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Alas! Football is back!
Posted by Nolepaul on Monday, August 07, 2006 (02:04:33) (28 reads)
Finally, there is football back on the the tube! While I realize it is not college football, it is still football all the same. Congratulations football fans, we have made it through the desert of summer!
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Fan Columnists needed
Posted by Nolepaul on Thursday, August 03, 2006 (01:02:58) (10 reads)
Calling all College Sports fans! The College Endzone is looking for volunteer columnists. If you want to contribute to this growing site, just let an admin know.
My email address is nolepaul@gmail.com
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Happy August
Posted by Nolepaul on Thursday, August 03, 2006 (00:55:35) (15 reads)
August is here, and that means the start of the College Football Season is a month away. It is amazing how time has flown by since the Texas Longhorns won the National Title last year.
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Gator Fan's Arrogance is Amazing
Posted by Nolepaul on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 (18:12:13) (46 reads)
As one who has grown up in Jacksonville, err Gator Central north, I have continued to be amazed by Gator fan's confidence. His arrogance never ceases to amaze me, despite their recent struggles with Ron Zook.
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Enduring the desert of Summer
Posted by Nolepaul on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 (02:33:30) (25 reads)
I don't know about you, but the hot desert with very little sports activity that we endure every year, known as summer, is very long. Even though we have Major League Baseball, the void with out football is just way to long. What are ways to get through this large hot desert known as summer you ask? I have an idea. I know this is a football site, but we are in the summer which is not a time conducive to football talk. So, here is a fun article that I will share with you.
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ERRORS PROVE COSTLY, AS OSU BEATS UNC TO WIN CWS
Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, July 06, 2006 (03:06:54) (13 reads)
This is a day that a lot of North Carolina baseball fans would probably like to forget. Oregon State was able to capitalize on a couple of huge mistakes from the North Carolina Tar Heels defense in order to win the third and deciding game of the College World Series.
Oreegon State brought Jonah Nickerson to the mound in this must-win game, an interesting move considering that Nickerson had already threw over 200 pitches in the CWS. UNC countered with one of their two pitchers selected in the first round of the recent MLB Draft, Daniel Bard.
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2006 Mountain West Preview
Posted by cosmocramer on Thursday, June 22, 2006 (23:34:55) (37 reads)
The 2005-2006 Mountain West season resulted in newcomer TCU winning the conference with an 8-0 record. This result surprised many experts who had TCU picked to finish somewhere in the middle of the conference. This year’s MWC is just as hard to predict as last seasons. Here is a team by team preview including offense, defense, and predicted results.
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Season Preview: Florida Atlantic University
Posted by GT_COOPER on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 (02:30:15) (162 reads)
Head Coach: Howard Schnellenberger
2-9(2-5) Sun-Belt
(This is not one of the teams I know well but I will take a stab at it. I feel a low mid major team should have a preview.)
FAU is a very young program that has only been around for 6 years and has only been in D-1 for two years now. This is a program that shows a lot of potential with a great coach and located in a hot area of recruiting. Maybe in the near future you might see FAU's name a lot for football but in my opinion this is what will happen for them this upcoming season.
Offense: On offense FAU will return 7 of 11 starters. FAU will need a new QB. With 11 TD passer Danny Embick leaving Sean Clayton will take his spot. Sean does have some experience. Starting the last 2 games against N Texas,and FIU. His statistics in those games together where 42-23, 233 yards,3 INTS (all 3 vs. FIU),and 1 TD pass.He also got sacked 4 times this year.He will have some weapons though.At wideout he will have Simeon Frantz,Jason Harmon and Casey Mcgahee.They have not been playmakers throughout there career so they will need to step up for thier QB.All 5 lineman are returning for FAU so this will be the veteran group of the offense.They also need to improve. They gave up 33 sacks last year!In the last 3 games last season they gave up only 4 sacks so they did improve at the end but still has a way to go. In my opinion there playmakers will be at running back for the offense. There names are DiIvory Edgecomb and Charles Pierre.THis will be a good one two punch.Last year they totaled for around 800 yards last year.They will get a lot more this year.I think B.J. Manley who started at RB and FB last year (battled injuries) I think he would be a good fit at FB.
