{"id":497,"date":"2007-08-04T07:10:20","date_gmt":"2007-08-04T14:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/04\/are-you-ready-for-some-football\/"},"modified":"2007-08-04T07:18:14","modified_gmt":"2007-08-04T14:18:14","slug":"are-you-ready-for-some-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/04\/are-you-ready-for-some-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you ready for some football?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been a LONG offseason, hasn’t it? The taste from the Disaster in the Desert<\/a> (or the Fiasco in Phoenix<\/a> if you prefer) has faded somewhat. Now it’s time to rinse the palate and get ready for the new season. I’ve missed football so much, I could even watch an NFL game (though I’m sure the advertising content would quickly have me revert to my prior position that the NFL product is simply unwatchable…<\/a>)
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\n\"official\n<\/div>\n

I’m more of a college football fan myself and specifically, an Ohio State Buckeye<\/a> fan. This is going to be a great season even though the Buckeyes will likely take a step back (you don’t lose your starting quarterback, tailback, top receivers, and 3\/4 of your defensive line and improve right away – some experience will be necessary to help that transition along.)
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\nTaking a step back to the big picture, the teams with high expectations this year include USC<\/a> (most pundits have them pegged as the #1 preseason team,) LSU<\/a>, Michigan<\/a>, Virginia Tech<\/a>, Oklahoma<\/a>, and West Virginia<\/a> all are considered contenders to reach the championship game this year. In a way too early prediction, I’ll say that Michigan, West Virginia, and Virginia Tech won’t live up to their expectations, that LSU and Oklahoma have at least 1 loss each, and that USC will lose a game no one predicts (UCLA last year anyone?)
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\nIn short, I’ll be surprised if anyone runs the table this year in college football. But, I’ve been surprised before and the season hasn’t even started, so what the heck do I know?
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\nAs for my beloved Buckeyes, their schedule is generally friendly to a team trying to find its identity after losing so much star power. This season will see them take on: Youngstown State, Akron, Washington*, Northwestern, Minnesota*, Purdue*, Kent State, Michigan State, Penn State*, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan* (* denotes away game.) The Bucks stand a fair chance to be 8-0 when rolling into Happy Valley to play the Nittany Lions. I’m not going to predict blow out victories in those early games, but you’d have to believe that OSU will be the favorite in each contest. <\/p>\n

\n\"2007\n<\/div>\n

\nNo, the season boils down to the last 4 games (yes, I’m including Illinois in that because a) they’re improving and b) OSU always seems to struggle with them between big games.) I believe, now in preseason, that OSU will do well to split those games and end the season 10-2 likely just outside BCS game territory. That being said, it wouldn’t completely shock me if early in the season OSU stumbles at Washington or Purdue and then finishes the 4 game stretch at the end of the season 3-1. The net is, I believe we’re in for a 10-2 season. Neither 9-3 nor 11-1 would shock me. 8-4 or 12-0 would be surprising, one obviously much more pleasantly surprising than the other.
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\nOver the next few weeks I’ll post a series of preseason entries breaking down the offense, defense, special teams, schedule, and the Big 10 overall. Let’s get ready, it’s almost football time! Please feel free to participate, what do you think? Have I gotten it right? Wrong? Sniffing glue? Where will your favorite team end the season? Comments and discussion will make this more fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been a LONG offseason, hasn’t it? The taste from the Disaster in the Desert (or the Fiasco in Phoenix if you prefer) has faded somewhat. Now it’s time to rinse the palate and get ready for the new season. I’ve missed football so much, I could even watch an NFL game (though I’m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}