[Football preview] Early season calls for surly predictions
Football in August? In the words of Keith Jackson, “Whoa Nellie!”
If it seems like football season is starting earlier every year – well – that’s because it is. And in the spirit of this past Saturday’s Grambling-San Jose State season opener, here are some premature Pac-10 observations to tide you over until the meat of the conference season begins:
He might be in the NFL now, but he’s wishing he had another year of eligibility: Carson Palmer, Cincinnati Bengal.
Which leaves one burning question surrounding the Trojans’ title aspirations: Can USC win the Pac-10 without a proven quarterback?
The answer: Yes. Who needs a passing game when your entire defensive line could be playing on Sundays in a few years?
It’s a phrase that has rarely been uttered in the context of UCLA football and never during Bob Toledo’s tenure in Westwood: The Bruins are – dare I say it – underrated.
Three reasons why it’s true this year: 1. UCLA’s depth at running back.
2. Its defensive line is one of the nation’s best.
3. Chris Griffith graduated and can’t blow the Oregon game.
Wait ’til basketball season – Part I: Arizona
Part II: Stanford
The first Tiffany Amber Thiessen award commemorating a career that has lasted far longer than it ever should have: John Mackovic, still coaching at Arizona despite public mutiny by his players and a 3-13 record in Pac-10 play.
Broadcaster’s nightmare: Cal running back Joe Echema changed his name to Achimchinobe Echemandu over the off-season.
Why it might not matter: It’s not like Bears’ second-string running back is getting that much TV time anyway.
Scary thought for the rest of the conference: As good as USC is this year, it’ll be much better by 2005.
They aren’t a Rose Bowl-caliber team, but they still might end up in the Rose Bowl: Arizona State, which doesn’t play Washington, hosts USC and Oregon, and faces Northern Arizona and Utah State in non-conference match-ups.
The pundits will tell you USC-Arizona State – and they might be right – but if there is one Pac-10 game you can’t miss it’s this one: UCLA-Oregon on Nov. 15, consistently the best league game regardless of the standings.
And if he wins seven games again this year, we’ll start believing the genius hype coming out of Berkeley: Cal coach Jeff Tedford, whose Bears lost 15 starters to graduation including quarterback Kyle Boller.
Lasted about as long as a 17-year-old on prom night: Former Washington State coach Mike Price’s stint at Alabama after his drunken evening at a strip club ended in a date with Destiny. Incidentally, if frequenting a “gentlemen’s club” gets you dismissed from the ‘Bama program, three-quarters of the players would have followed him right out the door.
More suited for the gubernatorial race than major college football: Stanford’s Buddy Teevens, who seemed more media friendly than football savvy during an abysmal 2-9 campaign last season on the farm.
Maybe someone in Berkeley needs a geography lesson, because last I looked the Bears still play their home games in California: Cal has installed synthetic grass at Memorial Stadium.
And if one fashion fiasco wasn’t enough, here’s another: In addition to its unsightly hunter green, black and yellow jerseys – the ones that resemble an interstate highway – Oregon will also wear a uniform this year that is almost entirely chartreuse.
And the envelopes please: USC wins the Pac-10 -- the first of many conference titles in the next four years. Ugh.
But what about UCLA: third place. And a sigh of relief from the entire Bruin nation that Karl Dorrell – and not Neuheisel – was Dan Guerrero’s choice to man the clipboard on the sidelines.
San Jose State 10, Grambling 0 at halftime. Ain't life grand?
E-mail him at jeisenberg@media.ucla.edu.
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