Opening weekend
It's finally arrived. College football. No more hype and talk of what teams are going to do.
It begins tonight with Boston College traveling to Central Michigan. The orginal schedule was BC at Ohio University. But Ohio U. coach Frank Solich wanted no part of the Eagles and backed out.
So BC had to scramble for a 12th game. The Eagles already had Buffalo and Maine on the schedule. And no Top 20 team was willing to deal with the Eagles on short notice, so BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo had to also scramble and came up with Central Michigan, which has always been regarded as one of the top tier MAC teams, a fact that BC football coach Tom O'Brien noted.
Still, Central Michigan is down a bit this year and BC should prevail.
Additional interest in the ESPN2 game is that former Eagle quarterback Doug Flutie is going to make his ESPN broadcast debut as an analyst. Wonder how many times we'll see Doug doing BC games this fall.
Count on him being part of the broadcast crew on Thanksgiving night when BC travels to Miami. No one in New England or any other place in college football is likely to forget the "Hail Flutie'' touchdown pass which helped BC beat Miami in 1984.
This weekend could pull off some surprises from teams that have not had the hype of preseason. The national Saturday night game of note is Notre Dame at Georgia Tech.
Notre Dame is better and should win, but don't count on a blowout. In fact, Tony Barnhart, the well respected college football writer for the Atlanta Constitution, was talking about that game this morning and said that if ND QB Brady Quinn were playing for Georgia Tech, Tech would win the game.
Quinn, with all the Heisman hype surrouding him, is still playing for Notre Dame, which is why ND should win, but not by that much --say single figures, 30-21. Just a guess.
The most important game of the weekend -- a must win game by all indications -- is Tennessee's encounter with California. The Vols HAVE to win the game or coach Phillip Fulmer is going to have a rough few weeks. Volunteer fans are not happy with last year's 5-6 collapse and Florida comes to Knoxville in a couple of weeks. A loss to Cal and and with the possibility of two losses in their first three games (Air Force is next week and that might not even be a gimme) will start the drum beats pounding about Fulmer and the Vols. So count on Tennessee treating Saturday's game like its for the SEC title.
Upset of the week: Appalachian State 17, North Carolina State 10. Just a hunch.
