Koo’s Corner

After hours of delays, I finally made it to New Orleans. Exhausted I made my way down Bourbon Street early this afternoon. Needless to say that if and when I have 1/4 life crisis or 1/2 life crisis, I think this would be the place. Will take some pics of the incredible scene down here tonight.

After grabbing a bite and scouting the scene for later tonight with some friends, we made our way to Harrah’s as I have had a craving to play some roulette for quite awhile. This ended up being a good idea as I cashed out with an extra $400 which will more then likely be reinvested into the New Orleans economy in the comings hours. My friend Alex Baker also won some big money as well.

There are a ton of OSU fans in addition to LSU fans. I am quite surprised by the OSU turnout as well as amicable the fans have been getting along. Bourbon street looks like it will be fun. Can’t wait. More coming later! Go bucks

Thought I would chime in with some commentary on the bowl games, recruiting news, thoughts on 2008, etc.

Implications of Bowl Games on 2008

As I mentioned earlier this week on my blog, these bowl games will have a big impact on the 2008 pre season rankings. By building up the perception of your team with a big bowl win (LSU last year for example) you can get bumped to the head of the line amongst your peers. Going into bowl season I had two sets of five teams. My top tier for 2008 in no particular order was….

Florida, Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and USC

With my second tier of top teams being

West Virginia, Missouri, Texas, Illinois, and Virginia Tech

A lot will change these early ranking like who will declare early, how 2008 recruiting wraps up, transfers etc.

However their have been a lot surprises and lop sided victories that will really weigh on perception of some these teams.

USC, Missouri, West Virginia, and Georgia all logged impressive wins while Oklahoma, Florida, and Illinois looked pathetic.

Look for Georgia to jump over Florida in terms of 08 pre season rankings mainly thanks to their Sugar Bowl performance. West Virginia’s win was momentous as the program was and still is in turmoil with Rodriguez leaving, the recruiting class wary of WV, and the WV lawsuit against Rodriguez. The win may have kept the program from completely derailing as I blogged about earlier.

Illinois’ loss was one of the few times fans really saw them all year which will hurt their public perception. For Oklahoma, that Big 12 will be nasty in 2008 so it will be interesting to see how the voters stack up OU, Texas, Mizzou, and Kansas. The middle of the Big 12 will be pretty lethal as well with Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, and Colarado returning some firepower as well.

Tough Road Bowl games for the Big Ten

Weather in Big Ten Country this time of year excludes the region from hosting any big name bowl games. Because of this, Big Team teams hit the road come bowl season in hopes their fans will want to join them in a warmer more touristy destination. However this year the stars lined up for a pretty ridiculous slate of bowl away games.

Purdue vs Central Michigan in Detroit, Michigan (Purdue win a squeeker)

Penn State vs Texas A&M in San Antonio, Texas (Penn State victory)

Illinois vs USC in Pasadena, California (Illinois got torched)

Michigan vs Florida in Orlando, Florida (Michigan beats Florida in best bowl thus far aka the Who Do I hate more bowl)

Ohio State vs LSU in New Orleans (TBD)

Saturday= Recruiting Cram Session

This upcoming Saturday their will be two High school football All American games. This will allow those college football nuts to take a look at the next wave of big talents . The Under Armor All America game will be on ABC at 2PM ET with the more established US Army All American Bowl airing on NBC at 12 ET.

I really hate trying to get excited about next year’s freshmen by looking other “experts” rankings and really poor quality internet videos of highlight plays. These games will give you a glimpse of how these guys stack up against high level competition. Also many of the undecided participants will make a decision live at the games which adds quite a bit of suspense at this game.

I am disappointed as I will be traveling during these games as I wanted to check out a lot of Ohio State commits who are reported to be the most impressive group during practice and the most tight knit bunch after practice for the US Army game.
This game always gives you a handful of names you can be confident will be first round picks down the road. Rivals actually has great All time offense and All time defense participants of late. Tedd Ginn and Chris Wells I believe were MVPS of their respective games.

Rise Mag has a good brief writeup on each game which can be found here.

Intrigue Surrounding Terrelle Pryor Recruitment

Terrelle Pryor is considered by most to be the number one high school player in America and will be playing on Saturday in the US Army game. Pryor has not picked a college and is also considered a top basketball recruit as well. Many compare Pryor to Vince Young with many claiming Pryor will be even better.

Pryor was rumored to be an Ohio State lean with Florida, West Virginia, Penn State, Oregon, Michigan, and Florida in pursuit. Of late Pryor has been very vocal in denouncing any favoring of Ohio State, giving many fan bases a lot of hope they can land the big time recruit. Michigan fans were ecstatic in hearing the news that Pryor actually checked in to Army game hotel wearing a Michigan swearshirt.

However many believe that was just a ploy to annoy his OSU commit friends who he has been rumored to be spending all of time with on and off the field at practice this week. Below is a recent video of him outside of practice. You be the judge.

