Last Monday – Matt McCluskey returned from paternity leave and asked me to join him on WNER 140 AM ESPN radio in the North Country to talk about my pre-season Top 25 (sorry Pitt, and I am not pandering to the Golden Domers) and some of the BCS stars.

Last Tuesday Night – Chief Fantasy Officer Drew Smith and I reflect on our collective 11 drafts.

Today – SEC correspondent Chris Pendley of Simulated Gameday Experience breaks down the Florida and Auburn offenses. yes, we will talk a lot about Mario Fannin…

Tuesday – my appearance on Matt Mc’s Sports Fix going over Week One schedule. At the very end, I squeeze in my upset special.

Stay tuned by subscribing to the free podcast on PodOMatic, or keep checking in here on the FCB Blog. Or add it to your iTunes. We make it easy.

After three years and three consecutive national championships, the SEC has one heck of a resume to hang their hat on.  However, all that bling serves as a shield toward a pretty awkward couple of issues: the league only runs two deep at the top right now and fantasy players tail off in a hurry down south of the Mason Dixon.  Attrition caused its own mess, so …now what?  Now we have a couple of guys who are impact players, a few guys who could be, and then a heck of a lot of hope.

Big arm, big body, big-time coach - yes, Arkansas' Ryan Mallett looks like the real fantasy deal (Icon SMI)

At least we have trophies…

QUARTERBACK
1.  Ryan Mallett, Arkansas
2.  Cam Newton, Auburn
3.  John Brantley, Florida
4.  Jeremiah Masoli, Ole Miss

Let’s start with the obvious: Ryan Mallett is as close to a fantasy QB beast the SEC is likely to get for the near future.  He has a system designed to maximize his talents, he has a quality crop of WRs, and he’ll get the opportunities.  After that …. yikes.  Sure, Stephen Garcia is still floating around, and Greg McElroy is a great real-life QB, but they have systemic issues – McElroy isn’t in an offense that lets him pass enough, and Garcia is going to be yanked out of at least 3-4 games (plus is still playing behind a swinging gate of an offensive line).

Instead, we’re left with what systems are likely to produce.  Newton, Brantley, and Masoli are all untested in SEC play, excepting Newton’s garbage time as a Gator his freshman year.  However, they’re all in systems that can maximize their talents (and to be brutally frank, I flipped their order a few times writing this).  For now, I trust Newton more than either of the two guys ranked below him.  Brantley has all the tools, but after what happened to Florida’s offense under Steve Addazio last year, I’m a bit gunshy.  Masoli by all rights should be going to an offense that will let him run – Matt Jones in 2004 as a good example of Masoli’s potential – but there’s the simple matter of, well, not trusting that Houston Nutt has any idea how to coach QBs.  At all.  Couple that with Ole Miss breaking in three new guys on the line and there are some red flags here, even with Masoli’s production last season.

Don’t get me wrong – Newton, Brantley, and Masoli all have a chance to be the best fantasy QB in the SEC.  But in the absence of any history, we’re left to fall back on what we’ve seen guys like them do, and the production potential of those three guys doesn’t outweigh what we already know about Mallett.

On to the feature backs… Read the rest of this entry →

Derek Dooley’s (pictured left, thanks Icon SMI) departure from Louisiana Tech only turned heads because of where he was going – and even then the general perception of his arrival to Knoxville was “who the heck is this guy?” (or, in some circles, “why is Tennessee getting the son of Georgia’s AD?”). Dooley has the misfortune of following Phillip Fulmer as Tennessee’s next functional head coach, since the only thing we can really count on from the Lane Kiffin Blip (Era implies a multi-year stint) is entertaining press. Fulmer, for all his faults, had a fantastic run in the 90s which serves in part as the reason Tennessee fans have been so frustrated these past few years.

Dooley …well, he may be successful, although I think he may be a bit in over his head for the next season or so. There’s a bit of a learning curve when going from the WAC to the SEC, pedigree or no, and given the difficulty filling the coaching positions so far (as of this writing, Tennessee still doesn’t have a defensive coordinator) it’s going to be a slower process than usual. The only mitigating factor – and it’s a big one – is that the Volunteers are so decimated by losses that it’s not going to make a ton of difference in 2010. Read the rest of this entry →

Bowl History

The Rose Bowl is pretty much the reason why we didn’t have the BCS as early as 1991, and the reason why the BCS is what it is today instead of the playoff that everyone else wants. So… bowl history? 91 Miami/Washington; split national champions. 94 Penn State; unbeaten but didn’t get to play national champs Nebraska. 97 Michigan/Nebraska; split national champions. There’s your Rose Bowl history.

Oh, more Rose Bowl history, you ask? 03 LSU/USC; split national champions. 00 Miami/08 Texas; sat at home and watched teams they beat lose national championship games. 04 Auburn; unbeaten SEC champs and not a slot for them in the championship game. 04 Utah/06 Boise State/08 Utah/09 Boise State ; unbeaten without even an asterisk. The Rose Bowl is evil. As darkly evil as Jim Delany’s black heart. When Bill Hancock sends Chris Petersen a congratulatory note on his team’s “great season” he should include a dozen roses along with that.

Also Vince Young had the greatest ever performance of all time, now and forever at the Rose Bowl, which is the only redeeming thing about this bowl’s history.

Now, to present a pro case for each team winning the National Championship, we have Chris Pendley in the Alabama corner and James Lawrence in the Texas corner.  As with the real game, may the best one win. Read the rest of this entry →

In retrospect, it’s my own fault I saved the Papa John’s bowl for last; of course I’m having issues with motivation when a bowl is pitting a couple of 7-5 teams against each other.  The most notable on-field incident between South Carolina and UConn is UConn’s triple-OT win over Notre Dame, made famous because of a) the name of the team they beat and b) the significance of their first win following the tragic death of Jasper Howard.  Aside from that, it’s a long way down; honestly, my first thought was South Carolina’s 7-3 wet turd of an opening game against NC State that presaged a litany of subpar Thursday night games. Read the rest of this entry →