Cards hire college guru Kingsbury as new head coach … Interesting development in Arizona where the Cardinals have reportedly hired Kliff Kingsbury as the team’s new head coach replacing Steve Wilks who was fired last week. Kingsbury himself was fired this off-season by Texas Tech and had been hired as offensive co-ordinator at Southern California. In fact, Kingsbury… Read More »
Clemson dethrones Alabama; NFL waits on Tide, Tigers underclassmen … The national championship rubber match between Alabama and Clemson turned into a bit of a dud, but not in the way most people expected as the underdog Tigers routed the defending national champions 44-16. And with the national championship now in the books, NFL personnel people will now… Read More »
#1 ALABAMA (14-0) vs #2 CLEMSON (14-0); National Championship Bowl; Santa Clara; 8 PM ET; ESPN … It started four months ago and took almost 1,000 FBS regular season games, a spate of conference title contests, a couple of playoff games to get to a point in which the two top rated teams at the start of the… Read More »
(Ed note: Over the course of the past couple of weeks with another disappointing Giants season we have received a ton of questions asking in soem fashion ‘what now’ for the team. Rather than try and answer them all individually, we have chrystalized the most often asked questions into a general format and tried to answer as best… Read More »
Clock ticking on underclassmen … Underclassmen who need to apply to the NFL in order to be eligible for the 2019 draft have until the end of business on January 14th to get their paperwork into the league office. That’s less than two weeks away. In fact, more than 70 juniors and redshirt sophomores have already indicated in… Read More »
Four more juniors enter draft … Four more juniors indicated earlier today that they will be foregoing their final year of college eligibility and entering the 2019 draft. The quartet includes Duke QB Daniel Jones and Florida DE/OLB Jachai Polite, both of who are considered to be first round prospects for the upcoming draft. Jones will be joined… Read More »
49ers, Raiders to coach Senior Bowl sides … San Francisco and Oakland, the highest two teams in the draft order with intact coaching staffs, have reportedly agreed to coach the two teams at the Senior Bowl. The 49ers will pick second overall in the upcoming draft, while the Raiders will pick 4th. Arizona, which will pick first overall… Read More »
#11 LSU (9-3) vs #8 CENTRAL FLORIDA (12-0); Fiesta Bowl; Phoenix; 1 PM ET; ESPN … Playing an SEC powerhouse in a major bowl was supposed to be a coming out party of sorts for UCF which has gone 26-0 over the past two seasons but still hasn’t gotten a sniff of the CFP playoffs for the national… Read More »
Cards wrap up top pick … Who gets the #1 pick overall at the 2019 draft went right down to the wire, but despite a game try, Arizona gets the honors after the Cardinals lost to Seattle on a last-play FG in one of today’s late afternoon games.Meanwhile, San Francisco wrapped up the second pick with a loss… Read More »
OKLAHOMA STATE (6-6) versus #23 MISSOURI (8-4); Liberty Bowl; Memphis; 3:45 PM ET; ESPN … Probably more than one casual college football fan who wondered how it could be that teams from the same conference ended up in the same bowl. Indeed, Missouri and Oklahoma State faced off for decades in first the old Big 8 and later… Read More »
It’s playoff time in college football … The college football bowl schedule rocks on Saturday with three pretty good warm-up games setting the stage for the two national CFP semi-finals. GBN Associate Editor profiles the players to watch in Saturday’s three non-playoff games including what should be a very interesting match-up between Michigan and Florida in the Peach… Read More »
#2 CLEMSON (13-0) vs #3 NOTRE DAME (12-0); Cotton Bowl; 4 PM ET; ESPN … The national semi-finals get underway with a match-up of unbeaten teams with 2nd ranked Clemson playing #3 Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl. And while both teams are unbeaten, Clemson is just that much better a team, at least on paper, it’s hard… Read More »
