Gameday is Back...Therefore I am Happy

The absolute best time of the year has begun. That is right college football is back! I apologize for not exactly doing what I did last year in terms of giving a preview of each conference and what not, but due to time constraints, life, etc., and pondering over some modifications to my formula for my rankings this year, decided against it but instead will be a very very very brief summary later in this post. So stay tuned. 

I will give a brief summary of what I did over this summer to those who care (and if you don't feel free to jump down to either The Big Red Breakdown or the paragraph before it. I know my summer was pretty lame compared to other peoples). It basically consisted of taking a summer calculus class (0/10 would not recommend summer calculus) in order to prepare for graduate school, and working as a teller and somewhat of an intern for a bank. The experiences were cool, but also very time consuming and away from my computer more often than not. Which brings us to now and this statement/story/lesson I took away from my “internship” that applies very nicely to this blog:

In the Accounting department we (we = me and my supervisor/head accountant) were doing some end-of-month reports, which was cool to get that experience, but we were also dealing with forecasting and projections on their balance sheets and what not, which for someone who's looking at stats/analytics grad school, is pretty badass. If you don’t know anything about accounting, all that matters is that the debits and credits have to equal on the balance sheet and you are pretty much good to go. So we run the next year-to-date forecast and we’re about $10,000 ish off. So my supervisor goes “Ok I think I know the problem, try changing this number” and every ethical business lesson I have learned comes into play with me being “wait what we can’t just change the numbers” but also I did what I was told and we end up now being only $2,000 ish off on the forecast. “Ok works for me” goes my supervisor. Again I’m like “lolwut we’re still out of balance”, but then she tells me this statement that I should probably have plastered somewhere on this blog: “It’s just a projection. Not the actual thing. We can change projections all we want when we want because it won't affect the real thing.”

And it all became clear. It’s just a projection. We could’ve projected that we’d make a couple ten million or so more than normal, and that would’ve eventually been hella wrong, but we would’ve been able to adjust it mid-way through the year and be like “Oh yeah, we’re more on pace for this now instead of what we said half a year ago” Now if we made that bold claim and never fixed it then I’d expected to get fired at that point. It’s much like people claiming that Tennessee will win the SEC and have National Championship aspirations. Now I’ll admit I was about ready to go on a long tangent about how they shouldn’t even be SEC East favorites but then I actually did my research, they have a legitimate shot based off what the other teams in the conference can do. But please don’t effing tell me that they’re favorites for the SEC or a Championship bid, did you watch their game last night? Come on. I mean no disrespect to App State they are actually a very good mid-major team (and a lot of people don’t realize that), but they should’ve had that game if you watched the game last night. If I were these people that were (stupidly) high on Tennessee before last night, they should change their projection considerably.  SEC East maybe, but no more than that.

Or much like how I thought the "Even Year Hype" is real when the Cubs are about ready to sweep the Giants (cue the jinx). Take your pick on sports I guess.

The Big Red Breakdown:

Anyway, wonderful transition time. It’s Nebraska’s game day tomorrow, and a lot of hope is in the air, much like last year. However that air was deflated faster than Tom Brady’s footballs and we were all sad Nebraska fans. But then there was some hope towards the end of the year. They beat Michigan State, and man-handled an overrated UCLA squad in their bowl game with only 5 wins because sports. The offense this year stays mostly in tact, and that can be good or bad. Good because their receivers are loaded between Westerkamp, Reiley, Pierson-El, Morgan Jr. and everyone else. Bad because they still have that one guy throwing it to them. I think--Nay, I HOPE Armstrong has learned to be a better thrower, otherwise this will be just as disappointing as last season. Because let's look on defense....oh yeah. THERE ISN'T MUCH. Akinmoladun, Kalu, and Gerry are the only promising returners (Gerry needs to forget last year and hopefully he shopped at Wal-Mart in the off-season). The linebackers have "experience" but are they good? Eh. Special teams is always promising as long as Pierson-El stays healthy, so it should be a modest season in terms of expectations. In terms of schedule? It's another 9 win minimum Nebraska can handle, and in fact they can be competitive in every single game they have this year except probably @ Ohio State. That's looking at an 11-1 record, a very likely Big Ten West title, and another rematch against Ohio State for the Big Ten title to maybe sneak into the national championship. Will it happen? No. But imagine if it did. That would be a heck of a way to end my student section life.

