Today is the day. All the talk of recruiting, GPA, realignment, coaching changes, Senate hearings, lawsuits, transfers, arrests and everything else goes out the window. At least until Tuesday because there’s no games Tuesday. Football is finally ready to kick off.
Here on the Fringe, we attempt to preview any given weeknight game as best we can, and we will have our Weeknight Football preview a little later today. But for now, the first of our weekly features including the BCS Buster Watch and my non-BCS Top 25. So here we go.
BCS Buster Watch
Currently on the watch: Everybody. All 54 teams are presently undefeated. So instead, here are 10 teams besides Boise State, TCU, and Utah that could make a run at the dream season, or at least stay undefeated long enough to garner a little attention. These teams are picked because they could (not will) make it to about 4-0 and do it with a worthwhile resume. In no particular order, except for alphabetical by the order their conference pages are sitting on my desk:
Houston- If they had finished last year ranked or started this one that way they’d probably be in the obvious category with the others. First Four Games: Texas State, UTEP, at UCLA, Tulane. Future Obstacles: Mississippi State, UCF, at Texas Tech
UCF- Decent opposition early on, and if they win all four then they have a long stretch of very winnable games before facing Houston. First Four Games: South Dakota, NC State, at Buffalo, at Kansas State Future Obstacles: at Houston, Southern Miss
Middle Tennessee State- tonight’s game against Minnesota will determine whether they wind up on the national map, without star QB Dwight Dasher. First Four Games: Minnesota, Austin Peay, at Memphis, at Louisiana Future Obstacles: Troy, at Georgia Tech
Central Michigan- has knocked off a Big 12 team in each of the last three years, but new coach and a lot of replacing players means it’ll be tough this year. First Four Games: Hampton, at Temple, at Eastern Michigan, at Northwestern Future Obstacles: at Virginia Tech, at Northern Illinois, at Navy
Northern Illinois- highly regarded squad with a chance to do some damage with three BCS league opponents, starting with Iowa State tonight. Win all 3 and they’re going to be on everyone’s lips. First Four Games: Iowa State, North Dakota, at Illinois, at Minnesota Future Obstacles: Temple, Central Michigan
Temple- might not get all the way to four wins, but if they do it’ll be a national story. Have to get past 1-AA power Villanova first (tomorrow night), considering Nova beat them last year. First Four Games: Villanova, Central Michigan, Connecticut, at Penn State Future Obstacles: at Northern Illinois, Ohio
Air Force- opportunity to make a splash early with tough games, but Oklahoma in particular has been known to overlook an early game here or there. First Four Games: Northwestern State, BYU, at Oklahoma, at Wyoming Future Obstacles: Navy, at TCU, Utah
BYU- everyone is counting them out (yeah, including me in a couple writeups) with the loss of Max Hall and a slew of seniors, but if the Cougars have any tricks up their sleeves then they’ll be right back in the mix. First Four Games: Washington, at Air Force, at Florida State, Nevada Future Obstacles: at TCU, at Utah
Fresno State- The Bulldogs have three decent BCS teams on the slate, two of them in their first three games (and an early bye which messes up things like this feature). First Four Games: Cincinnati, (bye week), at Utah State, at Mississippi, Cal Poly
Nevada- Getting a lot of national coverage and rightly so, Nevada should be very good and a lot of fun to watch this year- likely one of Boise State’s biggest obstacles. Also, of the teams on this list, one of the most likely to actually get to 4-0 First Four Games: Eastern Washington, Colorado State, California, at BYU
Non-BCS Top 25
I’ll eschew with much explanation here this week, because if you’re wondering how I came to my conclusions, there’s 60 posts worth of me thinking out loud in the team and conference previews. Which you should read if your favorite team is playing any non-BCS school, because that way you’ll be much smarter than your idiot friends who know nothing about college football besides the quarterback for their one team. Anyway, the final Preseason Football on the Fringe Non-BCS Top 25 Rankings are as follows:
- Boise State
- TCU
- Utah
- Houston
- Nevada
- Navy
- Northern Illinois
- BYU
- Air Force
- Temple
- Middle Tennessee State
- UCF
- Ohio
- Fresno State
- Southern Mississippi
- Idaho
- Central Michigan
- Troy
- SMU
- Marshall
- Wyoming
- East Carolina
- Kent State
- Louisiana
- Tulsa
There you have it. There is a metric ton of college football on tonight, and we’re going to preview most of it in the next few hours. Try to keep it together, we’re down to single-digit hours here.