While the defense may be a bigger problem, one of the primary concerns for many Irish fans is the spread passing offense of new head coach Brian Kelly. Kelly makes no secret of his offensive goal, he wants to be aggressive and vertical, scoring on every possession. As such, he favors the pass over the run, operates heavily from the shotgun, and employs an up-tempo…

Disclaimer: The following is not intended for betting purposes.

Similar to last year, the final AV Ranking values (see the values in the table below) will be used to predict the BCS bowl game winners against the spread.

The BCS games are as follows:

• Rose Bowl presented by Citi: Ohio State vs. Oregon
• Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: Boise State vs. TCU
• Allstate Sugar Bowl: Cincinnati

…

Scheduling for Success

Once again we’ve reached the part of the season that is consumed by boasting. Who has the best conference—mine or yours? We’re all biased even though we try to be objective about non-conference scheduling. Complicating the process is that fewer top teams are playing each other, more teams are taking advantage of the 12th game to increase the number of home games…

Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis’ failure was evident long ago. His lack of experience with the college game and as a head coach made him unable to anticipate future problems and incapable of implementing changes to correct them.

His list of shortcomings is long and condemning, but painfully reiterating what the on-field product clearly shows adds no value other than venting frustration at the…

If the ESP determined the National Championship Game participants, it would be all but a done deal. Unless Texas loses to Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship, they will face the winner of the SEC Championship game which pits Alabama and Florida for the second consecutive year.

TCU and Boise State have had great runs, but they are too far away in point differentials to…

The national title picture is becoming more and more clear.

Unless something dramatically changes, it will be Texas against the winner of the SEC in the national championship game. The ESP has Alabama number one and Florida number two, while the BCS has the two teams in reverse order.

This disparity is largely due to the computer rankings used by the BCS and the computer…

There was quite a bit of shuffling at the top of the ESP this week (as always a comparison to the BCS is here). Florida dropped a spot after a rather unconvincing win over South Carolina while Alabama jumped two spots to take over at the top. Texas remained number two with TCU, Cincinnati, Boise State, Georgia Tech, Ohio State and Pittsburgh rounding out the…

Iowa’s loss to Northwestern dropped them out of the top five in the ESP while the other top teams largely remained the same. Florida or Alabama have to lose at least one game, but—with few exceptions—the remaining top five teams have favorable schedules for the remainder of the year. For comparison purposes the BCS results can be seen here.

Movement in the top 10 of…

There was a bit of shuffling at the top of the rankings this week. Florida remains atop the ESP but Texas jumped an idle Alabama squad with their win over Oklahoma State. There were some other teams in top 10 that shuffled around as well. Check out the latest BCS rankings for comparison purposes.

As most teams have played eight games, the AV Ranking nearly…

Bye weeks are good for many things.

For head coach Charlie Weis this week was an opportunity to rest key personnel with injuries, self-scout the first five games, and get the reserves meaningful practice repetitions.

For fans it is a chance to reflect on (and potentially readjust) their season expectations and, this year, to get a break from the heart palpitations that accompany nail-biting wins.…