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SPRING PREVIEW: IOWA STATE
Posted by Anonymous on Monday, June 19, 2006 (15:33:30) (27 reads)
2005 Record: 7-5. Lost to TCU in the Houston Bowl.
Head Coach: Dan McCarney
Offense: Iowa State returns two-year starter Bret Meyer at quarterback. By being thrown into the fire as a freshman, Meyer is ahead of where a lot of Juniors would be at this point in their career. In 2005, Meyer completed 227 of 368 passes for 2,876 yards and 19 touchdowns. If Iowa State fails to establish a solid rushing game, they will have to shuch the ball up just like they were forced to do last year. Meyer will have great expectations for him this year, but all signs point to him living up to those expectations.
One of the main areas for concern coming into 2006 for the Cyclones is the running game. The starting running back for this year, Stevie Hicks, managed just 3.7 yards per carry and 4 touchdowns last year. It is imperative that Hicks has a big season this year in order to keep opposing defenses off balance. Hicks has a solid frame that allows him to take hits, but will need to become more agile if he wants to break-out in 2006.
The one place where Iowa State has plenty of talent is wide receiver. RJ Sumrall, Todd Blythe, and Austin Flynn, Iowa State's leading returning receivers from last year, combined for 127 receptions, 1,935 yards, and 12 touchdowns last year. Add that to the fact that tight end Ben Barkema caught 18 passes last year, and you have a receiving corp that will definitely be one of the best in the Big 12.
Iowa State, like most Big 12 teams, has a monstrous offensive line. The Cyclone line is led by two senior tackles--Scott Fisher and Aaron Brant. Both Fisher and Brant are 6'7 and weigh over 320, which can create an intimidating sight for the oppposition's defensive lineman.
Defense: The Iowa State defense should be respectable on the front seven, with players such as mammoth defensive tackle Brent Curvey, who garnered second-team All-Big 12 accolades as a junior. The problem, however, lies in the Cyclone secondary. The Cyclones have only one proven player in the secondary at the start of 2006--DeAndre Jackson. Jackson had five picks in a very successful 2005 campaign. The rest of the starting secondary is composed of one junior college transfer, one sophomore with limited playing experience, and one true freshman who is 5'8 and plays safety. This secondary will have to come together as a unit very quickly if Iowa State wants to make a run for the Big 12 North Title.
My Prediction: 7-5. Tough non-conference schedule includes games against Toledo, UNLV, Iowa, and Northern Iowa.
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comments? | | Score: 5
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2006 Big 12 Baseball; Overrated or Underperforming
Posted by Anonymous on Monday, June 19, 2006 (02:43:45) (22 reads)
With the College World Series on our door step, it is a somewhat rare occasion that I’m able to already do a recap on Big 12 Baseball for the 2006 season. With 7 teams getting invited to the NCAA tournament and 2 teams seeded in the tournament top 8, I certainly expected to see at least one Big 12 team playing in Omaha this summer.
In 2005 the Big 12 managed to advance 3 teams to the College World Series. Baylor, Nebraska, and Texas all made the journey to College Baseball Mecca at Rosenblatt Stadium. Of course we all know that Texas ended up winning the CWS last year, and this was the second title since the formation of the Big 12 in 1996. So how did a conference that has 4 different teams that hold CWS titles, and a number of other schools that have competed in the CWS before, manage to pin all hopes on regional 4 seed Missouri and regional 1 seed Oklahoma, who certainly hasn’t been playing there best baseball of the season.
Taking a look at scheduling, a lack of competition during the regular season certainly wasn’t the reason why Big 12 teams couldn’t compete in the NCAA tournament. Teams that represented the Big 12 in the College World Series faced off against and beat the following teams this season; Stanford, Rice, North Carolina State, Florida, Oral Robert, Notre Dame, Arizona State, TCU, Alabama, Pepperdine, Wichita State, Houston, and Michigan. Not to mention the competition that Big 12 teams faced in their normal conference schedule. Of course quality wins over quality teams were also overshadowed by some losses that pin pointed the vulnerability of many Big 12 teams. Just because of the pure nature of the game of Baseball, we wouldn’t expect a team that plays a competitive schedule to go undefeated, but some losses that Big 12 teams gave up this year were simply a little terrifying. Oklahoma gave up a game to Lamar 21-9, and Campbell and UW Milwaukee both beat Missouri, not to mention that Louisiana Tech murdered Baylor in one of their games. It is inevitable that a conference team will loss a game or two to teams of lesser quality, but in my opinion the Big 12 allowed too many of these upsets to take place this season.
