californiastars

HA! Put Mack Brown in the SEC, see how sterling his record is then. Replace A & M, Nebraska, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State with Tennessee, Florida, LSU, Auburn, and UGA. Yeah, Mack can make winners in the ACC and Big 12, but see how many times he schedules a big-time SEC program to play Texas. You won't, because, as a southerner, he knows exactly what he'll get with an SEC program: equal speed and talent on an almost weekly basis. Sorry, pal, VY was great, but your coach just let him freelance in his offense. He even admitted on ESPN! So if you honestly believe Mack Brown is a better coach than the dean of SEC coaches, then do everyone a favor and stop posting. CoachT doesn't need morons. Also, Donald will be a sideline-to-sideline terror on the inside.

Ummmm, the 11 national titles IS the past Big Country, while the nine bowl game losing streak is very much in the here and now. ND lost and lost big to LSU, something many people predicted. UT lost on a fumble in the fourth quarter to a determined Penn St. team that played a mistake-free game. Are you honestly going to point to a loss that same Penn St. team had to your team, when, as I remember QB Anthony Morelli putting it, was "the worst we have played the entire season."? 11 national titles is extremely impressive, but with the majority coming before college football actually became a competitive and parity-driven sport is pretty misleading. Your team has A LOT of work to do, and relying on true freshmen next year should get you killed too, unfortunately with the 2007 schedule that does, in fact, include Duke, as bubblegum pointed out to you, you all will trot into a New Year's Day game 9-3 or 10-2, or something like that, at which point you will perpetuate your bowl ineptitude with a loss to a quality team from a quality conference. Have you ever wondered why ND keeps on losing bowl games, and losing them quite handily? It is because of the regular season schedule. Point to UM and USC. Then look at everybody else. If your team is going to be a 1-A independent and hope to improve as the season progresses, rather than regress as this ND team seemed to do, you need to have a challenging schedule filled with a bunch of good, a couple of great and a couple of cupcake teams. Unfortunately, ND has sided on a bunch of cupcake, a couple of great and one to two good teams a year. I applaud Charlie Weis for the job he has done, but ND will only win a national title when he starts scheduling challenges instead of cakewalks.

Tell 'em Big Country, you fact-filled wunderkind you. In all unbiased honesty, I think Charles Woodson had a fabulous year and his team was obviously the best in the country, the problem, however, in how the Heisman turned out was that if you take the amount of times you would see Michigan and Woodson plastered all over every national television sportscast and compare it to the amount of times you would see the SEC champion and Orange Bowl bound Peyton Manning-led Vols, it wasn't even close. UM were the media darlings that year, and in an incredibly close race, that can definitely turn the tide. I do think, however, that this argument contains too much gray matter to ever get settled, especially on this message board. As for the SEC being hailed as the best conference but given no respect, give me a break guys. They are given their due just as much, if not more, than any other teams in the country, however, you cannot tell me ND is not given the benefit of the doubt more than any team in the nation. There have been countless times a preseason poll will come out, and reward a 7-5 ND team from the year before with a Top 25 ranking, so it stands to reason that a 10-3 ND team with major losses on Offense will be given a Top 10 ranking when in reality Weis will be relying on a true freshman, albeit a very talented one, at QB, and their defense will still be bad despite the influx of speed added, as it will come in the form of even more true freshman, which begs the question, are they worthy of said ranking? Also, it is ridiculous to go by conference strength based off of bowl games, Big Country, they may be head-to-head, but given a month to heal and gameplan, a lot of times games are much different than they would be during the regular season. The SEC's home field advantage is generally regarded as superior to the more lax fans, say, in the Pac-10. As for some earlier who commented on Weis' staff being far superior to Miles, puhhhhh-leaze. Weis has some great graybeards standing behind him with all the experience in the world, but are you going to tell me Jimbo Fisher doesn't have the talent they do? Anyway, it should be a great game, I believe it is on right now, so I better tune in! P.S. I agree with your last sentences about who the best NFL player is being irrelevant to the Heisman. My thoughts exactly.

both quality teams, and i am sure both programs have the utmost respect for the other. UT fans feel disrespected bc ND is a very popular draw and, of course, up north, while ND fans feel underappreciated bc it is the opinion of many down south that they couldn't hang in the SEC. You grown men out there will be arguing about this one for days.

Oh come on, I never said things like that bubblegum. I go to UT, I love the school. And you can't say those sorts of things about BC and MSU. They have done amazing things, such as Doug Flutie's Hail Mary against Miami, and the '66 10-10 tie between ND and MSU which many sports experts rank as the best game of all time. You don't have to be irked, and like you said in an earlier post, you are extremely biased. I just wanted to wish Harrison good luck, that's all. Merry Christmas everyone!

