Crash! Landen’s Not So Bold College Football Predictions for 2010

Before the 2010 College Football season gets underway, I thought I’d make a few picks and predictions… here they are.The SEC will NOT win the national championship this year.  I also think the mid-major ‘BCS Busters go down early. I can only hope, leastways.

One of the guys that will help FSU 'Turn The Corner'...

Teams That will ‘Turn The Corner’ (and show substantial improvement)… Nebraska. Notre Dame. Rutgers. Arkansas. UCLA. Washington. Georgia. Mississippi State. FSU.

Teams That Won’t: Michigan…

Arizona State has tremendous fans, though...

Arizona. Illinois. Auburn. Maryland. Arizona State. South Florida. North Carolina. South Carolina.

JoePa has 30 more good years of coaching... At least.

JoePa will get Win #400 against Indiana if he gets it at all. There’s always next year…

My Top 5 Heisman Finalists (and I’m just throwing these out there… Who knows until the season starts?):

#5 Case Keenam

#4 Christian Ponder

#3 Mark Ingram

#2 Ryan Mallet

#1 Dion Lewis (Pitt)

My Picks for the Major Conferences…

The PAC10: There are several teams that could end up winning the conference.  Oregon would’ve been my pick if they hadn’t lost their knuckleheaded QB to crime. They’re still loaded, though.

They do have some extremely ugly uniforms year in and year out, but luckily they have cheerleader to balance it all out.

THEIR uniforms are just fine. (I think Oregon also might get shocked in Knoxville in their second game by a Tennessee team that no one expects anything out of. I do believe early ‘shocking’ losses can affect a team’s confidence and losing to the Vols could throw their entire season out of whack).

Washington has 20 starters coming back which sounds good, but they have 20 starters coming back from a below average team. They’ll be improved and will get to a bowl game.

USC has talent and will win a lot of games despite being placed on NCAA probation, losing their cheating head coach (who bailed at the appropriate time as cheaters often do) and losing a myriad of players for a variety of reasons (the Draft, suspension, transfer, injury, you name it).

A face you can trust... Especially if you're a Vol fan.

They also now have  ’The Vortex’ Lane Kiffen as head coach, who seems to do nothing but suck negativity towards himself, whoever  he’s standing by or whatever location he’s standing at. His daddy can coach defense, but I think they lost too much and will have a similar year to last year, where they beat a pretty good team or two, then lose to several ‘middle of the PAC’ teams (like Arizona and Washington). They’re reign of dominance is over for a while.

My Pick:Stanford. They have one really tough stretch (@ Notre Dame, @Oregon, and USC). They lost  a great back, but Harbaugh will find a suitable replacement. Harbaugh’s a hard nosed coach and his players play like him. Don’t Sleep on Cal, either…

The BIG10. Or Big 11. Or Big 12 North. Or whatever: Everybody and their uncle thinks this one’s automatic; Ohio State right? Not this year. Michigan? RichRod better win 10 games (including a win over Ohio State) if he wants to keep his job and I don’t think he does it. Wisconsin has 20 starters back and they’ll be loaded on offense and have one of the best rushing attacks in the nation. They might be my pick for 2nd best Big10 team this year.

But my pick: Iowa. They were undefeated until they lost their QB Stanzi last year. They’ve had really good defenses at Iowa the last few years. They win mostly on playing sound on offense and playing slobberknocking defense.  And they play REALLY hard. The way they completely shut down Georgia Tech’s Triple option in their bowl game was impressive. They flirted with the national title picture late last year. They get even closer this year.

The real Big 12. I think Texas reloads and despite everyone else picking Oklahoma for the Conference Title, I think Texas keeps their foot on the Sooners for another year. It won’t surprise me if they did beat Texas, though. What will surprise me is if anyone challenges the Huskers to get to the Big12 title game.

Nebraska coach Bo Pellini...

My Pick for the Big 12: Nebraska. I think Bo Pellini is very quietly reestablishing the bruising power football tradition of Nebraska. The Blackshirts seemed to be back and they did have the #1 D in the nation (statistically) in a conference of high octane offense. They have 2 or 3 somewhat difficult games, but they’re scattered throughout the season (and they catch Texas after the annual Red River Shootout).

