Fourth and inches …

By Todd Erickson  |   Thursday, August 28, 2008  |  Comments( 0 )

College Football
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Looking back at my preseason picks for the BCS championship last year, I had LSU and USC playing for the title. Ohio State wasn’t even in my top five. You won’t find any preseason ranking that doesn’t include all three of these programs in the top five this season, and most of the experts' lists show Georgia and USC headed for Miami and the national title game. I have to agree. If the Buckeyes had USC at home this year, I’d give Ohio State the nod for making it to the title game a third year in a row. But I just can’t see USC losing at home this season, even though Stanford pulled off the miracle last year.

The best college football columnists… if you sleep, eat and breathe college football, then you’ll want to make sure to read these six college football experts every week. Each of them offer fairly unbiased perspectives and consistently valuable insights about the sport.

Stewart Mandel, SI.com
Pete Fiutak, College Football News/Fox
Olin Buchanan, Rivals.com
Ivan Maisel, ESPN.com
Dennis Dodd, CBS Sportsline
Matt Hayes, The Sporting News

Best bet for a dramatic turnaround in 2008: Notre Dame will rebound from a deplorable 3-9 mark in 2007 and post an 8-4 record this season.

Student-athlete with the most pressure on his back this season who can actually handle it? Florida’s Tim Tebow.

Everybody’s favorite BCS buster: Well, except for Kirk Herbstreit, who loves to diss BYU every chance he gets, it’s Bronco Mendenhall’s Cougars from the Mountain West Conference.

Most anticipated national television debut: The Mountain West Conference’s three year-old The Mtn channel kicks off its first year with national distribution featuring Division 1-AA heavyweight Northern Iowa at Division 1-A BYU, which is in the top 20.

And NO, I’m still not using that idiotic classification the NCAA introduced last year for referring to the two top divisions of college football. Join me in the backlash.

Quick Snap ... presented by the 84th Annual East-West Shrine Game, Jan. 17, 2009, in Houston, on ESPN2:

What college football programs have received the NCAA’s “death penalty” since 1965?

Be quick and be correct. Send your answer to quicksnap@realfootball365.com. The first email received with the correct answer wins you a limited edition two-card set of 2008 Rose Bowl Game trading cards featuring Illinois and USC. The winner will be announced in next week's Fourth and inches...

Top games this weekend, and why:
Hawaii at Florida. See a June Jones-less Hawaii get mangled by another SEC team.
Utah at Michigan. Michigan loses a second straight home opener.
USC at Virginia. These two teams have never played each other and Al Groh is still on the hot seat. The Trojans will light the fire that consumes him in 2008.
Appalachian State at LSU. Just to make sure you don’t miss it if “it” happens again.
Alabama at Clemson. Easily the best game in the country this weekend.
TCU at New Mexico. A fierce Mountain West Conference matchup between two solid teams; the loser’s conference championship hopes will be severely thrashed right out of the box in the new season.
Florida Atlantic at Texas. See if Schnellenberger’s troops can back up his bold claims on the road in Austin.
Washington at Oregon. Crucial Pac-10 contest that neither can afford to lose; will Locker's hamstring hold up in real game action?
Illinois at Missouri. Both teams figure to be top challengers for their respective conference crowns this year. No love lost in this rivalry.
Michigan State at California. Classic Big Ten/Pac-10 matchup is a rare meeting between these schools. Cal QB Riley needs the win to hang on to the starting role over former starter Longshore.
Tennessee at UCLA. Rare Pac-10/Big Ten clash. A Bruin win would be shocking this year -- even in the friendly homefield confines of Pasadena's Rose Bowl Stadium.
Fresno State at Rutgers. Bulldogs have sights set on a BCS bowl and can’t afford to stumble even once.

Upset Specials: Illinois Fighting Illini over Missouri Tigers; Alabama Crimson Tide over Clemson Tigers; and New Mexico Lobos over TCU Horned Frogs. Each of these clashes should come down to the wire. I was 21-23 last year in the Upset Special category, so flip a coin and see if I’m right.

Todd Erickson is the author of Road to the Rose Bowl (Silverback, 2005), the definitive book on the last 50 years of matchups and tradition in the Rose Bowl Game. He is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and pens the RealFootball365 weekly college football column Fourth and inches ...
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About Todd Erickson

Todd Erickson is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and pens the RealFootball365 Top 25 college football power rankings and "Fourth and inches..." weekly columns from August thru January. He is currently working on the second edition of Road to the Rose Bowl...
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