USC makes it even more interesting

With just a week to go until the season starts Pete Carroll at USC makes his final call regarding the starting quarterback. The true freshman Matt Barkley will see the first snap up-close at Coliseum on Sept. 5. Worth mentioning is that USC has never started a true freshman before in the history of USC football.

The previous named starter Aaron Corp seems to be hurt from an injury (a crack in his bone just below his left knee), and will sit out on the opener. The question is if USC dares to continue with Barkley week 2 thru 4 when USC probably has the toughest schedule in the country. @Ohio, @Cal and @South Bend!

This is developing to be really interesting, and I will surely follow USC on the opening weeks come September

/Markus

Getting tired...

...of waiting and also of all pre-talk and predictions.
The espn-bloggers and reporters also seams tired of this. Especially of all talk about Florida beeing the favourites and also of Tebow.
On Ivan and Beanos last podcast Ivan did NOT have Florida to play for the national championship. His argument was basically thet he was fed-up with all the Florida talk.
Also Tod Mcshay and Mel Kiper jr talked almost 4 minutes about QB's in college fotball (best, overrated, underrated etc). They never even mentined TT during this whole time. they even had to point out in the end that it could be possible to have a Tim Tebow-less college QB talk !!!

I am fed-up with all of this. Let's start the ball-games and settle it on the field.

Go Gators /Magnus

Early Bird Special?

Finally ESPN launches espn360 for the european market. With this a "Early Bird Special" costing one around 1000 SEK for the complete season.

Instead, the monthly offer seems like a better deal costing 155 SEK a month. With the college football season being just 4 months long there is no need for the full year deal.

My choice will be to get monthly passes whenever ESPN America doesn´t air the games I am interested in.

Anyways, Bringham Young vs Oklahoma is on ESPN360 the 3rd of september. Bring em on!

First college fotball saturday coming up

ESPN Americas TV listing is pretty good Saturday 5th September.
Starting with (Swedish time):
4.00pm College GameDay
6.00pm Navy at Ohio State
9.30pm Georgia at Oklahoma State
2.00am Alabama vs Virginia Tech (from Atlanta, GA)

Very good games on the first week and let's hope the midshipmen, cowboys and hokies can pull the upsets. After that we can focus on the real good teams during the rest of the fall.

Go Gators /Magnus

The pre-season AP poll is out

Coming home from a cruise to Finland I saw that the AP poll was out. No news really:

1. Florida

2. Texas

3. Oklahoma

4. USC

5. Alabama

The Lovgren brothers are going to post their top 10 soon. Have a good evening

/Markus

IT projects

As you might have noticed espn360.com has produced funny statements on their webpage the last couple of days.
It opened up for us Europeans Aug 19 in the morning. I managed to sign up and pay for the package. Later the same day they took it down again, since nothing worked with the notice that:
"please come back and visit us Aug 20th to experience the new version of espn360".
The next day it said the same thing. Now they have changed it to.
"please come back and visit us soon to experience the new version of espn360".

I will try this approach on my professional carrer from now on when asked the finish date of a project.

Soon.

Go Gators / Magnus

Who faster?

I heard the analysis of Usain Bolt @ Espn.com today. Interesting by the way that the world record is not a headline on the frontpage. 3 Baseball news, 1 about Memphis Basketball and one about Plaxico Burress going to jail. Anyways, they had a comparison how fast Usain Bolt would have run at the NFL combine - and the 40 yard dash.

The fastest college player last year was Marylands Darrius Heyward-Bey, with a result of 4,3 s. It is just fantastic to see how Usain Bolt would have done that in 3,82 s... And the guy is like 6-foot-5. I guess that the NFL teams are drewling when they see him. Another comparison was made in the article that if you took Usain's race and converted it onto a football field Usain would run the last 40 yards of the field in 2,95 s...

Early bird...

...gets the worm.
For us unfortunate people operating on the "wrong" side of the pond, it is time to sign up for ESPN360 college fotball.
Launched yesterday with an "early bird" offer. Make sure to sign up.

Go Gators /Magnus

Minnesota makes NFL interesting

It been awhile since I was really interested in the NFL, but things are changing. Today the news came that Brett Favre sealed a deal with the Vikings, which means that Favre might be the starting QB in Minnesota.

With the Sooners Jon Cooper, Phil Loadholt and star running back Adrian Peterson things are looking good for the Vikings in NFC North. It will be even more interesting to see what Favre and former Florida player Percy Harvin can do together.

