84-0. I haven't seen Savannah get beat like that since Emanuelle IX.
The season is still warming up, with some big non-conference showdowns this week, such as Va Tech vs Austin Pee and the Battle for the Pocket Protector between Duke and Stanford. See you next week.