ScoutTV: USAAB Terrelle Pryor Video Interview

Benkoo.com hitting the road Heading to New Orleans As previously mentioned I will be heading to New Orleans to watch the Ohio State LSU game. I will be devoting a lot of time and efforts to blogging about the experience and my thoughts on the game in the coming days. I am bubbling with anticipation for this great game but am a little worried about being in LSU country.LSU fan’s have earned the reputation of being some of the roughest and agressive fans in all of college football. I really hope that ends up being not the case. Here is one of many examples that were listed on Bucknuts of pretty scary LSU fan behavior.

LSU Athletic Director Urges Better Behavior

I have personally endeared a lot of good and bad fan bases during my college football road trip prime and must say I usually am able to navigate out of trouble and enjoy the game. However its one of the worst things to be harassed, assaulted, and taunted endlessly just because of your college affiliation. Ohio State is no angel either.

Why can’t we all just get along? Here’s too hoping for a peaceful and victorious trip.

First off I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Years. New Year’s day and New Year Eve serves up a total of 12 bowl games, many of which are worth checking out.

Jockeying for 08 position

In particular a lot of highly ranked teams who will be returning a lot of talent next year, will be auditioning for pre season rankings next year.

USC, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, and Missouri all play tomorrow and will be looking to carry some momentum into 2007. I am absolutely amazed at many how great programs will be returning a talented and expereinced quarterback for possible 2008 National Championship runs. Below is a list of top 07 teams who will have their signal caller back next year.

- Georgia (Matt Strafford)

- Missouri (Chase Daniels)

- Ohio State (Todd Boeckman)

- Florida (Tim Tebow)

- Kansas (Todd Reesing)

- Illinois ( Juice Williams)

- West Virginia (Pat White)

- Texas ( Colt Mccoy)

Teams like USF, Indiana, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and Cal also bring some talent back at QB but are darkhorses to make some noise on the national scene in 2008

Big 12 in 2008

The Big 12 has long been a two team conference with Oklahoma and Texas dominating the conference since Nebraska’s demise. This year, people expected more of the same but were surprised with the emergence of Missouri and Kansas. These four programs will be strong again next year in addition to programs like Kansas State, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and Colorado making progress as well. Despite the media’s infatuation with the SEC, look for the Big 12 to be the stronger conference next year.

Oklahoma sends home shoplifting DT

The list of bonehead incidents involving college football players grew again today as Sooner starting DT DeMarcus Granger was sent home from bowl game preparation for stealing a jacket for Burlington Coat Factory. I sympathize with the Sooner fan base and the young man as this is a very emberassing incident that will draw ire of fans for years to come, espicially in the wake of the Rhett Bomar scandal. I am curious what the jacket looked like.

“Mr. Granger removed an anti-theft device from a jacket and then concealed the jacket in a bag. He exited the store walking past the cash registers without paying for the jacket,” Mike Horn, a spokesman for the Tempe Police Department, said in a statement.

Granger admitted committing the offense and was booked into the Tempe City Jail on one count of shoplifting, Horn said. He later bonded out of jail.”

Ten Plays that Got The Buckeyes to New Orleans Article

For the second year in a row the Buckeyes made the BCS Championship game. Below is a link to my article highlighting the ten plays that were most instrumental in allowing them to get back to the championship game.

http://www.bucknuts.com/news/story.php?article=2601

FOX and BCS sucks for viewers

This is the second year that FOX has the rights for the BCS bowls (minus the Rose Bowl). I am growing very weary of Fox lately. They acquired the MLB post season rights from NBC about a decade ago and butchered coverage of that event. The dropoff from Bob Costas to Joe Buck is huge.

Fox, who doesn’t broadcast one regular season college game, plug the upcoming bowl games through out their NFL coverage. Unfortunately millions of NFL viewers are subjected to half ass NFL announcers and analysts converse about the upcoming bowl games when it’s absolutely clear they have no knowledge of the games. No mention of players, coaches, thing to watch for, but rather recycled garbage that misses the mark completely.

The most disappointing element of this is that ABC/ESPN have a full fledged team of guys specializing in college. While some of them are entertaining imbeciles (Mark May and Lou Holtz), others like Chris Fowler, Brent Mustberger, Mike Tirico, Rece Davis, Lee Corso, etc are highly knowledgable and articulate about the college football landscape. Its a shame for fans that such an inferior entity cover these great games.

Below is a link to my Bucknuts article previewing the upcoming Big 12 Championship game. As most of you know, this game has National Championship implications as a Missouri victory will vault them into the National Championship while a Oklahoma win would most likely but my Buckeyes in the Championship game.

http://www.bucknuts.com/news/story.php?article=2353

Lots of controversy and disgruntled fans about how the championship game is shaping up (similar to EVERY year). ESPN is not making it any better either. All of the finger pointing, complaining, and whining seems misplaced as the real issue is a lack of a playoff system. Until that happens people would be better served writing their athletic directors and conference commissioners demanding change rather than trying to discredit any team in front of you in line for a title shot.

Below is a link to my latest bucknuts.com article. It’s been a crazy year and this article summarizes some of the anarchy while highlighting what to watch in the second half of the season. Enjoy !

http://www.bucknuts.com/news/story.php?article=1918