/Markus

Can’t wait

These last couple of weeks has been torture. Time has never went so slowly. I even made “pärlplattor” with my kids, which is not like me. Well at least I made something useful for work :-)

I also started to realise the utter hatred that is growing against the Gators this season. I guess it comes with beeing so much better then everybody else. I especially like this old lady. You have to admire her passion, surely a Seminole.

Continuing on this I also found a funny Dilbert strip:

Go Gators /Magnus

Where did the Swedes go?

According to a Minnesota Newspaper something terrible has happened to the University of Minnesota just weeks before the season opener against Air Force.

After a legislation that banned serving alcohol in the Golden Gophers brand new stadium 15 of the high prized VIP-boxes were cancelled right away, and even more of the fairly expensive Club Seats as well. Adding up it seems that the University of Minnesota is taking a big economic hit from all this.

Not worth mentioning that the state of Minnesota was colonized by Swedes and that the genes are still working accordingly  :) 

//Markus

Toby Keith does Stockholm

One of the greatest country singers ever is having a concert in Stockholm and Cirkus this November. The sooner born Toby Keith is coming and I am gonna be there screaming “Boomer!”

Found a picture of him on the internet, and one con easily understand why I like him so much!  /Markus

Where will Tebow end up?

I saw an interesting site today where one can see where all the previous Heisman winners are doing today. As Tebow, just like Jason White, isn’t going pro he better read the list and figure out what he is going to do the next couple of years.

Some noticeable persons who can call themself Heisman Winners:

Steve Spurrier (1966 Florida)

The former Florida player does not look a day older now when he works as the head coach at South Carolina.

O.J. Simpson (1968 USC)

Couldn´t hide from his past going to USC – and is now sitting in a Nevada jail.

Billy Sims (1978 Oklahoma)

One of the craziest guys around now having his own BBQ place in Tulsa, OK (with very likeable toilets). Went ballistic at Sam Bradford’s Heisman ceremony screaming “Boomer” 11 times.

Jason White (2003 Oklahoma)

Last and maybe least we have “my” QB Jason White who, like Tebow, just couldn´t make it to the NFL. Nowadays he owns a memorabilia store in Norman.

Also worth mentioning is that Alabama still does not have any Heisman winners, which just is stunning…

/Markus

Go Owls!

Insane (or funny) Bowl prediction that just came out by Bruce Feldman on espn.com.
He is picking FAU vs Texas in the national championship game.
Maybe I have missed something about the Owls this year?

Top 40 according to ESPN’s readers

Today ESPN has a vote on which 40 teams that should, on a hypothetical basis, form a new Division 1-A. I agree on most teams, the most significant ones are in the list. 

One could argue for Louisville or maybe TCU, but a bigger surprise is that Penn State is in the top of the table, and that only 70% of the voters have teams like Michigan, Florida and Texas in their top 40.

So – it is just a stupid poll, and this is just a stupid post. Off to bed!

/Markus

Lee Corso is back for another year

We love College Gameday and we love when Lee Corso makes his mascot picks. But this spring things weren't looking so good for the College Gameday squad when mr Corso found himself getting a stroke.

Orlando Sentinel had a chat with Corso about the incident and how his life was turned upside down.

It is nice to see that Lee Corso is back for the College Gameday Live september 5th in Atlanta for the Alabama at Georgia Tech game. And obviously one is a bit curious how well Corso has recovered and if his fast tongue still works.

Do not be surprised if there is a trunk in the trunk in Atlanta!

Tebow - I am saving myself ... for Georgia

The media frenzy surrounding Tebow is getting ridiculous. Last week at a press conference blogger Clay Travis asked Superman the question if he was saving himself for marriage. He simply responded “Yes”.
Ivan Maisel, the ESPN senior analyst, came up with the answer the stupid “reporter” should have been given. “I am saving myself for Georgia”.

/Magnus

Nothing new on the western front

The Pac-10, or the Pac-1 as some would like to call it, has had it's annual media day. The conference which seems to be getting tired of always having USC end up on top of it's chart again voted USC to be the winner again.

The Trojans got 28 of 32 first place votes, with the Bears having 3 and Oregon getting 1. But again, this might be the year when Pete Carroll goes down for the first time in 7 years. USC has a major shift in it's lineup and the Schedule is looking a bit harder than usual with away games both at Berkley and at Oregon.

But then again, Pete Carroll always seems to find a way to win his conference. Even last year when everything pointed at Oregon State getting the title - lady luck shined down and solved the problem.

Anyways, I am looking forward to the Pac-10 this year. Espacially seing the new QB Aaron Corps in action and how the team will be able to find a new momentum after a huge loss in manpower from last season.

/Markus