Sports Then and Now

Zultan predicts college football fortunes in Week Two.

Zultan should be very humble after week one of his vaunted football predictions.

He was tempted to supersede his All-Seeing Powers and was punished for his arrogance. He became human, sad to say…

The NCAA football gods, therefore, struck him down.

Hordes of you outguessed Zultan who quivers in shame and humiliation with a mere 10-4 record in week one.

The mighty one has learned two valuable lessons in predicting the outcome of football contests.

(1) When in doubt in projected close contests, always pick the home team. For example do not pick Connecticut to overcome Michigan in Big Blue’s house or Purdue to get the best of the Irish in South Bend no matter how much the crystal ball tempts you.

(2) Also always make sure that the team you select is going to be playing––Zultan did not realize that half of the North Carolina team would be sitting on the sidelines when he made his ill-fated prediction that NC would win this contest.

Besides that, the Gophers have always been a thorn in the side of the all-seeing one.

So now you think Zultan is an easy mark. If so, try him again this week and learn your lesson as Zultan did––the hard way!

Zultan senses redemption coming his way this week big time. Click here to pit your puny powers of prognostication against the mighty Zultan for a chance to win a prize.

See the end of this prediction for a comprehensive list of all of you who smote the Zultan, scorched his crystal ball in week one.  Do the hokey-pokey one time around the room and come back for week two!

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Mark Ingram is the first player in the storied history of Alabama football to win the Heisman Trophy.

In their storied football history, the University of Alabama could boast of 12 National Champions and 92 first team All-Americans, but until Saturday night held the dubious distinction of having the most football wins of any school without a Heisman Trophy winner.

That finally changed with the announcement that sophomore running back Mark Ingram had edged out Stanford running back Toby Gerhart to win the 2009 award.

Ingram is actually the first Crimson Tide player to ever finish better than third in the Heisman voting. The previous best finish for an Alabama player was a third place showing by David Palmer in 1993.

After going 72 years without ever having a sophomore claim the award, Ingram’s selection marked the third straight year that a sophomore has claimed college football’s most prestigious award.

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Colt McCoy and Texas won the Big 12 title, but not in the overwhelming fashion that most expected.

Okay, technically it looks like the powers that control the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) got exactly what they desired: an undefeated champion from the SEC against an undefeated champion from the Big 12. Seemingly a dream come true. Yet, thanks to a lackluster performance by the Texas Longhorns that dream has turned into a bit of a nightmare.

The purpose of the BCS formula is simply to ensure that the two best teams in college football meet in a championship game to decide the title. After enough situations over the years when teams like Penn State (multiple times), Alabama and others finished seasons undefeated, but without even a share of a national title, this concept seemed to make sense.

However, what has become painfully clear over the last decade is that it only works when there are clearly two teams that are better than all the rest.

The formula worked to perfection following the 2005 season when an undefeated Texas squad defeated a previously undefeated USC team in a game for the ages. However, in other years when two teams have not clearly been better than the rest, the system has received great criticism.

For most of the 2009 season it appeared that the BCS formula was going to work out perfectly. Unlike recent years when the top three spots in the BCS standings often proved to be a revolving door, in 2009 the three teams ranked at the top of the BCS standings in late October were all still there heading into the conference championship weekend.

With a pair of undefeated teams in the SEC and an undefeated Texas squad in the Big 12, it seemed clear that if Texas did as expected and annihilated Nebraska, then the Longhorns would face the winner of the Alabama-Florida game for the title in another epic matchup. Read the rest of this entry →

Colt McCoy and the Texas Longhorns held on to defeat the Oklahoma Sooners and remain undefeated.

None of the top three teams in college football looked all that dominating this week, but they all took home the “W”, which is really all that matters.

With the first official BCS rankings coming out this week, we will get a sense of where everyone stands, but the reality is that Florida, Texas and Alabama all have their destiny in their own hands. The rankings will merely give us a better idea of which teams will step forward if any of the frontrunners stumble.

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It may not have been flashy, but the Florida Gators won a hard-fought game at LSU to remain undefeated.

After weeks of positioning, this was the week where the real contenders and pretenders started to weed themselves out. With a number of big games between contenders over the next few weeks, you can see the national championship picture starting to clear itself up as we head toward November.

Is it about Style or Substance, or Both?
It was very interesting to watch the different ways the top three teams in the college football rankings earned their victories this weekend.

The top ranked and defending champion Florida Gators were very methodical and workmanlike in their victory at LSU. Even though we all know that LSU is a dangerous team and playing a night game in Baton Rouge is usually a huge advantage for the home team, the Gators seemed to never really be in danger of losing the

game.

However, their 13-3 victory may be perfectly fine in the NFL where it is all about wins and losses and moving on towards the playoffs and Super Bowl. But, in college football many take such a low scoring win as a sign of weakness.

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