The nation really did not get to see much of our Big XII Fantasy Player of the Year until a Thanksgiving night matchup against Texas….where our honoree went head-to-head with Texas QB Colt McCoy…and fared quite well
That player, Texas A&M QB Jerrod Johnson, had a number of other great games during the season….which earned him our 2009 Fantasy College Blitz – Big XII Fantasy Player of the Year.
Johnson (photo, thanks, GoAggies.com), a junior from Humble, TX (Humble HS), lit up opponents for over 2800 yards passing and 24 passing TDs…while rushing for nearly 600 yards and 8 TDs (stats quoted are through November 21st games).
With a number of receivers using up their eligibility after the 2008 season, a few experts were not sure that Penn State would put up big numbers at the QB position in 2009.
Well….they were wrong….
Penn State QB Daryll Clark ended up having a big season….big enough to win the 2009 Fantasy College Blitz – Big Ten Fantasy Player of the Year honor.
Clark (photo, thanks SportsIllustrated.com), a senior from Youngstown, OH (Ursuline HS), led the Nittany Lions with nearly 2800 yards passing, 23 passing TDs, and rushed for 7 additional TDs (stats quoted are through November 21st games).
Penn State finished the 2009 season at 10-2 and earned a trip to the CapitalOne Bowl in Orlando on New Years Day.
2007 was a noteworthy year for the Texas Bowl, as it was the only year a team from Texas has participated in this Houston classic with a deep history spanning four years. That year, TCU defeated Houston 20-13 in the only game (of the three so far) that wasn’t a complete blowout. So yeah, Texas Bowl. Good times. Let’s meet the 2009 participants.
Missouri
The Missouri Tigers were expected to suck hard after losing Chase Daniel, Jeremy Maclin, and pretty much everybody except Derrick Washington from the 2008 offense. I took Illinois in week 1 of my pick’em league and was shocked as Missouri not only won the game, but did so a lot more comfortably than any of Daniel’s squads did (2009 ended up being a surprising year for both of those teams, in very different ways). Read the rest of this entry →
The Liberty Bowl has fallen off a bit from its 2004 Louisville – Boise State clash-of-the-mid-majors tilt; sure, it reeked of an undercard, but for a bowl that’s typically sitting around second-level status, it counts as glory days. Since then, Conference USA got raided by the Big East and the Mountain West backed out of the picture; the Liberty Bowl capitalized on that by bringing in some essentially random mediocre SEC West team (note: capitalized is only used in the highest irony possible). Under this scenario, it’d make East Carolina and Arkansas squaring off wholly unexciting.
However, it’s a bit odd to see Arkansas here. When we last left the Razorbacks at the beginning of the season, they had to deal with a tough schedule including road games at (what we thought were) the top four SEC teams; they’d have to nearly run the table to have a shot at a bowl game. Read the rest of this entry →
Look, I don’t care: this is the Peach Bowl. This is not the Chik-Fil-A Bowl, although they do make one heck of a sandwich. This is one of the comparatively few bowls out there that actually has some kind of history, and if it’s good enough for the Rose Bowl to stubbornly cling to an outdated tradition and be mocked roundly, well, it’s pretty easy for me to do the same.
This year’s incarnation pairs a couple of teams who are strikingly similar; both rely on power running games and excellent defensive play (typified in part by a safety operating up in run support a large percentage of the time). The difference lies in – go figure, knowing the teams – special teams: Virginia Tech has them, while Tennessee hasn’t had them in a while, up to and including this season. Read the rest of this entry →
The nation really did not get to see much of our Big XII Fantasy Player of the Year until a Thanksgiving night matchup against Texas….where our honoree went head-to-head with Texas QB Colt McCoy…and fared quite well
With a number of receivers using up their eligibility after the 2008 season, a few experts were not sure that Penn State would put up big numbers at the QB position in 2009.
2007 was a noteworthy year for the Texas Bowl, as it was the only year a team from Texas has participated in this Houston classic with a deep history spanning four years. That year, TCU defeated Houston 20-13 in the only game (of the three so far) that wasn’t a complete blowout. So yeah, Texas Bowl. Good times. Let’s meet the 2009 participants.
The Liberty Bowl has fallen off a bit from its 2004 Louisville – Boise State clash-of-the-mid-majors tilt; sure, it reeked of an undercard, but for a bowl that’s typically sitting around second-level status, it counts as glory days. Since then, Conference USA got raided by the Big East and the Mountain West backed out of the picture; the Liberty Bowl capitalized on that by bringing in some essentially random mediocre SEC West team (note: capitalized is only used in the highest irony possible). Under this scenario, it’d make East Carolina and Arkansas squaring off wholly unexciting.
Look, I don’t care: this is the Peach Bowl. This is not the Chik-Fil-A Bowl, although they do make one heck of a sandwich. This is one of the comparatively few bowls out there that actually has some kind of history, and if it’s good enough for the Rose Bowl to stubbornly cling to an outdated tradition and be mocked roundly, well, it’s pretty easy for me to do the same.
