College football recruiting exists as a game-within-the-game, with a final score given out each February on national signing day. So much in the recruiting game occurs behind the scenes, most of which the majority of fans will never see. For better or for worse, coaches are commonly judged more for how their recruits perform as […]
How close the Big 12 Conference was to full implosion six years ago this month, the world may never truly know. So many conflicting accounts surfaced at the time, and still leak out today, it’s difficult to parse reality from fiction. Colorado was the first to go, leaving for the former Pac-10 on the 10th. […]
Popular opinion dictated both Myles Jack and Jaylon Smith were first-round talents well before either qualified for the NFL draft. Both tumbled out of the first 31 picks Thursday, however, the result of injuries sustained their final season in college football. A simplistic interpretation of cause-and-effect dictates, then, that had either Jack or Smith sat […]
Kevin Sumlin eschewed any lingering controversy this week, naming Trevor Knight his starting quarterback for the 2016 season. Folks with no skins in the game have different schools of thought on naming a starting quarterback in the spring. One thought asks why end competition almost a half-year before Week 1, while the other sees it […]
This week’s Q&A featured a question on first-year college football coordinators. Not included was the following gem from Bang The Book Radio’s Adam Burke, a topic deserving its own column. @kensing45 @cfbhuddle Who would be on the current "Mount Rushmore" of offensive & defensive coordinators? — Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods) March 16, 2016 This is 5 […]
Conference Championship Week — excuse me, “Champ Week,” as ESPN has rebranded it — is afoot and leading us directly into Selection Sunday. For college basketball junkies, it doesn’t get much better than the week-and-change of tournaments played across the country. Conference tournaments have given us such memorable moments as the 2009, six-overtime classic between […]
Auburn and Texas A&M enter the 2016 season with buyer’s remorse, and thanks to risky investments both programs face the likelihood of a coaching search unless things change drastically.
Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller’s Super Bowl 50 MVP is now to college football what 1986 train-wreck Cobra is to cinema. The dreadful Sylvester Stallone actioneer was loosely based off a novel by Paula Gosling entitled Fair Game. Upon Cobra‘s release, Warner Books wanted the book rereleased to capitalize on the film’s box office success. […]
Feel better, USC fans? Less eager to see Kevin Sumlin exit College Station or Charlie Strong leave Austin, Aggies and Longhorns? Chip Kelly really isn’t making his return to college football — not for at least another few years, pending the particulars of his new contract with the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers announced Chip […]
Coordinators operate as college football programs canaries-in-the-coal-mine, or Uncle Elmer’s trick knee just before a tornado. Abrupt dismissal of a coordinator often suggests impending trouble, or damage control amid ongoing turmoil. The relatively short shelf-life of most coordinators is reflective of today’s win-now college football landscape, albeit at warp-speed. This week alone, four programs coming […]
Former Texas A&M quarterback and 5-star recruit Kyle Allen is headed to Houston, Joseph Duarte of the Houston Chronicle first reported Tuesday. Allen will spend the 2016 season redshirting behind Greg Ward Jr., a 2015 dark horse in the Heisman Trophy race and early name surfacing for the 2016 award, giving head coach Tom Herman […]
Three years ago this week, Johnny Manziel was named Texas A&M football’s first Heisman Trophy winner in six decades. The Aggies were 10-2, just a month removed from beating the eventual national champion on its own turf, and in another few weeks would dominate the kingpin of their former conference home. Three years ago this […]
The Week 8 docket isn’t particularly impressive on paper, but you know what that means. Buckle in for upsets and wild finishes galore. Paring down to the six best games for the Week 8 Saturday Six-Pack was no easy task. Pinpointing any clear upset candidates is challenging — that’s why they’re upsets. To that end, […]
So…that was an eventful week. A Top 10 team lost its quarterback, a preseason College Football Playoff pick lost its head coach and one of the game’s all-time coaching legends abruptly retired. Oh, yeah! There are still games to be played, too. The chaos with which Week 7 began carried over in its first game, […]
Each passing college football Saturday makes it increasingly clear Heisman Trophy voters and assorted other media have put as much space between Leonard Fournette and the rest of the field as Fournette puts between himself and a beaten safety on one of the running back’s breakaway runs. The rest of the Heisman Top 10 is […]