Fancred Friday
The fine folks over at Fancred have helped us expand the reach of The Solid Verbal by giving us a slick profile page and a direct portal into the passionate minds of college football fans around the world. So, to express our gratitude, we solicited questions from its growing network of fans for a special Fancred-only mailbag:
The Alabama-Texas A&M Running Diary: Part II
CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY’S FIRST HALF DIARY… 5:42 – We have a second half kickoff! Texas A&M has some work to do. 5:45 – Alabama just went three-and-out after McCarron overthrew a wide open receiver over the middle. I’m torn on how I feel about McCarron as a pro prospect. On one hand, he’s lost only twice over his career and has two BCS championship rings. On the other, well, that was a bad throw he just made. I feel the exact same way about McCarron as I did Greg McElroy, even though I know McCarron has more physical tools.
The Alabama-Texas A&M Running Diary: Part I
Saturday’s rematch between Alabama and Texas A&M drew the highest television ratings for a regular season college football game in seven years. To be sure, it felt like we waited seven years to actually see it played. Ever since Johnny Manziel rose to superstardom by upsetting the Crimson Tide last November, September 14, 2013 had been circled on the calendar, dissected throughout the college football world, and mentioned as the main event for an entire season. To commemorate this historic event and Alabama’s thrilling 49-42 victory, I decided to keep a minute-by-minute diary…
Jimmy Clausen 4.0
It dawned on me this week that Johnny Manziel is Jimmy Clausen 4.0. Think about it, Manziel is everything Clausen so desperately wanted when he emerged from a white limousine at the College Football Hall of Fame to announce his commitment to Notre Dame. He’s more accomplished, more elusive, more revered, more accurate, more decisive, more interesting, more analyzed, more debated, more hated, more of a prima donna, and harder to ridicule because of a stupid haircut. He’s the greatest punk ever.
Waiting For The Reesurrection: Week Two Picks
Reason No. 475 Why I Love The Internet: ESPN Insider’s “Heisman Predictor” in which Notre Dame’s Tommy Rees was listed ahead of Georgia’s Todd Gurley and South Carolina’s Jadeveon Clowney, and tied with Oregon’s Marcus Mariota after Week One. Articles like this are only possible on a weirdish Venn diagram at the intersection of “Manufactured Metrics”, “Search Engine Optimization”, and “Embarrassing Overreactions”. Even Rees had to be appalled. To Rees’ credit, his 346-yard, three touchdown performance in a 28-6 win over Temple was certainly worthy of something. If the Irish repeat on any or all of last year’s success, Rees . . .
The Seven Rules of College Football Gambling
Secretly, I’ve always been fascinated that a group of soothsayers could sit in a room, examine mysterious statistics, and accurately project a college football game’s final score. It doesn’t quite seem possible, and it’s not like there are any Grays Sports Almanacs in real life. Yet, every week, the shadowy oddsmakers of Las Vegas pull it off. It took me a while to realize they weren’t using black magic. There really is a method to the madness. It’s easy to forget that, somewhere, men in suits are treating college football as a black-and-white science. True fans don’t share the robotic sensibilities . . .