The SEC: Probably the toughest one to call (for me). The safest pick… Alabama to win the title again.They’re going to have a great offense with a QB that hasn’t lost a game in like 73 years. They have the Heisman Trophy winner at tailback. They have another back that may be as good or better: Pensacola’s own Trent Richardson. They have arguably the nation’s best wide receiver (and he’s healthy). They have a good line even though they’re replacing a couple of starters. They’ll also have to find some new special teams guys, but the reason they won’t repeat as (even) SEC champs is because they lost too much on the defensive side. I know, I know… Saban has stockpiled a ridiculous amount of talented players and they’ll just fill in and shut everyone down again because Saban’s a defensive genius… I know… But even so, I do think they will lose at least a couple. Alabama always has a great defense, but I think there are several up and comers that might sneak up on them and maybe one or two that won’t have to. We’ll see though. It ain’t like I’m pulling against ‘em. Go Trent!

Typical Florida fan...

Florida. The hated Gators. Urban Crier. No more Tebow. Thank you, Lord. No… More… Frickin’…  Tebow. That’s a huge loss. I know the new guy there is supposed to be maybe the best passer that’s ever played the game of football, but he’s still going to have a difficult time trying to make the kind of plays that Tebow did in key situations. They lost a tight end that was very important to their success last year along with some other key offensive key opponents. And they lost practically their entire defense to the NFL. Urban’s a great coach and they have a lot of young talent there, but this will be the year where they get gashed a few times. I say they have an 8-4, maybe a 9-3 regular season and don’t get to the title game. Neither does ‘Bama.

This is probably going out on a limb, but my SEC winner: Arkansas. Bobby Petrino’s a pretty good college coach, especially on the offensive side of the ball. His teams at Louisville were lethal and he’s got far more talent to work with at Arkansas. They have more returning players than any other team in the SEC including their highly regarded QB Ryan Mallet. He has maybe the best group of receivers to throw it to including one of the nation’s top tight ends. Petrino always has great tailbacks (or his offensive scheme makes them look great) and they’ll have a decent line.

They’re loaded on offense. They should be better on the defensive side, too with 7 returning starters on that side. They won’t need a great punter or kicker. they won’t be punting or kicking a whole lot of field goals. Usually defense wins out in the SEC, but I think this will be a down year defensively for the league overall. I’ve been wrong before, though.

And finally…The ACC. This was really the only one I missed last year. I could say picked with my heart since I picked the ‘Noles, but I think if you had told anyone that follows NCAA football that the 2009-2010 Seminole D would be ranked 108th they wouldn’t believed it. Not a Mickey Andrews defense… Unless you’re a Gator. But they’re stupid. And biased.

This year Miami appears to be the popular pick and they should be pretty good, especially on defense, but I think they have too many tough games early and late. Ohio State. Clemson squeezed in between Pitt (who I think will win the Big East) and FSU. They also have North Carolina; then Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech at the end (followed by South Florida that might be interesting if the new coach can keep  things going there). No way do they get through all of those without multiple losses. Of course they are Miami and I’m an FSU fan so they’ll probably… No. Don’t want to lose confidence in my pick.

There is also a lot of love from the ‘experts’ for Virginia Tech, but I think they lost too much on defense. I would also relish them to make it to the ACC title game because my pick for the ACC winner usually destroys them (at least in the past 30 years with 1 exception). But I don’t think they get there anyway. Hope they can beat Boise, though for the sake of the nation. And the world.

Georgia Tech would be my dark horse if I had one. Coach Johnson has my highest respect. And they should be better on the defensive side with Al Groh taking over. He got canned at Virginia, but he’s still a good coach. Dwyer shouldn’t be too be of a loss. I think Johnson will just plug another back in there and they’ll be fine. As long as Josh Nesbitt stays healthy, I think they’ll end up playing my pick for  the ACC. Who’s my pick (cue warchant)?

FSU. Who’d you think? And this time I think it’s going to actually happen. FSU’s going to lead the conference in offense and I think there’s going to be a drastic change in the defense and the attitude of the team in general. And i think they’re going to sneak up on some teams that think they’re going to suck like they have for the last few years. I think while Ponder won’t have numbers like Case Keenam or the kid at Arkansas, he’ll lead one of the most efficient offenses in the country. They have solid receivers, a few decent tight ends and a plethora of outstanding tailbacks. Plus they’ll have one of the Top O-Lines in the country.  The defense  may not be the Seminoles of the 90s, but they will look more like a Seminole defense. if they get past Oklahoma in the second week, look out.

