At long last, we won’t be talking about USC in a national title game. Maybe the pollsters will even boot them out of the top 10! Stanford 55- USC 21. The best part is that they it’s a total blowout. Not even competitive in the game. Guess everyone will have to find someone else to fawn over while the usual suspects all talk about how and when USC will reclaim their “magic” or whatever other adjective they decide on.
Looks like the National Championship game will be the SEC title game between Alabama and Florida. I like ‘Bama in this one. Can’t really give any tangible reasons, just my sense of things right now. Obviously keep that grain of salt handy…
It won’t be this year, but perhaps next year we’ll finally see Ohio St fall from grace as well. They’ve had a pretty long run up there at the top of college football. Too bad for Iowa.
I wonder if there’s a discernable pattern of programs rising to and falling from elite status. Just off the top of my head- there was Nebraska and Florida St in the 90’s, now USC and Ohio St in the 00′, Michigan had about a ten year run, seems to me Texas is at similar point. Probably a completely unquantifiable combination of recruiting talent, hunger of said talent based on the programs success, and strength of competition. Basically the sort of thing that an avid watchers ‘gut’ might get a feel for. But then, note that I’m only observing the pattern using hindsight rather than boldly predicting the fall of these programs. Along those lines I’d guess at problems for Penn St, Florida and Texas in the next season or so.