Player quality is certainly not an issue for the Big 12. Many of the schools sit in some of the most baseball rich areas of the world. This is easily proven through the MLB baseball draft. There are a countless number of high school players that got drafted out of the state of Texas. Oklahoma perennial power Owasso High School had a number of players drafted, and Edmond Santa Fe High School had 3 players drafted. Overall 83 players in the MLB drafted listed a Texas city as their hometown. Also every Big 12 school that fields baseball, which is all schools besides Colorado and Iowa State, had at least one player drafted in the first day of the draft. Obviously the Big 12 schools don’t have to dig too deep to try to find talented players to fill their rosters, then why aren’t these talented players leading their teams further in the NCAA tournament.
If the players have talent, then it must be the coach’s fault. Baylor’s coach Steve Smith only graduated college 20 years ago, and already has 12 years of head coaching experience under his belt at Baylor, he had led Baylor to some of its best seasons in its 100 plus year baseball history. University of Texas’ coach Augie Garrido just finished his 10th season with the Longhorns and is in his 36th season of college head coaching. He was the first baseball coach to lead to different D-1 teams to national titles and the first coach to lead teams to titles over 4 different decades, including receiving National Coach of the Year honors 5 times. I would say top to bottom, the Big 12 arguably has had some of the top coaches to grace the fields of college baseball.
So if you can’t blame insufficient scheduling, player quality, or poor coaching, then what could have caused the Big 12 teams to play poorly in the NCAA tournament?
Of course we aren’t talking about Missouri here, they over performed and upset regional 1 seed Pepperdine to advance to the Super Regionals.
So maybe many of the Big 12 teams were just in a slump or playing cold? For Nebraska in particular I think a downhill batting trend can be identified. In the first few weeks of the season they were top 20 in batting average nationally, by midway through the season they had fallen to 32, then by the end of the season they weren’t even represented in the top 35 and I would be willing to bet that they probably weren’t in the top 45. There last few weeks plus the NCAA tournament were very cold, batters just couldn’t manage to drive the ball like they had earlier in the season.
Oklahoma and Oklahoma State though both hung around in the batting average top 35 all season, so why didn’t they do better in the tournament. Oklahoma managed to make it to the Super Regionals and take the series to three games against a great Rice team, so I will let them get off easy. Oklahoma State on the other hand, was one of the top teams in the country for both triples and homeruns, so why couldn’t they win their regional. For OSU I think it comes down to pitching, on the season they struggled in pitching and going into the last couple weeks they were only around the middle of the conference in record. Luckily in the last week of the season Oklahoma State knocked around Oklahoma, which along with the combination of Nebraska’s cold bats and Texas having a poor final week showing landed Oklahoma State in the number 2 spot heading into the conference tournament. So in my opinion Oklahoma State was overrated heading into NCAA selection. I think a 2 seed would have been more appropriate for them.
I have to commend Baylor on their hard fought tournament, they were a 3 seed in the Houston Regional were they beat Arizona State twice to knock out the Sun Devils. I believe back to back wins against Rice was too much to ask of Baylor, and I think they performed well given their regional 3 seed placement. I think Texas is the team that surprised everyone the most. UT was impressive most of the season. When it comes down to it though, errors and mediocre pitching is what hurt Texas in the tournament.
Overall, I believe that Big 12 was more underperforming than overrated heading into the Big 12 tournament. Texas and Nebraska had good seasons overall, and both teams had good overall records. I think it was just a bad slump at the worse time that hurt these two teams. Of course in the end there is no overall reason why these teams lost, and I’m not trying to make excuses. I commend the teams that knocked off the highly seeded Big 12 teams, they showed professionalism and a lot of baseball talent in doing so, I just believe that Texas and Nebraska were playing some of there worse baseball of the season. Having said that I look forward to Big 12 baseball next season, many of the schools have wonderful incoming recruiting classes, and I expect to see a Big 12 team back in Omaha next year.
Good luck to all of the 2006 CWS teams, and congrats to making it to Omaha you all deserve to be there.
comments? | | Score: 5
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