And those are my conference picks (the Top 5 conferences, at least). I got 4 of the 5 right last year, but it seemed a lot more clear cut… Again, I missed on the ACC pick last year. As for the BCS title pick, I got it half right last year. Texas vs… Notre Dame? Wht can I say, they had a weak schedule and a pretty good core back. Which they do again this year. The cupboard’s not empty in South Bend. We’ll see what Kelly can do with them.

For this year’s Title Game Pick: Nebraska vs Florida State. Yep. You heard me. Nebraska vs Florida State. I bet I get it half right again.

And Go ‘Noles!

The 2010 College Football Season Is Nigh Upon Us…

Is the 2011 College Football Season really less than 10 days away?… Really?

Feels like only a month ago ‘Bama beat Texas.

Nick Saban fulfilled Alabama dreams in what? His third  year? That wasn’t a HUGE surprise. Saban’s a great coach and Mike Shula might’ve underachieved, but he didn’t leave the cupboard completely bare. Which brings me quickly to what I won’t be forward looking to this year:

Not seeing Saint Bobby on the FSU sideline will be strange. Without him, I wouldn’t be a Collegs Football fan. He’s always been there. Now he’s not. Very sad how he was unceremoniously dumped, too, after what he did for the program. BUT… Time rolls on. New year. New era.

I think good things are ahead for FSU, but I’ve been saying that for several years now… You’re on the clock, now, Jimbo Fisher. Good luck with it.

I picked Texas to win it all last year over Notre Dame. Yeah, I know. But I really thought Weis was going to turn it around with what looked like a fairly soft schedule and a pretty good collection of seniors and juniors returning including his (third year?) QB. I was wrong and he was let go. Brian Kelly’s the new guy and looks to be a better fit for ND. We’ll see. I almost got the title winner right, though.

I think they would’ve won if Colt McCoy hadn’t gone out on the first series of the game. For the most part they outplayed the Tide, but ‘Bama made a few big plays at key moments and ended up beating Texas without their leader. I think McCoy was the best QB in the nation (even better than Tebow) the last couple of years and what did he get for his stellar play? He sees Bradford win the Heisman and play in the championship game after Colt’s Longhorns had dismantled OSU… Then comes back to lose the Heisman (to a pretty good back in Ingram) again and gets hurt in the title game to top it off. Oh. then he drops and drops and drops and drops in the NFL Draft for not really much of a reason. At least not a spoken reason.

One guy I’m VERY happy to see move on is, of course, Tim Tebow. As an FSU fan, he caused a lot of angsty nights, especially in the week or 2 that preceded the annual FSU/UF game. This will be the first year that FSU will have a legitimate shot of ending Florida’s dominance over the ‘Noles.  Florida will still be good, but I think they’re going to take a bigger dip in play tahn all of the ‘experts’ have been predicting. On ESPN I’ve seen more than a few picks that the Gators will be 11-1 this year even with all of the personnel losses. Nn-nh. Not going to happen. Let ‘em stay ranked high. That’ll just add to their opponents’ motivation.

Evil FSU Hatin' ACC Blogger Heather Dinich

Speaking of the picks… I had a little of a down year picking the ACC games along with the Top 25 and other ‘notable’ games… Including the Bowl Games I ended with a record of 216 – 67 (76%) record. In the unpredictable ACC games I was 69-27 (72%). I was 5-15 against my own gut feeling. I still managed to give ESPN’s Heather Dinich (the Evil FSU Hatin’ ACC Blogger) a pretty good butt kicking in the picks (by 6). She has inside access and is getting paid, though. Go figure.

As far as preseason picks went, I got 3 of the 5 major conferences correct. If you include the fact that I picked ‘Bama to upset Florida last year, then I got 4 right… But I’ll wait to make this year’s predictions when we’re a little closer to kickoff. And as I did last year, I’ll wait until 2 weeks in to post the 2010 Crash! Landen Top 25. The preseason polls are mostly meaningless except to fuel teams to pull upsets over teams that shouldn’t be ranked over them, anyway.

