August 21, 2012

Today starts our comprehensive college football preview series in The Playhouse. As a warning to readers who have not encountered our award winning season preview before: It's not comprehensive in the sense that we cover every team, or even every conference. The use of the term 'comprehensive' is more abstract and interpretive. Living in the Northwest, we are able to do that.

Also, it should be noted that the series won't actually be much of a preview. If we are being really honest, it's more 'random thoughts we have jotted down over the last month' than a so-called 'preview.'

Joe Berger's Playhouse 2012 College Football Preview, Part I: Things That Were Interesting When We Read Them (in no coherent or logical order):

• LSU had a +20 turnover ratio last season. We don't care how good the defense is this season, there's no way that'll happen again.
• Alabama held seven opponents to their season-low in yards gained last year
• Coming off an 11-win season, Arkansas gets both LSU and Alabama at home. If Bobby Petrino wasn't such a terrible husband, the Razorbacks would be on to something. Instead, they have John L Smith because Petrino was too busy trying to get himself on to something.
• Auburn has a brutal first five games, playing Clemson, LSU and Arkansas before the second week in October.
• From October 20 to November 10, Texas A&M plays LSU at home, at Auburn, at Mississippi St (who will be improved) and at Alabama. Good luck with that.
• Florida will be much, much better in 2012 than they were last season, Will Muschamp’s first year as the Gators’ head coach. For starters, teams generally improve markedly from year one to two under ahead coach, using the first year to get familiar with new schemes and philosophies. Also, considering they had a -12 turnover ratio last season andthey return 17 starters, you can see why that’s not really too bold astatement.
• Georgia returns 16 starters from a team that out gained SEC opponents by nearly 155 yards per game last season. The also DO NOT play Arkansas, LSU or Alabama.
• South Carolina is vastly overrated in most preseason polls. The Gamecocks return just 11 starters and have an incredibly difficult finish starting Oct 6: Georgia, at LSU, at Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, something called Wofford and at Clemson. They’d do very well to win three of those games.
• Tennessee is another team that will be much better this season, returning 19 starters and avoiding Arkansas and LSU on the schedule
• Wisconsin has won ten games or more three years in a row and four of the last six. Before Barry Alavarez got there, the Badgers were what Penn St is about to become: Duke.
• Urban Meyer is 12-4 against top 10 teams as ahead coach. That’s pretty ridiculous. For context, Les Miles, who has won two titles as well, is 14-13.
• Speaking of Urban Meyer, Ohio State, though they can’t play in a bowl this season, might come close to doubling its win total of six last season. Not only did it lose four close games last season (statistically, as with turnover margin, close wins and losses tend to even out from year to year), but it also returns 15 starters, including QB Braxton Miller, who seems destined to play in Meyer’s offensive system.
• Purdue plays Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State consecutively in October. Brutal. It’s payback for its non-conference schedule, which includes Marshall, Eastern Kentucky and Eastern Michigan
• Penn State will lose its home opener to Ohio, which won ten games last season.
• Indiana hasn’t defeated a Football Bowl Division team since Oct 2010
• Taylor Martinez has been at Nebraska since ’97,and is somehow only a junior. Joking aside, seems like he’s been there forever
• Michigan is in its second year under Brady Hoke, something, like we said earlier, usually points to improvement. They also return QB Denard Robinson, who like Martinez has been playing college football since the 90s. The Wolverines, however, play their four toughest games of theyear away from home: Alabama (neutral), Notre Dame, Nebraska and Ohio State(they do not play Wisconsin this year). No way Michigan matches the 11 wins oflast season.
• Iowa is 68-53-2 ATS over the last ten years. Had it not gone 2-10 in 2006 that record would look even better
• Mike Stoops was, at best, an uneven head coach at Arizona. He, however, is a great defensive coordinator. Expect the Oklahoma defense to improve dramatically on its -2 turnover ratio.
• The Sooners, who to us are the best team in the country, finish at W. Virginia, Oklahoma St and at TCU.
• Texas, which returns nine offensive starters, has a brutal, three-game stretch of its own in starting Sept. 29: at Oklahoma St, West Virginia and Oklahoma in Dallas. The Playhouse likes the Longhorns asa dark house to win the national title, but obviously they’ll have to get past those games unscathed.
• TCU has averaged 11 wins a season since 2005. They could easily start 7-0 this season, but then face perhaps the most difficult five-game run of the season for any team, finishing off the year: at Oklahoma St, at W. Virginia, K-State, at Texas and Oklahoma.
• K-State was outgained by nearly 107 yards a game last season and somehow won 10 games.
• Bill Snyder, who everyone thinks is an elite coach, is 20 games under .500 vs. the top 25 in his career.
• You could win a lot of money with this bar bet: What current Big 12 coach has the most wins vs. the top 10? … Tommy Tuberville,17. Bob Stoops, 15. Mack Brown, 10. Snyder, who is an elite coach, 3
• Baylor gave up over 37 points a game last season, a mere 29 more a game than Alabama. 

To be continued tomorrow, or maybe another day, if we decide to play golf instead...