Alabama football, for all its many All-Americans, NFL talents and national championship (real or conjured), never produced a Heisman Trophy before 2009. That factoid felt pertinent in the lead-up to the 2009 Heisman vote, which Crimson Tide running back Mark Ingram won by a historically narrow margin over Stanford running back Toby Gerhart. Gerhart's runner-up…
Two of the more intriguing Final Four contenders in this year's NCAA Tournament hail from the Queen City: the Cincinnati Bearcats, and the Xavier Musketeers. Both are consistently excellent programs, but they have a clear Achilles' heel: Skyline Chili. Regional delicacies are often divisive. Friendships falter over Chicago deep dish pizza, families refuse to spend…
Each college football season, not counting Week 0, kicks off with a weekend-long smorgasbord of action. It's the perfect introduction to the most exciting season in sports. Likewise, the regular season closes out in the same fashion it begins, spreading the entertainment over into a weekend-long event. From Labor Day Weekend to Thanksgiving Weekend, the…
Welcome to a very self-referential edition of The Open Man Weekend Q&A! Not to worry: The self-reference isn't a series of recurring inside jokes. There are other outlets that can cover that. No, this brand of self-reference touches on a variety of columns I have written this summer. What's surprising is how organically this opportunity…
College basketball rosters for the 2017-'18 season are mostly set following last week's NBA draft deadline. With that offseason milestone, we have a more clear picture of what to anticipate come autumn -- certainly more so than in April, when I compiled my initial Top 25 for Athlon Sports. I'll have an updated Top 25…
Politics, religion and conspiracies! No, this isn't a lede about the presidential race, which mercifully ends in three weeks. Let's talk about Big 12 expansion, which lately incites as much ill-will as any election. While voters get in the booth 22 days from today, Big 12 expansion may have another nine years to fuel speculation…
Cincinnati's 40-16 loss Thursday to Houston is not an indictment on the Bearcats -- not in a vacuum, anyway. The 24-point Houston margin of victory does not entirely reflect the nature of the contest, as the host Bearcats led in the early fourth quarter on a Hayden Moore touchdown pass to Kahlil Lewis. Even after…
The Appalachian State-Miami game slated for Sept. 17 sold out its ticket allotment faster than scalpers could scoop up Adele seats last December. Thanks for ruining the Christmas gift I had planned for my wife, jerks. Anyway, the one-hour window in which fans snapped up seats for the Hurricanes' historic visit to Kidd Brewer Stadium…
Big 12 expansion took an unexpected turn for the entertaining Wednesday thanks to Justin Timberlake. Yes, THAT Justin Timberlake. Nevermind the involvement of FedEx or any elaborate Power Point presentations, J-Timb's Twitter endorsement of Memphis for Big 12 inclusion certainly tips the scales in the Tigers' favor from my humble perspective. Memphis to the @Big12Conference...…
CFB Huddle's American Athletic Preview Week turns focus outside the AAC and to the ACC, Big 12, Mountain West, MAC. From these conferences come opponents in some of the AAC's most promising non-league dates. Nonconference play contributed to the positive perception of the American a year ago: Houston's defeats of Louisville and Vanderbilt, Memphis routing…
Tyler Matakevich rose from All AAC Defense to national defensive player of the year last season. The Temple Owls linebacker is NFL-bound, leaving a spot for another American Athletic defensive standout to reach the pinnacle this year. ALL-AAC 2016 DEFENSE Among the great stories of the American's rise a season ago: Temple's emergence. The Owls…
The Preseason All AAC nominees spotlighted as part of the CFB Huddle season preview series may not include many household names -- not yet, anyway. But the emergence of stars like Keenan Reynolds and Paxton Lynch a season ago proved the star power residing in the American Athletic Conference. This year's crop is rife with…
Teams from around the American Athletic Conference last season adopted #AmericanRising, a Twitter hashtag that perfectly described the state of the league's football in 2015. Commissioner Mike Aresco's declaration at AAC Media Days in August that the league was striving to make the Power Five the Power Six essentially called the American's shot. American teams…
Big 12 expansion may not be inevitable -- the University of Texas reportedly has issues, and it's well established that the Longhorns wield more clout than much of the conference. Nevertheless, as the din of conference realignment grows, and nonsensical arguments contingent on seemingly arbitrary percentages gain traction, the possibility of Big 12 expansion has…
Notre Dame announced Friday head coach Brian Kelly signed a contract extension through 2021. Realistically, the university could have issued a press release declaring Cyborg Brian Kelly will coach the 3021 Fighting Irish season opener against Galilean Conference powerhouse Io State, and it would hold the same value. The likelihood Brian Kelly is still Notre…