10 Things of interest before the season starts in no particular order…

10 Will this guy be the same knucklehead as the QB at Ole Miss that he was at Oregon? If he’s smart he won’t be… SOOOO, I’m betting this won’t be the last courtroom pic taken of him. Knucklehead. With him Oregon might’ve been the best team in the Pac10. Ole Miss didn’t have a QB and Houston Nutt is more comfortable running the ball than throwing it all over the place, so it might be a good fit for him. Of course if you can’t pass against an SEC defense you’re probably going to struggle and Masoli hasn’t shown that he’s going to beat you with his arm so much…

9 Lots of teams under investigation for rule violations. USC… Tennessee… North Carolina… South Carolina… Michigan… Even ‘Bama. I think Notre Dame, too.

8 Lots of league realignments in the offseason… Colorado bolting from the Big12 to the Pac10. Nebraska leaving for the Big 10. Utah leaving the WAC for the PAC10. BYU can’t figure out what they want to do…

7 RichRod as this year’s Charlie Weis… It’s not looking good right now. Being a Michigan ‘outsider’ (not from the alumni) and the fact that Michigan’s had some key injuries on defense in the offseason… And they sucked on that side of the ball last year…. Not. Looking. Good.

6 As bad as Michigan was, though, FSU was worse. They couldn’t stop anyone and I’m almost being completely literal. They had to win on offense most of the time. I think they’re defense would be better by default, but bringing in one of the Stoops clan should help to a larger degree than most think. I’ll miss Mickey Andrews almost as much as Saint Bowden, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it last year. Off the field familial tragedies will sometimes do that.

Cheating always costs in one way or another...

5 Will USC start to go back in the tank after NCAA sanctions, scholarship losses, a mass of players transferring to other conferences, loss of postseason play and losing one cheating coach only to replace him with another cheating head coach? I’m betting they will. And quickly, too.

4 And since I brought up the Heisman, will Mark Ingram win another? I say no, just because he’s going to share the load a bit more with Pensacola’s own trent Richardson. And as good as Ingram is, Ingram is bigger, faster and may be a little better. Maybe… That’s a pretty SCARY backfield, though.

3 I think Alabama’s offense will still be ugly at times,though. That’s just Alabama. They’ll   reload on defense, but I don’t know if they’ll be good enough to get through the SEC schedule unscathed. Without Terrence Cody they lose at least one last year.

2 The BCS party crashers… TCU & Boise State… Their pillow soft schedules combined with idiot poll voters might give one of these teams a shot at the national title. BSU has to beat a Virginia Tech team that has a lot to replace on D and then a mediocre Oregon State team. Isn’t that the place withe the drunken naked linemen that get tazed by police? TCU just have to beat… welll… I guess BYU’s on their schedule. The whole midmajor lovefest mainly comes from the fact that Boise beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl a few years ago. I watched the 2nd half of that game and OU didn’t look like they wanted to be there until they got an INT late in the 3rd or early in the 4th quarter. They they came back from a sizable deficit and took the lead with about a minute to go. Then BSU had to score to take it to OT and used about 30 trick plays to do so. They won, sure. Oklahoma was playing a mid-major opponent from Boise. Had OU been playing for the national title they would have beaten Boise by 60 points. Because of this, we now have a situation where if Boise eeks out a win against Va. Tech, then you could be looking at a BSU/TCU National Title game. How messed up would that be?

Is Boise a decent team? Yes. Is TCU? Yes. But if you were to put them in the Big East, they don’t go undefeated. Put them in any other league and they’ll be lucky to break even. Utah’s going to find that out when they start playing the PAC10 schedule.

1 New coaches… Kelly at Notre Dame. Tyler Gill at Kansas. Derek Dooley at Tennessee. Lane Kiffen at USC.  And Jimbo at FSU. They’re all filling their fans full of hope at the moment. Haven’t played a game yet. It’ll be interesting to see who pans out along guys that are already on the hot seat: the aforementioned RichRod, Ron Zook at Illi-noise, Dan Hawkins at Colorado, Les Miles at LSU(who shouldn’t be), Dennis Erickson at ASU,and Mark Richt  at UGA(who shouldn’t be), among others… I think Stoops at Arizona might also if his program takes a step backward and doesn’t get over the hump this year.

