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Winging It:
ATHLOON'S 2000 COLLEGE FOOTBALL PREVIEW
6/6/00

For rabid-type Cornhusker fans, there is no drier point on the calendar than the seemingly endless non-football segment of the year that we all now occupy. It's downright awful. Like many, I believe the essence of this portion of the calendar has been best captured by the contemporary American poet, Ric Ocasek, who once opined:

"Summer,
it turns me upside down.
Summer, summer, summer,
it's like a merry-go-round."

There is infinitesimal wisdom, complexity and insight in these powerful lyrics. They exhibit the endless, round-and-round monotony that make up the months of June, July and August. And trust me, Ric is a bright fella -- how else do you think a guy who looks like he does was able to bag Paulina Porizkova?

Really, the only things worth bothering with in the summer are the various preseason College Football magazines. But even proud, time-honored publications like Lindys, Street & Smiths, and Athlons are pretty unoriginal, since they all use the same basic formula to arrive at their preseason rankings. Mathematically, it is written like this:

(p)R = (r)S - T(gr)

For the rest of us, that's: "A Team's Preseason Ranking is exactly equal to its number of Returning Starters minus the number of Tough Road Games they play." But, like the inside of Keith Richards' head, this blanket theory has a bunch of holes in it. How else can you explain these jokers ranking the Arizona Wildcats third to start the 1999 season?

We here in The Pond don't really have a better method of coming up with preseason rankings, but we figured we would launch our own preseason publication anyway. So, fellow football fans, we give you ATHLOON's Top 5 for this coming season, complete with a handful of fearless prognostications:

1. NEBRASKA. Despite a tumultuous off-season filled with adversity -- we're talking about quarterbacks having trick knees and ingesting rogue ham sandwiches, of course -- the Cornhuskers have emerged as ATHLOON's team to beat in 2000. We put hours and hours of intensive analysis into our pick for the top spot, and the Huskers get the nod based on their powerful running attack, a favorable conference schedule, and because we still owe the University of Nebraska-Lincoln a bunch of student loan money. Congratulations to the Cornhuskers.
  THE BAD NEWS: NU doesn't have any good players named "Brown" left on the squad, other than the kicker.
  THE GOOD NEWS: The team has a couple of big, white lines that are so good, George Dubya Bush once tried to snort them.
  BOLD PRESEASON PREDICTION: Will run the ball a lot, beat teams very much bad.

2. FLORIDA STATE. Like every other preseason publication, we here at ATHLOON's lovvvvve Florida State. Not only should the Seminoles be held up as an example of the most perfect football dynasty of the modern era, this year we are suggesting they be appointed to fill key positions in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government. Their 13-season streak of finishing in the Top 5 is the most amazing accomplishment since Cro-Magnon Man discovered fire, and there's simply not enough bandwidth on the whole Internet to talk about how wonderful things are in Tallahassee.We bow down to FSU, the all-beings of space, time and dimension.
  THE GOOD NEWS: FSU is a good party school, mainly because 28-year-old QB Chris Weinke can buy younger Noles booze.
  THE BAD NEWS: That big, Polish, Mr. Clean-looking kicker of theirs got deported before he could get kicked off the team.
  BOLD PRESEASON PREDICTION: Bobby Bowden will get interviewed by his out-of-work kid on ABC at least nine times this fall.

3. WISCONSIN. Former Husker Barry Alvarez has engineered a mini-Big Red in Madison. Evidence of the (Cottage) Cheeseheads mimick job of NU is pretty clear: They wear red and white, they run the ball and play doberman defense, they live in a town named after a dead president, they even have a no-frills quarterback with a semi-familiar name of Brooks Bollinger. However, if we find out that they have a running back named Armand Greene and a linebacker named B. Roderick Thomas, we are going to check into whether any genetic cloning is going on at the UW Ag School.
  THE GOOD NEWS: Will play mighty Cincinnati in Madison this year.
  THE BAD NEWS: Will have to devise a better offensive game plan than, "Just Give It To Ron."
  BOLD PRESEASON PREDICTION: Dayne will be wistfully alluded to in every other sentence during Badger broadcasts. Sniff.

4. ALABAMA. Mike DuBose, who is no relation to Doug, almost lost his job last year because of some heinous scandal that involved a woman that was not his wife. In more important matters, the Tide lost to Louisiana Tech. Upsets like this would not happen if they could still get players like the ones Bear Bryant got in the late 1950s, such as Forrest Gump. And if they could find a kicker who could make extra points, particularly in overtime, that would help, too.
  THE GOOD NEWS: Though they lost their top runner, UA still has two other guys who spell their first name "Shaun." Seriously.
  THE BAD NEWS: Their helmets are still one maroon shade darker than their home jerseys. How annoying, particularly when they play in the Georgia Dome.
  BOLD PRESEASON PREDICTION: The coach will negotiate a new contract complete with a pay raise, a better health plan and a 12-gauge shotgun to protect his family with after a loss.

5. MIAMI. ATHLOON's really doesn't know if the Hurricanes are Top 5 material or not. We just think any team with a coach named Butch deserves some love -- even the godless, outlaw Miami Hurricanes. We also know that for the last six years or so, we've worn out the R- word (that's "rebuilding") when talking about the Canes. So it's about time for them to you-know-what or get off the pot.
  THE GOOD NEWS: Self-imploding turnover-machine erratic Michael Bishop-wannabe Kenny Kelly has decided to only play baseball.
  THE BAD NEWS: Like the Canes, Luther Campbell and the 2 Live Crew are probably due for a comeback, too.
  BOLD PRESEASON PREDICTION: They'll go 12-0. Or maybe 3-8. Who knows with these guys.

OUR HYPESMAN PICK: It is a safe bet that no one from Nebraska will win it, though Eric Crouch might get a couple of Yeah-He's-Good-Too votes. Long about 1995, The Hypesman Cult decided that NU's most productive guys were merely products of The System, and that they weren't worthy of hunks of sculpted bronze. When picking Hypesman favorites, it is always a safe bet to take a Big Ten player. So, we'll take Penn State offensive tackle Kareem McKenzie as our early frontrunner. After all, he only allowed seven sacks last year, five of them against Michigan.

There you have it. For all the reasons above, this figures to be a fun season for college football. But as far as our rankings for the rest of the teams, we'll be coy about it, and direct you to again heed the words of Mr. Ocasek:

"Let them leave you up in the air.
Let them brush your rock and roll hair."

And we're late for the hairstylist. See you soon.

==STEVE==
Red. White. Loon. Play DAILY Infuriating Husker Trivia in THE POND, Home of Nebraska's Red Clad Loon.
http://www.redcladloon.com