College Football Pre Season Look

As we did a year ago, the Monday segment dedicated to college football will once again be sponsored by a group of college cheerleaders or dance team. This picture provided by SportsbyBrooks.com is the first look at the 2009 USC Song Girls.

MICHIGAN
An emotional Rich Rodriguez faced the media to address allegations by current and former players as to the hours required by the head coach and his staff. This is yet another issue facing the 2nd year coach of the Wolverines. Since taking over he has had to deal with defections (including one to rival Ohio State), home losses to non-BCS Toledo and Utah as well as the end of the longest consecutive bowl streak in America at 33. When Rodriguez and his staff took over, college football fans knew the traditional Michigan we grew accustomed to would not be the same. But Rodriguez has frustrated more than his fan base, but obviously has created a split within the Wolverine locker room. This is the same program that appeared in the Rose Bowl three times since 2000, half of the Big Ten appearances. Although Lloyd Carr's record recently against Ohio State was dismal, the play was respectable in the final game. This is now a program which Lloyd wants nothing to do with , and it looks like many of the players agree.

Week 1 Preview--Games that I'm looking forward to.
North Dakota State at Iowa State--Enthusiasm is high in Ames, yet they open with one of the more dangerous teams in FCS. North Dakotal State is coached by former Nebraska Asst Craig Bohl. He has headed this program as it raised its level from Divsion II. At that level two years ago, NDSU defeated Minnesota and Central Michigan on their home fields. A year ago it went to Wyoming and lost by three points. They are very capable of ruining Paul Rhodes debut as Cyclone Head Coach.
Western Michigan at Michigan--Followers of the Big Ten know what the Broncos have done the last two years. Wins at Iowa and against Illinois on a neutral field have caught the attention of the other head coaches in the conference. With the recent turmoil in Ann Arbor will Western Michigan make it three straight over the nation's premeir conference?
Upset of the week--It would be easy to take Western Michigan in Ann Arbor, but after the year the Wolverines in '08 followed by the week they are enduring, it would be too easy. My upset will be Nevada over Notre Dame. Being a fan of every team Notre Dame plays grounds my expectations of the Irish. This is the same team that lost late at home to one of the worst FBS teams in '08, Syracuse. Perhaps Notre Dame has an easier road this year, but they need to play better in '09 to be considered in the nation's elite.

FRY FEST
Beginning this weekend the Iowa City / Coralville area will celebrate one of the State's memorable figures, former Iowa Football Head Coach Hayden Fry. This Texas has done more for the University as well as the State than anyone else. By committing himself to making the Hawkeye Football program into one of the Nation's Elite put not only the school but the State of Iowa on notice. He developed a logo recognizable throughout the world that when looked at, all know it isn't necessarily the Hawkeyes, but Iowa. Over ten years ago, while on a train into Geneva, Switzerland I sat with a duffle bag with that large logo on the side of it. A passenger who currently worked outside the nation's capital asked me in an American accent, "How is Hayden Fry doing?" He had worked for a period of time in Iowa City, at a time when Fry took a lowly Division I program to #1 in the nation for six weeks in 1985. It hasn't been done since.
This Texan also recognized the importance farmers played in the national landscape. The University isn't the agricultural school in the state, yet Hayden placed a logo adjacent to the TigerHawk on the Hawkey Football Helmet letting the nation know, "America Needs Farmers."
Although a street in Coralville will be renamed "Hayden Fry Way" appropriately on a Friday, what Hayden has done for Iowa, I-80 would be the more appropriate road.