Over The Pylon

OTP was recently selected to be part of the best collection of college football bloggers as a voting member of the CBSSports/MGoBlog Blogpoll. Aside from doing weekly duties like voting and justifying our picks with our readers contributing as well, occassionally there will be a roundtable of sorts where a various blog poses questions to the group at large to answer or ignore. This week, we have chosen answer, but ask that you do the same via the comments. The host this week is Doug at HeyJennySlater, a Georgia site that has morphed itself into one of the power players of the blogosphere in general.

1. Without naming names, a few teams seem to have popped up frequently on everyone’s “overrated” lists in the preseason, so let’s forget about them for the moment and concentrate on a different group: sleepers. Which currently unheralded team are you currently putting at least a few of your chips behind in the hopes that you’ll be able to say “totally called that” once they’ve accomplished big things by the end of the season?
In terms of rankings and preseason hype, I’ve got Cincy higher than most on my list. They play in a conference with no dominant team, and their biggest competition for a title resides in Pittsburgh and is coached by the Wannstache. That doesn’t bode well for Pitt’s title hopes, but does bode well for my ability to sit back at the end of December and be smarmy and sarcastic about my prowess and predictive powers. Moreso than normal. I like the Wannstache… I do. But he along with the likes of Bill Curry and Bill Lynch belong to a very exclusive club… nice guys, great people, terrible football coaches. Perhaps he should have been named Bill.

2. In a similar vein, pick a sleeper player on your team whom nobody’s talking about right now and tell us why we will be talking about them by December.
The easy answer is MiQuale Lewis, but after being named to the Doak Walker Watch List, I guess that qualifies as being talked about. I will go with Kelly Page. No one really expects much out of him this season for several reasons, most notably that he is only a freshman, is not named Nate Davis, and the offense looks to be strapped squarely on the back of Quale. But Page’s abilities and talents will be on display early and often as the offensive line works on their chemistry and their ability to stop opposing defensive units from knocking him silly.

3. Florida is about as big a consensus favorite as we’ve seen in recent years, but remember, USC got 62 out of 65 first-place votes in the AP’s 2007 preseason poll and still managed to lose to Stanford. Given how difficult it is to go undefeated period these days, where do you think the Gators are most likely to stumble in the regular season?
Personally, I don’t think  they stumble at all. If they were to stumble, it would be at LSU. That’s a tough envirnonment, a challenging ballclub, and a tough win for most anyone to get. But Florida isn’t “anyone”, they’re something special. Of all the games on the schedule the contest against LSU gives the most pause, and by “most” I mean an additional nanosecond to the nanosecond already dedicated to putting W after W on Florida’s schedule. Could they lose? Sure. Will the lose? Doubtful.

4. Which regular-season game not involving your team or conference are you most looking forward to this year?
USC-Notre Dame bar none. This game is going to do one of two things… quiet down the masses of ND faithful that are ranking the Irish significantly higher than logic, rational thought, or recent results warrants… OR… propel the masses to fever pitch, prove Lou Holtz right, and begin the process of the universe and the cosmos enveloping in on itself layer by layer. Either way, it the outcome is meaningful.

5. In honor of Georgia’s opening-weekend opponent and their most prolific booster, let’s say you somehow come into T. Boone Pickens money and can buy anything you want for your program — facilities upgrades, an airplane for recruiting, buy out the contract of that coach you hate, you name it. Where does your first check go?
My first check goes to put some additional urinals in at Scheumann Stadium. A sexy answer? No. A fancy schmancy sort of upgrade that will attract new recruits? Doubtful. But so help me God if I have to miss half a quarter of football again because there is seemingly only 9 pissers in a stadium for 23,000 people I am going to just let ‘er fly behind a concession stand. Or on the visiting team bus. Whichever is closer. Frankly, the whole stadium needs some work done. It looks nice on TV, and it’s made great strides since the late 90s when hundreds of people would pack it every weekend, but there are significant upgrades needed. If we want to be classy and top of the line, you have to think classy and top of the line. I mean, does a major school like Alabama have fans that just micturate all over the place? Wait… that’s a bad example.

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