TuesDay in Football

NCAA
Matthew Haynes, over at the SportingNews, ranks the ten worst nonconference schedules. Apparently, this article is the seventh in a series looking at upcoming schedules. So, you know, you could read the rest, I guess.

Evan Berry, Tennessee stud Eric Berry's kid brother, committed to the Vols. Oh, and by the way, the Evan Berry is 13 years old. Chee-rist.

As expected, doofus/asshat Dennis Dodd made his Big 12 picks.

NFL
In an era of ill-advised rookie holdouts, it's refreshing to read that Packers rookie B.J. Raji realizes that it's ultimately to his benefit not to holdout.

Mike Florio lists ten rookies to watch in camp. I only knew Florio from Pro Football Talk, which has the distinction of breaking rumors with a Chris Mortensen-like success rate.

Finally, in perhaps the biggest NFL news of the day, I signed up for NFL Sunday Ticket. BOOM!

I would like to announce my commitment to the University of Georgia.

MonDay in (College) Football

Couldn't find too much NFL new worth linking. I considered Football Outsiders' "25 most underrated players of the decade" only to find out that the post on their site was a teaser for an ESPN Insider column they wrote.

NCAA
Rochester tipped me off to the SportingNews' top offensive and defensive units lists. Definitely worth a read.

Generally, CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd comes of looking one of two ways: at best, a blowhard doofus, worst, a blowhard asshat. Anyway, he's gone through and made his picks for most of the conferences. So here are: the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-10, Sun Belt, WAC, and the Independents. I'm guessing the Big 12 and SEC are coming soon.

Speaking of top defensive teams:

ThursDay in Football

NCAA
Happened yesterday (or the day before, but who's counting?), but Northwestern locked up baby faced Pat Fitzgerald through 2015. Man oh man, that sounds like the future, huh?

Oklahoma's athletic department is breaking off $3 million for academics at the school. What do you think the odds are that the "academic programs" they sponsor are for "tutors" for the "student" athletes? (See, because they "cheat." Wait...strike that last set of quotes.)

While commitments at this time of year aren't worth the paper they're not printed on (huh?), NC State got a commitment from 4-star receiver Anthony Creecy (Southern Durham). What do you think the odds are that Rochester hits up a couple of Southern games with a big "I *heart* AC" sign this fall?

NFL
Julius Peppers is getting paid, son. $16.7 mil might not be too bad if he repeats 2008 (14.5 sacks*) instead of 2007 (2.5).

The Packers worked out a contract extension with Greg Jennings. So, yeah, there's that....

And finally, if you go to a Dolphins game in Miami any time soon, know that the rhythm is going to get you while you eat a cheeseburger in paradise. Or some shit.


This is on laserdisc? FUCK YES!

* Yes, nerds, I know that sacks are an over-rated gauge of defensive line performance. Whatever.

WednesDay in Football

(Or football writing, at the very least.)

NCAA
Stop the presses: Oregon's getting new uniforms. And guess what? They're kind of ridiculous.

NFL
According to WCCO in the Twin Cities (twin cities? I don't really know if that should be capitalized and, frankly, I don't feel like finding out) Brett Favre has agreed to a contract with the Vikings and will be in camp in late July. Frankly, I'm looking forward to at least one of the Packers/Vikings game ending with a late, back-breaking Brett Favre interception and not being super pissed about it.

ESPN has an interesting article about the increase of big cornerbacks. Thing is, if watching football has taught me anything, it's that if defenses start loading up on bigger, more physical corners, offenses will start loading up on smaller, faster receivers. So look for an ESPN article in about four years talking about the trend of teams converting these big corners to safety and drafting small, shifty burners at cornerback.

Action Football!'s prediction for next season's Oregon uniforms:

Get Your Daily Knowledge

But, obviously, not here....

If you haven't already, sign up for Sporting News Today and get a thirtyish page daily pdf emailed to you. In Rochester's opinion, SN is toppatheheap for sports journalism, so you can't go wrong there.

One of the things they've been doing is counting down (or, up, I guess) the top 100 college football teams. The list, which started a couple weeks ago, runs to the season opener on September 3rd. Because of the Badgers' underwhelming performance last season and the host of questions surrounding them heading into next, I worry every day that I'll see Wisconsin listed. So far, so good, but I'm guessing they'll fall somewhere between 40 and 55.

"Sippin' codeine 'cause I got a killer cough"

Okay, so this Ronald Jenkees cat isn't a good enough actor to pull off his Kige Ramsey/Jerri Blank love child mess, but overlooking that, his beats are pretty ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm amazed that this is a year and a half old and I've never seen it:

AF!'s Back Like Cooked Crack

You might have noticed that our "promised" Draft coverage/recap podcast never came to fruition. Well, I've gotta admit, that while I still did get lathered up for the Draft and various college spring games, it was nice to watch them without having ways to work them into posts or podcasts running through my mind.

Well, forget late winter and early spring football teases, it's by-god-summer now, and the best way to approach summer days are (1) sitting in the air conditioning reading the first real* college football previews that pop up on blogs (this is an annual favorite of mine, for instance), (2) counting down the days until you start spending Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the air conditioning watching games, and (3) counting down the days from then until you can open the doors and windows, watching games with a pleasant autumn breeze flowing through the house.

Anyway, in the coming weeks, Rochester and I will have a meeting of the livers and work out a timetable for NCAA and NFL preview posts and shows.

So get ready...and get PUMPED!

* This "real" asterisk is twofold: first, they're written by amateurs (or semi-pros at best), so some sticks-in-the-mud wouldn't consider them real anyway, and second, given that "next season" previews start popping up ten minutes after the National Championship game, I've decided not to consider anything an actual season preview until the historical average high for my town is at least 85 degrees.