It is also no surprise that the dual between top-ranked Alabama and #4 Georgia will have – by far – the best array of likely prospects for the 2019 draft. Indeed, Alabama itself has as many as 4 top 15 prospects for the upcoming draft. Redshirt sophomore DT Quinnen Williams (#92, 6-3, 295) for example is the fastest… Read More »
I’m going to cover the “other” Bowls for Saturday, leading up to the Final 4 games later in the day. PEACH BOWL Mercedes-Benz Stadium Atlanta, GA Noon/ET ESPN FLORIDA (9-3) vs. MICHIGAN (10-2) The Wolverines come into this game with that, all too familiar, bad taste in their mouths of a loss to Ohio State, in their Big… Read More »
PURDUE (6-6) vs AUBURN (7-5); Music City Bowl; Nashville; 1:30 PM ET; ESPN … This is the first of several head-to-head SEC/Big Ten bowls, although no one in either conference is likely staking any bragging rights on this one. In fact, Auburn probably had expectations of being in just about any of those other bowls, whereas Purdue is… Read More »
Boston College (7-5) vs #25 Boise State (10-3); First Responder Bowl; Dallas; 1:30 PM ET; ESPN … This is another one out of the ‘saving the best for first’ file as the BC-Boise State match-up in the First Responder Bowl in Dallas easily has the best line-up of draft prospects of any of the the three Boxing Day… Read More »
Selection order updated … With Oakland upsetting Denver this evening in what is expected to be the final game at the storied Oakland Coliseum, the top of this week’s selection order for the opening round of the 2019 draft has been shuffled. With the win, the Raiders will drop down to the 4th pick, with San Francisco moving… Read More »
Bowl fest continues … The bowl preliminaries continue later today with four games on the docket. However, unlike almost all the earlier games which had very few legit prospects for the 2019 draft, each of Saturday’s games has at least one really good player that pro scouts are eager to check out one more time. Here’s a quick… Read More »
MEMPHIS (8-5) vs WAKE FOREST (6-6); Birmingham Bowl; Noon ET; ESPN … From a ‘who ya gonna watch’ for the draft perspective, the Birmingham Bowl match-up between Memphis and Wake Forest should have been #1 on everybody’s list for today. Indeed, the guy that just about every NFL scout wants to see today is Memphis junior RB Darrell… Read More »
FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL (8-4) vs TOLEDO (7-5); Bahamas Bowl; 12:30 PM ET; ESPN … Hey if you are an 8-4 C-USA team or a 7-5 MAC squad you could do worse than having to play your bowl in the Bahamas. Not sure how much beach time the players are actually going to get, but at least it ain’t snowing.… Read More »
Bowl sched continues … The bowl schedule preliminaries continue later this evening with the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa between host South Florida and Marshall. GBN Associate Editor Pigskin Paul Guillemette has a quick preview of who to watch in tonight’s game here.
BOCA RATON BOWL FAU Football Stadium Boca Raton, FL Tuesday, Dec 18 7PM/ET ESPN UAB (10-3) vs NORTHERN ILLINOIS (8-5) UAB is the team that came back from the dead, after dropping football just a few years ago. They are a fairly young team with some nice, though limited, senior leadership. Don’t be fooled by NIU’s 8-5 record.… Read More »
Spartan CB; 2nd FAU RB latest to enter draft … Two more juniors entered the 2019 draft over the past day or so including rising Michigan State CB Justin Layne and Florida Atlantic RB Kerrith Whyte. Layne, in particular, is not yet a household name nationally, but NFL scouts are very aware of his potential; he’s a converted… Read More »
Louisiana-Lafayette (7-6) versus Tulane (6-6); Cure Bowl; Orlando; 1:30 PM ET; CBS Sports … You know your bowl may not be quite ready for prime-time when it can’t even get on ESPN. The other question is why schedule two schools that are basically within a two-hour drive of each other in southern Louisiana three states over, particularly when… Read More »
Bowl prospects preview … Used to be one had to wait at least a month or so after the end of the college football season for the bowl schedule to get underway. Not so anymore as it feels like the bowls are simply an extension of the regular season. And that extension gets underway in earnest on Saturday… Read More »
