Ten+ Boring Predictions for 2011

Now an annual tradition, it is time for ten boring predictions for the upcoming college football season.

1) A quarterback or running back will win the Heisman Trophy . . . if a wide receiver or kick-returning corner does not. In fact, I will take that one step further. The Heisman Trophy winner will come from a team with a winning record and, going out on a limb here, will play in a BCS conference. I'd even go so far as to say that this team will be ranked in the top 25. They will not necessarily be the best, most impactful or most valuable player in college football, but they will put up some gaudy numbers while playing a prominent position for a contender.

And this player will have "andr" in his first name. And he will wear #12.

2) The national champion will not come from the SEC
East. And I will even rule out everyone but Alabama from the West.

3) Jake Heaps will become something of a national phenomenon. And we will all be learning how to "Heaper" before the season is over. But he does not have "andr" in his first name, and he cannot consistently drain jumpers from 700 feet.

4) Boise St. and TCU will both take big steps backwards. TCU can look to Texas for an example of what happens when you lose your team leader/QB, and Boise St. just has some bad karma coming their way. Sell outs.

5) The Big East will be an embarrassment to the BCS once again. The Big East champ will go to a BCS bowl game and again be totally overmatched. And the Big East will announce that it has started adding high school football programs from California to try to enhance its status.

6) Beano will finally get one right after many years of futility and Notre Dame will go undefeated. Their starting QB, whoever that ends up being, will take on the nickname "Golden Boy" as they reset the record books - and take the lead in the upcoming presidential election - but niether Dayne nor Tommy have "andr" in them, so a Heisman is out of the question. And in real life, I think the Domers and Seminoles will again be quite pedestrian.

7) People will still fail to realize that Landry Jones is a run-of-the-mill quarterback unworthy of picking Sam Bradford's nose, who enters every game with superior talent around him, and that none of these characteristics qualify him for a Heisman Trophy. But he will not win a national championship or a conference championship in 2011.

8) Most of us will forget that the ACC exists, because 1) there are so very few true ACC fans, 2) they aren't any good (the fans or the teams), and 3) they aren't as bad as the Big East and their eventual champion will not have lost a few weeks ago to an FCS team. Really, name three players from the ACC this season with real national name recognition. I'm serious. Who cares about the ACC?

9) A lot of games will be played in the Big 10, most of which will be mind-numbingly boring, and in the end, as the ultimate of gentlemen's clubs, they will still figure out a way for half the conference to share the title despite theoretically ending conference play in a championship game.

10) The BCS title game this season will host two teams that have not played for a BCS title in the last decade. And, once again, no one in college football will win a national championship. There will be a lot of moaning and groaning, with some political posturing, about the format of FBS postseason play, and a lot of people will regurgitate the same old arguments on both sides of the debate for the 100th time.

Bonus: Denard Robinson will rush for fewer yards this season than he did in the first half against Indiana last year (I think that was about 800 yards). And Bo Pelini's head will explode and seriously injure Joe Pa when they meet in Beaver Stadium. Carl will suffer a similar violent cranial eruption minutes later as he grieves. It will become increasingly apparent that Mike Leach is a better football coach than Tommy Tubberville and Randy Edsall combined. The intelligent contigent within the college football crowd will continue to marvel, in the most negative of ways, at the coaching hires that have been made in Los Angeles over the last few years. I will find more reasons to put Miami and Oregon at the top of my least favorite programs list. ESPN will release a statement that it has a man-crush on Mack Brown and will seek to legalize television network/college football program unions. And college football will continue to be slowly undone as television networks hop into bed with specific programs and conferences.