It looks like it’s going to be another great season for college football fans. Go ‘Noles!

I Like Roger Ebert, But Sometimes He’s A Complete Idiot…

I was about to watch one of my all time favorite teen comedies this morning (that would be Three O’Clock High). It was absolutely storming here, so I figured I’d watch a movie. As I was about to hit the Netflix ‘Play’ button I caught Roger Ebert’s name out of the corner of my eye in one of the user reviews. There was a link to Ebert’s review and since I respect Ebert’s love of film, I clicked on it to read what he thought about it.

One star. Wow. He gave it one frickin’ star. Not only did he say the movie sucked (having a ‘stupid’ plot), he even called it fascist. I’m not sure how he arrived at that one.  When I think of fascm I think of Mussolini. Hitler. Mao. The former King Of Pop. Ebert (as with a lot of critics) sometimes allows his political and personal biases to get in the way of reviewing a movie on its own merits. For me, this is one such case. Three O’Clock High (for me) is one of the best ‘high school’ genre films ever made. It’s writing, casting, direction and editing culminated in a very slick, fast moving film that was actually funny. Even the characters with bit parts were memorable (the guy with the red beret still gives me a good laugh). There’s nothing fascist about it. Ebert completely missed the point of the film. And on top of that, it’s a comedy. An entertainment. It wasn’t shooting to be Citizen Kane.

If this were the only case in which Ebert completely missed on, then I wouldn’t have a blog post… But he’s had a number of head scratchers, so I figured I would make a list of 10 films that I thought were some of his more glaring errors. These are movies that I think are now considered classics by most. I’m not including some of the stinkers he gave a thumbs up to, like Cop & A Half, Million Dollar Baby and Anaconda.

Update: #11 Copland (Cited that there was ‘too much story’. He even threw out the word lugubrious. I’m not even brave enough to drop ‘lugubrious’ on someone. Not even on this blog…)

So here are 10 (more) GREAT FILMS THAT EBERT gave ‘Thumbs Down’ to…

#10 The aformentioned Three O’ Clock High…

#9 Miller’s Crossing (My favorite gangster flick).

#8 Legend…  Siskel missed this one, also. Not the greatest story, but it accomplished what Ridley Scott set out to do, which was to

#7 The Lost Boys… Who, except Ebert doesn’t love this movie?

#6 Full Metal Jacket… Stanley Kubrick, dude. One of the most hard core war flicks ever.

#5 Empire Of The Sun… Maybe this was just some sort of backlash against Spielberg. Another great, albeit completely different, war film.

#4 Raising Arizona… Another great comedy  (he also didn’t like The Hudsucker proxy).

#3 Aliens… I mean, COME ON!

#2 Die Hard… Arguably the best action film of all time. In all fairness, after giving this an initial thumbs down, he later begrudgingly changed it to a thumbs up.

#1 Blade Runner… Most critics panned this one. Again, to be fair, Ebert didn’t EXACTLY pan this. He did say that it was worth seeing for the visuals but he found the story lacking. Siskel outright hated it. I don’t care what version you watch, you’re still going to see one of the most groundbreaking films ever made. Sure it’s dark (loved it), slow moving (with purpose), and occasionally brutal in its depictions of violence, but it has a core story that anyone and everyone can relate to in some way. “Who am I? Why am I here? How long have I got?”

That’s quite the collection of films that he got wrong and this was with minimal research. I’m sure I could find some real doozies if I tried. I must say that I don’t think Ebert is a moron all of the time. I wish that he had done more DVD commentaries like the one for Dark City, for instance.  Occasionally, though, as when he reviewed Three O’Clock High, he sounds like an idiot. But don’t we all sometimes?

Hey!

I guess that scheduling thing worked… Now if I can only figure out the page thing…

More of the Unused…

This time, an unused skull (yes, another skull) that was to be part of a logo that I was doing  for someone for the hellavit…

I’m also posting just to see if the ‘Post Scheduling’ thing works. It didn’t the last time I tried it.

Three O’Clock High Theme

Someone posted Tangerine Dream’s ‘Something To Remember Me By ‘ on youtube. From one of my favorite comedies ‘Three O’Clock High’…

Something I’m working On…

Something I’m working on (A very tiny little snippet). Started slowly, but am picking up the pace on it….

