2007 CFB Review

This is a 5 part post/article (delayed as it may be) detailing the 2007 College Football Season. We'll discuss the teams, the upsets, the players, the coaches..... and as always, the controversy.






Part 1
The Teams:

Your recent traditional powers stayed on top (LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Georgia, USC, and Texas to name a few)

Some teams had their surgence season. I can't even call it a resurgence as they came from nowhere (Kansas, Florida Atlantic, Illinois, UConn, Virginia)

Another team came back from tragedy to a good, solid season (Virginia Tech)

Some more prominent teams struggled (Texas A&M, Miami, FSU, Nebraska, Wisconsin, California, and UCLA)

One tanked (Notre Dame.)

The Cinderella team (Hawaii) fell short unlike the previous two (Utah and Boise State.)

The bottom Dwellers stayed there (Baylor, Duke, North Carolina, Northwestern, Stanford, and FIU)

Some of your mediocre to good teams pulled themselves up by their boot straps to have decent seasons (Kentucky, Texas Tech, Wake Forrest, Colorado.)

The SEC proved to be the strongest conference with the juggernauts of LSU and Georgia being pretty dominant all season. Florida, Auburn, Tennessee, and Miss State all turned in good seasons to round out the mid-teams. Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina all had sub par seasons for what's expected. Vandy and Ole Miss were Vandy and Ole Miss

The Big XII was considered one of the weakest conferences to start the year. By the 11th week of the season the conference had 3 teams in the top 5 (Oklahoma, Mizzou, and Kansas). Combined with good season's from Texas and Texas Tech, the conference looked alright in the end. Colorado, A&M and Oklahoma State all ended up bowl eligible w/ some strong wins along the way.



The ACC was expected to blow this year in general. Boston College looked to be the savior as they maintained the #2 ranking after getting by VaTech in a low scoring game. They then lost two in a row and the conference championship game. Virginia Tech showed that Kansas may not have in fact been that overrated. Virginia and Wake had some good wins as well.

The Pac-10 looked to be killer coming out of the gate with California, Oregon, and USC all garnering top 10 rankings early in the season. The bears knocked out the ducks, who then knocked out the Trojans, who in turn lost to .... Stanford???? Oregon lost Dennis Dixon and California apparently lost their play book and direction. They were never the same team after a loss to Oregon State. ASU turned in a decent 10 win season.

The Big Televen came into the season criticized as they lost poorly at the end of last season, highlighted by an outstanding showing by the Buckeyes in the MNC last year. Michigan started out losing to a 1-AA and getting blown out at home by Oregon. Wiscy had a decent enough season but never seemed to get as good as we thought they were going to be. Illinois had a resurgent season getting 9 wins and beating #1 OSU w/ Juice Williams. The bowls however were not so kind to any of the above teams except Michigan which sent Lloyd Carr out with some flair.




The Big East looked like a monster at some points and looked like a joke at others. WVU seemed
ready for prime time with Pat White, Steve Slaton, Owen "wrecking ball" Schmitt. Rutger and Louisville also looked to be poised for good seasons with key starters returning on both teams. Louisville flopped under Kragthorpe. Rutgers was shown to merely be decent. The surprise coming out of the Big East was South Florida who was actually ranked up to #2 at one point in the season. WVU ended up winning the conference despite losing to a bad Pitt team to close out the season.

8.6 yards a carry and we still lost to Pitt?

The regular top teams finished on top. Your bottom dwellers stayed there. Despite the overall flipflop of rankings and how the season itself played out... it was nothing too exciting , if you don't count...

(To be Continued)

Him? Really?

Ron Zook wins Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year
From SI.com


Now I don't have anything against Ron Zook. He took an Illinois team and got 9 wins and a BCS bid which is pretty cool considering he did that despite having Juice Williams as his QB. He also gave all of his winnings to his school and charities... which is wholesome and moral and whatnot.

The fact that they gave it to him over oh say....

Mark Mangino: Crap.
Mizzou's Pinkel who beat the Zook and Mangino: even more crap.
LSU's Miles: Crippity Crap (not too bad of crap... but still crap)

That's not even getting four states away.

Zook didn't even get 2nd in his own conference (losing the tie-breaker to Michigan)

Heck, I'd give it to Stanford's Harbaugh just for scoring on USC once with Stamford's roster.

Other coaches that would deserve a shot:

Hawaii's June Jones, ASU's Erickson, MSU's Sylvester Croom, USF's Jim Leavitt, Georgia's Mark Richt

Kudos to him for giving it all to charity... but wow. Just wow.

Mangino out of hospital, ready for more cupcakes.

According to the Kansas City Star, Mark Mangino is out of the hospital and back on the prowl for recruiting and scheduling cupcakes.

