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
Look for the usual suspects.
It appears to be more of the same this season in the Big Ten, a conference that starts the season with four ranked teams - Michigan(5), Wisconsin(7), Ohio State(11), and Penn State(17) - and seven other teams huddling around the fire for warmth.
Michigan's defense must show it can give the powerful offense opportunities to light it up. Wisconsin and Ohio State look to play their usual smashmouth ball (leading to more low scoring in the important games), while Penn State will hope the new defensive line can keep up with the immense talent elsewhere on the field. Keep an eye out for Purdue's similarly dangerous offense and an Illinois squad who looked bad (2-10) but wasn't horrible (four losses by a touchdown or less).
Last season was a down year for the Big XII. They were not represented in the National Title game for the first time after three straight appearances, they didn’t place a team in the top ten in the final poll, and they were just 3-5 in bowl games.
This year appears to be more of the same. While there may be a few teams at the top of the league which may challenge for the National crown, the performance of the rest of the league, plus the dearth of scheduling, will likely come back and hurt the league. Despite two teams in the top of the pre-season rankings, the league champion will likely be headed back to the Fiesta Bowl and not the National Championship game.
How will they stack up this season? Let’s take a look. All records are projected based on predicting the full schedule for all 12 teams in the league.
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