A little different than my usual stuff and a very difficult character to get a handle on. I  was going to post an Expendables Review at some point, but I was waiting to see Scott Pilgrim first. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone or some such…

The Tenth

Just realized it was the 10th… Keep drawin’… Keep drawin’…

Crash! At The 2010 San Diego Comic Con Part 8 (And More Costumes….)

More photos!

The last costumed person I got a photo of at the 2010 SDCC. This was right after I spotted David Finch walking towards either the Hilton or the Convention Center.

Zombies! Love the Bruce Lee outfit zombie (yeah, yeah. Kill Bill).

One of several Poison Ivy’s I saw there.

Another shot of Black Canary and Green Arrow….

Nick Fury and War Machine at the Marvel Booth….

A very convincing Elle Driver (Kill Bill)… She smiled more in person.

Not sure if this guy was from anything in particular. He looked autherntic, though.

My favorite Supergirl (best one ever!) posing with Wonder Woman and her daughter…

Another impressive costume…

An Imperial Officer…

Stan… And he even brought his soapbox… He also made an appearance  at the Stan Lee/Todd McFarlane panel.

A seemingly generic goth girl…

More asian Harley and that Street Fighter chick….

As I said, I took several of these 2.

This was a Tie Fighter pilot, right?

Loved this group…

There were a few people who had signs… I saw Mario several times at the Con….

Not to be outdone… A MUCH cuter Mario with Luigi…

Anime chicks…

Green Arrow and Black Canary again; this time with Captain Marvel…

Isn’t this Dr. Horrible?

The White Queen and the Black Widow who did stop to pose for me.

2 Trekkers…

Ummm… Catwoman and the Joker… I’m pretty sure, this catwoman was also…

…this female Flash (posing with the female Punisher and Lady Gaga)…

The Kick-Ass group….

One of the last costume photos I took at SDCC…

After Robin and the Silk Spectre, I got this one. These weren’t part of the SDCC. They were handing out flyers for Repo: The Genetic Opera….

The Blue Girl…

An anime girl maybe? Very cute, nonetheless…

Another of the Flash/Catwoman with Batgirl, a female TwoFace and the Joker…

My best pic of the Blak Cat, Spider-Man and one of the X-Men (Bishop?)…

A very cool Ragman….

I think I already posted this one of the Enchantress…

With Blue Devil….

More Anime types (I think)…

More Manga types…

\Another steampunk type….

Slave Leia! I also got the Christy Marie Slave Leia (I think) but not dressed as Slave Leia. She was the Little Mermaid that I previously posted. Didn’t make the connection at the time, though….

Kato, who I think was waiting for the Green Hornet.

I’ll close out with another favorite: the female Joker. At least I think that’s who she was… SDCC was a blast… Hope to do it again next year.

Crash! At The San Diego Comic Con Part 7 (Celebrity Types)

Saw lots of celebrity types at the SDCC… Here’s a few of them…

Harry Knowles….

Mr. Danny Hicks…

The lovely Erin Grey and Lou! Erin organizes all the TV celebs at the SDCC booths…

Gil…

Dirk Benedict and Patrick Duffy…

Sat through the Spartacus panel (my friend watches the show)… I was surprised at how much Lucy Lawless didn’t look like Xena (another show I didn’t watch)…

Andy Whitfield who came back from cancer….

John Hannah and Lucy Lawless…

Viva Bianca…

Chuck McCann on a panel of voice actors….

Gigi Edgely …

Kevin Grevioux…

Lindsay Wagner…

Boomer (Herbert Jefferson Jr…)!

Ron Perlman…

Sid Haig…

Elvira?…

Kevin Sorbo… and isn’t that that guy from Buffy The Vampire Slayer?…

Hugo Weaving and Chris Evans…

Got several of these 2 at the Marvel booth… they walked out when I was dropping off my portfolio samples….

Never seen Fringe, but I sat through part of the panel after waiting for ‘V’ for so long…

Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv…

We later saw Fringe’s Lance Reddick at a restaurant called the Fish House. My friend took this surreptitiously with his Droid. We also saw some other celebs at restaurants like LL Cool J… Saw one of the Expendables… In a hurry, so no stories… I’m leaving out a lot of celebs, too… More costumes in the next post.