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Montemayor: Football season will likely bring surprises

By Stephen Montemayor

Thursday, August 21, 2008

The first day of classes occurs in the heart of one the most dangerous times of the year.

Aside from the freshman crazies waking naked and penniless in the front lawn with their first college experience under their belts, we are in the midst of a lull leading up to the kickoff of the 2008 football season.

We can watch and read about as much practice as we’d like and devour every last drop of coachspeak Mark Mangino can serve up.

Much of what has been written up to now has been reflections on the University’s sports renaissance that was 2007. Everything else has been speculation and foreshadowing the year ahead with sentences with question marks at the end of them.

Can they do it again?

All we can do is speculate, predict and anticipate this rare and beautiful season upon us. The Jayhawks enter next Saturday’s opener against Florida International as the reigning Orange Bowl champs and ranked 13th in the USA Today coaches poll – underrated or overrated, depending on whom you ask.

Me? I think this paper has addressed the issue enough. My directive is to provide proper perspective leading up to the Aug. 30 tailgating party/aggravated assault that will be the Florida International game.

The same hacks that have pegged the Jayhawks to be raped and pillaged this year were caught with their pants down last season when Todd Reesing engaged in an arms race with Chase Daniel deserving of CNN coverage. But that’s all right fellas, Jimmy Clausen and our boys at Notre Dame will turn it around this year. Pete Carroll could drive a semi into a USC practice and the mangled All-Americans that survive would still be worthy of a top 3 spot.

And Ohio State? I’m predicting 7-5 and a BCS title runner up for the third straight year.

Whoa, way to make a first impression, Stephen. You’ve veered hopelessly off track and may have scared a few of our softer-hearted readers off already.

But I truly mean well this week. This is a long term relationship we’re starting and by God am I going to sustain it.

That is precisely why we need the right mindset in the next nine days. The Hype of this college pigskin season ahead of us is reaching its peak and could shatter our skulls if we let it.

There isn’t much to divert our attention and keep our fragile minds occupied in the coming days. All we have by means of University sports is tomorrow’s women’s soccer tilt against Purdue at 5 p.m.

After Sunday we won’t even have the Olympics.

This is why I urge you to take any prognostications with a grain of salt. Or a glass of Kentucky Deluxe for that matter.

Look, I’m guilty of annually dropping eight bucks for a college football preview rag and a fantasy football forecast published three months before the season.

That and devouring every bit of football media leading up to the season are natural vices that can be expected once you’ve whipped yourself into a frenzy during the college sports drought that is the months of May, June, July and August.

But there is a reason many of these rags are thrown away by midseason.

Last year’s USA Today Coaches Poll had 10 preseason Top-25 teams finish the season unranked and 10 teams that were unranked in the preseason finish in the Top-25 – including No. 5 Missouri and No. 7 Kansas, two teams that an entire nation of college football experts severely failed to evaluate.

Additionally, four preseason Top-10 teams – the teams supposedly with the best shot at the BCS crown – slid at least six spots, including Florida falling 13 spots and Michigan and Wisconsin sliding 14 places.

Fearless forecasters? Maybe. But also reckless, careless and often thoughtless.

All we have to speculate now is whether the Jayhawks will pound the Golden Panthers by 40 or 50 points next Saturday. Last season’s tally was 55-3 and I’m betting on more of the same. But that is if you bet on such a diversion, which is an entirely different story and supposedly illegal around these parts.

— —Edited by Scott Toland

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