Congratulations Harrison! I can honestly say, even in my extreme bias towards UT, that you made the best decision you possibly could have. As stated earlier, you will get immediate playing time in that Irish secondary that sorely needs a safety opposite Tom Zbikowski. UT has great players at the safety position, as well as a few waiting in the wings, and it would have been extremely difficult not to be redshirted. Also the fact that because of your size, Chavis would love to turn you into one of his patented speed demon linebackers, further delaying the chance to play, you and your family have made a great decision for the future. Those are reasons enough, but having a degree from a university like Notre Dame will look pretty favorable when compared to a degree from Tennessee. I am sure you found even more reasons to go on the visit up there, from the pure beauty of the campus to the traditions at that school that will forever be etched into the consciousness of your average football fan. Good luck in everything you do, and make Knoxville proud!

Also, if UT does start to lose some, watch for how fans treat Bruce if he gets, say, a technical in the second half of a close game. This is definitely going to be one of the more interesting b-ball seasons in recent memory.

Even though this is not a big deal AT ALL, I still believe the ref in the game wasn't going to get shown up by Bruce Pearl, and I don't believe his intention was to get his name known. When Coach Pearl was hired at Tennessee, I for one was pretty worried about how he would be received by Vols fans, after watching how animated he was in interviews. He is the type of coach that would be extremely popular up north at a school like Syracuse or Pitt, or at one of the Florida schools (Steve Spurrier at UF comes to mind), but I honestly believed because of his animated antics on the sidelines UT fans would be turned off, having been accustomed to, FOR YEARS, coaches that are more catatonic than explosive (i.e. Jerry Green, Buzz, and to a lesser extent, Kevin O'Neill, and on the football side, of course, Philip Fulmer). His wins transcended that thought, and I notice at games that fans, especially older ones, are quietly amused by his outbursts, as if it's a case of, "Well, that's Bruce." His appeal to these fans is that these fans, probably living in or around Knoxville for years, and the laid-back Southern scene that comes with it, have never come across a public figure in the area like Bruce Pearl. I am not the oldest guy on this message board to be sure, but I don't know if there has ever been anyone around this program even close to the intensity level Pearl has displayed over this past year plus. So, with that in mind, this ref, thinking along these same lines most likely, was probably a tad intimidated by the thought of this big-time coach coming into his gym. And when said big time coach starts to yell at the ref, the ref and his already wary awareness of Coach Pearl comes to regard it as a personal challenge rather than a normal fan yelling during a normal game, leading to his itchy trigger finger in the case of ejecting him. At least, that's my thoughts on the matter...

I have heard a lot of great things about the Bennett kid. Some of the kids on the team told me he could play for anyone in town, including the Alcoas, Maryvilles, etc., and be a huge impact player. It's too bad he attends CAK and will not receive as much attention as he would at some of the aforementioned programs.

is it true that fulton loses a lot of great players in this class? or do they have some kids who will fill those spots just as well as the previous guys? same goes for catholic. do they have the depth to withstand the loss of hartmann, smith, etc.?

I know with Freeney back it would be a welcome idea to perhaps throw the ball if you're the Falcons coach, but I honestly don't see them throwing it more than maybe three to four times in this game, unless, of course, they are down by more than a score in the fourth. I don't really see Fulton being down by more than one score, or down at all, for that matter, in the fourth quarter, but I do agree that those three to four pass plays all need to go Freeney's way, since the kid could break it on Catholic. Does anyone have any idea who will guard Freeney at the cornerback position. I am thinking they put Harrison deep at safety on Freeney's side of the field, but will Browder be on him? I really have no clue who they would man up on him!

I agree with fultonfalcon2006 that it would probably be an adavantage to fulton if the rain took the passing game away. In their regular season meeting, Catholic really took it to Fulton in the passing game. The thing to remember here is that these were short passes to HS that he took the distance. Kind of like an extended handoff. I think Fulton delivers in the running game no matter who they are playing, while KCHS really had trouble in their last game against the Falcons. No matter what the conditions, this game will be a great one and I encourage everyone in the Knoxville area whose team is already out to make the trip to see one of the better matchups with two of the better athletes Knoxville has seen in quite a few years.

No one can score 37 points on Catholic, not even Fulton's great offensive football team. Everyone talks about Harrison Smith or Dennis Rogan being keys to the game, and of course they are, but as mentioned in the post above, Anthony Hamilton will play a huge role and could really limit the effectiveness of Brian Hartmann, who has been running so well lately. Giving it to Hartmann for a gash up the middle may be easier said than done with Hamilton in the thick of things. If Catholic plays inspired football it would be hard to pick against them. But if Dennis Rogan comes out and is given some holes from his O-line it could get ugly in a hurry. With all that is riding on this game, it really is a toss-up. Good luck to both teams Friday and may the better team win!

I definitely do. What gets into these Catholics? What a nut.