BC Tailgate is the official home on Blogcritics for college football news, rants, and riffs. Every week, a crack team of college football fans with access to one of many Internets will tackle each conference, one by one, every week leading up to the games of the week. This is actually one of those features that will cover more teams than just USC and Florida. We got the Sun Belt and MAC covered like Marques Slocum on fuck lions. This is our super double special season preview edition. BC Tailgate's normal editions will appear every Friday.
ACC by Geeves
Big East by Dan McGowan
Big Ten by Geeves
Big XII by Ben Miraski
Independents by Benjamin Cossel
Mountain West by Matt Sussman
Pac 10 by Steve
SEC by Josh Hathaway
Sun Belt by Jerkwheat
WAC by Matt Sussman
The ACC picture doesn't look terribly different than it did last year, with Virginia Tech, Boston College, Miami (FL), and Florida State as the early season favorites and the rest of the conference playing just well enough to muck up the standings.
The Hokies will look to use their always great defense and special teams to rise above past tragedy into a BCS bowl, while Boston College looks for continued success in their first year after the Tom O'Brien decade. Miami and Florida State will hope their respective games of quarterback roulette land on a winner, but rough schedules - Miami plays at Oklahoma in Week 2, and Florida State plays their three toughest opponents on the road in November - may hold them back. Watch out for a newly invigorated North Carolina squad. Butch Davis has begun a serious influx of talent, and adding that to his coaching is guaranteed to pay off bigtime eventually.
With credibility no longer a concern, accountability becomes essential.
It took a 5-0 bowl record and three teams finishing in the top 12 last season for the Big East to justify itself as worthy of an automatic BCS bowl. In 2007, the expectations are clear: A team from this conference needs to play for the national championship. The question is who.
West Virginia and Louisville are clearly the class of the conference, maybe the nation. Both begin their season in the top 10, with the Mountaineers even receiving one of the three No. 1 votes the Associated Press didn’t award to USC. They’ll be led by the dominating quarterback/running back combo of Pat White and Steve Slaton. Both are legitimate Heisman candidates and will continue to put up monster numbers against a less-than-demanding schedule.
The Cardinals have the best overall offense in the league. Brian Brohm has a great chance at being the first quarterback taken in the NFL draft next April and he’s got a number of talented pass catchers at his disposal, including Harry Douglas -- who is probably one of the top three wideouts in the country.
One of last year’s feel good stories, Rutgers, is back with the best defense in the league and a Heisman-caliber tailback. The Scarlet Knights will probably be undefeated when they host West Virginia October 27. The major concern with this three team race for the title is chance that they’ll all knock each other off, the way they did last year. For a Big East team to play in the BCS title game, they’ll have to be unbeaten.
How they’ll finish:
West Virginia
Louisville
Rutgers
Pittsburgh
South Florida
Cincinnati
UConn
Syracuse
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