Most excellent, my friends. Most excellent.

SI.com: Behind the times? Or just Naive?

I don't know if SI.com is just incredibly ignorant to todays times or a glutton for innuendos.

From their Campus Clicks photos.

I don't know how long the pitchfork has been around but it seems like something like below would be more accurate.

How far they fall.

The last we saw of Dennis Franchione was his resigning after beating the Aggies' arch rival Texas.

What's been happening since then?

The Kansas City had an interesting write up on the fallen star here

I think the article is a bit more scathing that necessary but it's interesting. I was never a Fran hater. The guy tried and it wasn't like he didn't deserve the reputation as a program rebuilder. He had moderate success at New Mexico which built into huge momentum at TCU. If anything he deserves some credit for allowing the little guys to get credit by having some great success at TCU. You can't blame a guy for taking a higher salary at a more prestigious school (Let it go WVU... Let it go.) So when Alabama came calling you can't blame a guy for taking the option.

Fran after a Tide win


After some serious NCAA sanctions Fran decided to head to Texas A&M which was where he stated several times that "he wanted that to be the last stop."

He was handed an undisciplined, less than talented team upon arriving in College Station (a 77-0 walloping by OU testified to that.) In year three it got better. They beat some good teams Oklahoma State and Clemson but left you scratching your head with a loss to Baylor and blowouts to Utah and Tennessee. Year four was underwhelming but ended on a high note as backup and future QB Stephen McGee had a spirited performance against eventual National Champion Texas.

Year five rolled around and it appeared to be now or never time. After a good year but not great at 8-3, Fran and the Aggies pulled of a miracle for the coach's future by upsetting a ranked Texas team. A 9-3 regular wasn't fireable, despite another butt kicking in the Holiday Bowl by California.

2007 opened up optimistically as the Ags were ranked and supposedly stocked up with talent on a Senior laden team. A Thursday night date with Miami was supposed to be a coming out party, but was instead a flub to the tune of 34-17.

The next week was the beginning of the end. Fran was caught selling a $1,200 secret newsletters to elite alums that wanted recruiting and practice inside info. In actuality, this wasn't a big deal. Boneheaded, but not a big deal. Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech has done similar things for years without it being mentioned.

For the most part, the newsletter was swept under the rug, as it should have been. It wasn't a big deal and it was fairly innocent. Just win and people will forget.

Well Fran didn't win. He got blown out by Texas Tech. Kansas won at Kyle Field. Oklahoma stomped them again. Mizzou beat them soundly. It seemed no matter what the outcome was of the Texas game he was done.

Unfortunately for Fran, a big win in the Aggies most complete game over Texas didn't do it. He resigned immediately after the game. To add salt in an open wound, proverbial toolbait, Jack Arute asked him if he was fired less than thirty seconds after the game in the post-game on the field interview. You could see pain in his eyes as he couldn't even answer some of the questions.

You knew he was done.

Was the firing fair?

Yes. He had 5 years at a school with big money and the record wasn't what it should have been.

Could it have worked out?

Maybe. It really seemed the last two years that Fran didn't want to lose this job and tried his heart out to keep it. Insiders say that he was at work early and left late every day. He gave almost a year's salary to the indoor practice facilty. They also say he was passionate. Outside of his first year, Fran kept the program clean. While Texas, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State players were out having legal escapades and NCAA infractions, Fran kept the Aggies in a good light for the better part of 4 years.

Those didn't equate to wins. Unfortunately that's all people want to see in this business.

Fulmer Cup Update

EDSBS' Fulmer Cup is in full swing 3 weeks after the end of the season. Oklahoma State's Brandon Pettigrew and Tennessee' Anthony Parker went up early with some violence and disorderly conduct and towards police officers.

Fortunately for them Mizzou managed to jump all over the lead spot w/ 2 Felony posession charges. I don't know how much it takes to become a felony category of drug use, but I'd like to find out it sure seems like a lot

Le inaugural post, wainches.

This is the first post of, hopefully, many to come. Three N Out exists to cover college sports (mainly football) from a true fan of the game's perspective. We'll try not to cater to particular teams or conferences, but the entire gamut of college teams out there.

We'll also try to avoid gimmicky, tasteless crap.

Well.... as much as possible. Some stuff is just funny no matter how you slice it. We'll also link to some other great sites like EDSBS, Wizard of Odds and SI.com's Campus Clicks. The Fulmer Cup, my favorite off season activity, is in full swing over at EDSBS.

Signing Day is coming up and some big recruits haven't made commitments yet so that will be interesting to follow.

I hope you enjoy Three 'N Out and it's posts. Hopefully they'll be funny as well as insightful for fans of all college athletics