The Blue Workhorse

Earlier this week in Part I, I gave you my predictions for some big time conference matchups on Wednesday and Thursday nights. I was right about Ball State remaining undefeated, but I was shocked by the performance of Georgia Tech last night.

The Ramblin’ Wreck absolutely destroyed Miami with their triple option attack as they piled up 472 rushing yards…yea, 472 rushing yards! I should have known better than to take an ACC squad their first week entering the Top 25, but I was completely unprepared for Miami’s inability to play assignment football.

No problems, though, as I am completely prepared to predict the rest of Week 13’s dynamite college football games:

The 7-11 PM (EST) time slot on Saturday had the best collection of games on national television since the midday (3:30-7) slot on September 16, 2006 when #3 Auburn won a 7-3 battle with #6 LSU, #12 Louisville blew out #17 Miami, #11 Michigan put it on Brady Quinn and the #2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and #18 Oregon scored in the last minute to beat #15 Oklahoma.

That September day was a great day to be a college football fan. Along with these four games, there were 3 other games that featured matchups of two teams in the top 25. While there were only two top 25 battles this weekend, both games (LSU/Auburn & Wake Forest/Florida St) were featured in the evening along with a big-time Pac-10/SEC battle between Arizona State and Georgia.

The favorites won in each of those games, but East Carolina and Oregon weren’t as lucky as both were upset.

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Every Saturday, after a hard week’s work, I just want to be able to sit on the couch and flip back and forth through college football games for the entirety of the day. Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to be able to do so.

I watched several games that were televised throughout the day on Saturday (as well as Friday night’s game), and unlike last week there were some big matchups and some true battles. Here are my observations about certain players and teams from the games I was able to see:
Kansas v South Florida (USF 37, KU 34)

* South Florida cornerback Jerome Murphy missed multiple tackles because all he was concerned with was loading up and using the hit stick on ball carriers. He made a couple of good hits but the few “Ooohh”s he’ll get in the film room won’t make up for the coaches’ yelling that is due him for his missed tackles.

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The college football season officially starts tonight. North Carolina State will be taking on The Old Ball Coach Steve Spurrier and his South Carolina Gamecocks; Oregon State opens with Pac-10 conference for Stanford; and the first ranked team, Wake Forest, will play as well.

But before the season gets under way, we give you the official Top 25 from The Blue Workhorse, and later, we will give you our predictions for conference champions, the Heisman trophy winner, and maybe even a surprise team or two that may be flying under the radar now only to be clearly on the BCS scene at the end of the season.

Just as the ESPN or USA Today polls are compiled, we’ve polled our 4 top college football writers and given each vote a point value (#1 ranking = 25 points, #2 ranking = 24 points ….. #24 ranking = 2 points, #25 ranking = 1 point). We then tallied all of the points and tabulated the top 25 teams.

We’ve got the national powerhouses, the contenders, the possible BCS spoilers, and 25 teams that each want to hoist the glass football at the end of the season, so welcome to the first edition of The Blue Workhorse’s weekly NCAA football rankings.

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College baseball’s super regionals start today at noon when North Carolina State takes on Georgia on ESPN. We give you the info you need to know, including how each team got to the super regionals, some keys to success, and our predictions, in our Super Regionals Preview (part 2 of 2: We’ve divided our preview into 2 parts with part 1 being the Friday/Saturday/Sunday series, which make up the left half of the official NCAA tournament bracket):

Coral Gables Super Regional

Arizona (41-17) vs Miami (50-8)

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On Monday, the NCAA announced the 64 collegiate baseball teams to earn the honor to be a part of the Division I national tournament, which will begin Friday at noon when the Missouri Tigers take on the Ole Miss Rebels. In preview of the regional tournaments that will be held this weekend, our resident college baseball fanatic Rosenblogger examines each individual regional:

Raleigh Regional

1. NC State Wolfpack (38-20) vs 4. James Madison Dukes (38-17)
2. South Carolina Gamecocks (38-21) vs 3. Charlotte 49ers (43-14)