Let's take a look at game one. Fresno State. Hasn't exactly been relevant since Derek Carr left. Always offensive minded/pass oriented which will be a good test for the secondary that was one of the worst in the nation last year. But otherwise they don't pose much of a threat. Good to see a non FCS cake-walk as opposed to last year's BYU thriller.

Nebraska O vs Fresno D: Advantage Nebraska. Even with Armstrong under the gun it's going to take more skill to f this up than to slice through them.

Fresno O vs Nebraska D: Edge Nebraska. Could be close here which would be fun to see a shootout, but I expect Nebraska to be competent. Hopefully. Don't let me down.

Special Teams: Advantage Nebraska. RIP Foltz.

Prediction: Nebraska 51, Fresno State 24

The Rest of the World In College Football:

As mentioned earlier the always overrated but maybe legitimate Tennessee Volunteers almost lost to App State last night (and they should've but I digress) so I should probably talk about things related because people thought they were going to be SEC/National Champ contenders. Ha freaking ha first of all. Second of all, just no. Looking at the SEC East, sure they have a pretty good shot at winning that division, but they can also be scrapped up by every other team in their division because it's kind of a cluster fuck of mediocrity. Including Tennessee. Now do I expect them to win the division? Kind of. Frankly Georgia is their only concern, and they're also overrated. But let's look at what will happen if they do go into the SEC Championship game, they're looking at either LSU or Alabama. Let me know how that one will work out for ya (they already play Alabama in the regular season).

I should probably talk national title aspirations since I haven't done that this summer huh? Ok fine. My top four in no particular order: LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Clemson.

Contenders: Alabama, Michigan. You can take your guess as to where their spot will be if they contend.

You should've noticed no reps from the Pac-12. Good eye! Pac-12 champ will probably end up with 2+ losses so that's why. Barring a miracle/upsets, don't expect the Pac-12 to be relevant in the national conversation. No contention outside of Oklahoma in the Big 12? Yep. TCU has lost their luster, same with Baylor. OK State and maybe Texas Tech? Very unlikely. And what about the Big Ten and SEC, it seems like one of those conferences can have two reps right? Yeah they could. It's more likely that the winner of their respective regular season match-ups will get in, but it is very well possible that one of those teams could pull it off enough to sneak in via the "oh we won't be playing in our championship game so we'll just squeak in with the right loss"

I digress. The wonderful schedulers created a very interesting first week of college football so let's report on those to kick off this season's predictions:

Oklahoma @ Houston - Oklahoma 38, Houston 27

This'll be good. Two gunslinging teams with high expectations and Heisman candidates. Problem is one team has a more prominent defense, and that team is Oklahoma.

Georgia @ North Carolina - North Carolina 27, Georgia 24

A battle of mediocrity here. Both teams come in with a lot of question marks and hopes of divisional contention and this'll be a good game to see who is for real and who isn't. Which is what I hate about the first week is we don't know who is who and I can't make accurate calls. Give me the Tar Heels with a buzzer beater.

USC @ Alabama - Alabama 35, USC 20

This game could go one of two ways. A laughing stock as to why this is even a match-up, or a very close game. I'll go down the middle as Alabama aims to defend their title.

Ole Miss @ Florida State - Florida State 31, Ole Miss 24

Another close game with dark horses. I don't expect Ole Miss to be in major contention in the SEC with Alabama and LSU, but FSU could make some waves in the ACC. Its unlikely, but I'll let them have some hope to open the season.