Season begins in 3 weeks for UL & others

[Swamp Daddy]

In just 3 weeks UL will open at home against Miami who will be ready after losing to UL in last year's Russell Athletic Bowl. Bobby Petrino had a lot of praise in general after the recent 'media day' presser. He likes the Wide Receiver corp and the talented running backs.

He thinks the transfers (who sat out last year) are ready to go and a number of JUCO transfers have had good fall camps so far. But, as usual, he says they are far from where they ought to be on offensive execution. Will Gardner, backup to Bridgewater for 2 years, is the starter but no one, according to Petrino, has stepped up to grab the backup spot among the 3 possibles. Petrino wants to give the backup reps when he can as he did with Brian Brohm year back when he was last here.

Enthusiam is building and a record number of season tickets were sold. In State rival UK returned 2200 tickets of their 5000 allotment for the Rivalry Week game at season's end. We can see how confident they are with being only 75 miles apart the bandwagon fans have fell off again in Stoops 2nd year.

have fun, Swamp Daddy

[Eric]

It'll be interesting to see how Miami's QB situation pans out. They are down to their third option with Jake Heaps. Yes, that Jake Heaps, formerly of BYU and Kansas. I guess it helps that he has a lot of experience, but he honestly isn't very good.

There's another odd transfer out there with Rob Bolden. Formerly of Penn State and LSU infamy, he was a big QB recruit and was supposed to be the next big thing at Penn State. Now he probably won't even win the starting QB job at Eastern Michigan since they'll probably want to go with the sophomore Brogan Roback.

And at the risk of derailing your thread, I wonder how many transfers will "transfer up" instead of down? With the new stipend rule, will smaller colleges lose their diamonds in the rough to larger schools? If a guy proves himself at North Dakota or something, would he sacrifice a year of playing time to receive all of the cushy benefits? These smaller schools might not even have the benefit of hanging on to their better players. I think in general recruiting won't be affected, but transfers will have to weigh playing time against their situations. If a team is going to give me $5000 to be a third stringer, I'm not going to drop down to the FCS to see the field more if I don't have a lot of money in the family.

[billybud]

Kids dream of of the next league...playing time.

The odds are good that both Jacob Coker and Clint Trickett, both former FSU back up QBs, will start this year for Alabama and West Virginia respectively.

They lost the competition at FSU and moving elsewhere makes sense.

I wonder if the difference in player benefits will really affect transfers given that the kids want to play on the field.

[Eric]

Kids dream of of the next league...playing time.

The odds are good that both Jacob Coker and Clint Trickett, both former FSU back up QBs, will start this year for Alabama and West Virginia respectively.

They lost the competition at FSU and moving elsewhere makes sense.

I wonder if the difference in player benefits will really affect transfers given that the kids want to play on the field.

I agree, it depends on how good they think they are. Coker probably has plans to try and make the NFL. Trickett thought it would be worth a shot. They're still at big-time schools though. I could think of a lot of FBS teams that would be interested in the better players on North Dakota State or Sam Houston State, if they have a hole or something that could be filled and it wouldn't cost the player a lot of playing time. It could make the gulf even wider. I don't know how often this would occur though, it's just speculation on my end. And at this point we aren't even talking about FCS-caliber v. FBS caliber, we're talking low-end FBS vs. upper-end FBS.

[Vileborg]

Louisville was in great shape when Strong left so there's no reason to believe that he'll have any problems keeping it at the top. If they can knock of FSU and don't stumble on a stubborn ACC schedule they would have an inside track into the playoff. I don't see another ACC team being in the mix. It's really the Atlantic division survivor.


As to the derail thread. There is a bigger issue lurking behind the scenes. The NCAA has agreed to allow the governing of the stipends be given to the conferences. When do the stipends get bigger than 5k? Since players are now allowed to pursue outside opportunities so there are a lot more loop holes in the rules and a smart conference will create more.