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ESPN THE MAGAZINE:
THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PREVIEW ISSUE

What's going to happen before the BCS Title game? We got ya covered.

by Magazine Staff

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Game on, boys.

It's that time of year again: fall Saturdays are returning to the forefront of our sports fan consciousness. Let ESPN The Magazine guide you.



A super cool-looking galaxy map for the college football fan
ESPN The Magazine is one of the better-designed volumes out there (hey, we've won awards). With our new web design team on board, we're thinking the online version will represent that as well. Here now, the first super cool designed feature for ESPNTheMag.Com: A College Football Fan's Guide to the Galaxy. Take a look, and mouse over any of the conferences. You'll get even more content, and a link to each conference's page (if you're lucky, you'll stumble across this clip). So take a tour of the galaxy, won't you? A COLLEGE FOOTBALL FAN'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.
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A detailed preview of the Big 12 conference
After a fourth straight BCS loss, the knock on Oklahoma—and the Big 12 overall—goes like this: good but not great. That's nonsense. OU, Missouri and Kansas are legit Top 10 teams. The Sooners are again loaded—QB Sam Bradford is incredibly impressive. Mizzou is a threat because of QB Chase Daniel and WR Jeremy Maclin, who might be the Big 12's most explosive player. A team to watch: Baylor. Stop snickering, because there's no better coach than Art Briles. Sure, 10—2 is impossible. But 7—5, with an upset or three, is realistic. As is Oklahoma winning the BCS title.
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Clip Reel: The Big 12 is explosive. Here's visual proof!
As detailed in our Big 12 conference page (as part of our preview issue), the Big 12 is home to some fairly explosive offenses. Want representation of this in a moving visual form? Click on through.
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A detailed look at the Big 10 conference
For the first time in years, this conference of 10 that's really 11 is all about a single team: Ohio State. The Buckeyes return 18 starters—including All-America LB James Laurinaitis and Thorpe Award favorite Malcolm Jenkins—from a squad that went to the BCS title game. Though he's never said it, Jim Tressel has long thought this will be his best unit since 2002's title team. And who might challenge OSU? Wisconsin, Penn State and Illinois are good, Michigan and Michigan State are dangerous and Purdue is a dark horse. QB Curtis Painter is good enough to beat anybody. Well, anybody except Ohio State.
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A detailed look at the Big East Conference
This is the most depth the Big East has ever had, with seven legit bowl contenders. (Sorry, Syracuse.) For the third straight year, West Virginia is the fave. RB Noel Devine will be great, and QB Pat White already is. But WVU's D is vulnerable. Meanwhile, South Florida is loaded: DE George Selvie may be the nation's most disruptive defender. At Pitt, RB LeSean McCoy and LB Scott McKillop are the conference's dominant players at their positions. My wild-card team? Louisville. The offense is green, but QB Hunter Cantwell makes the Cards troublesome. Sort of like predicting the Big East.
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A detailed look inside the Pac-10.
This is the nation's best offensive conference—again. And USC is the team to beat—again. Even so, in this league you must answer points with points and USC's offense has many questions. QB Mark Sanchez has shown flashes of brilliance, but talented WRs Vidal Hazelton and David Ausberry have yet to deliver. Oregon should be very good, with the best Ducks D since their 2001 BCS team. And Arizona State has the Pac-10's top QB, Rudy Carpenter. But with four new starters on an O-line that gave up 55 sacks last year, protecting Carpenter will be an issue—all together now—again.
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A detailed look inside the ACC.
The ACC hasn't won a BCS bowl in nine years. Mark it down for a 10th. Short answer: lots of great players, no great teams. Take Clemson—the Tigers have the nation's best backfield in James Davis and C.J. Spiller, but they're not BCS title material. Wake has CB Alphonso Smith (14 career picks) but is otherwise mediocre. The real reason the ACC has struggled is that Miami and Florida State aren't the 10-win locks of five years ago. Both teams have some seriously gifted players, like FSU safety Myron Rolle and Miami RB Javarris James. But neither has the depth it's had in the past. That's true of the entire conference.
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Clip Reel: A video peek at some disappointing offensive moments in the ACC
As detailed in our ACC Conference page (as part of our preview issue), the Atlantic Coast Conference is not a place you should be going to find explosive offense. Rather, it's the league of stalled drives (or, as we coined in the preview issue, "Coastal Erosion" Heh.) Here now, in the most (purposely!) boring Clip Reel we've ever assembled, we look at the lack of offensive firepower in the ACC.
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The Mag's preview of the SEC

THE SEC WILL RISE AGAIN

There's no better conference than the SEC. None. Let me count the ways: 1) Georgia has more talent than anyone in the nation. 2) Florida is the ultimate points machine, and Gators MLB Brandon Spikes would be my first pick to build a defense around. 3) LSU's D-line, with DT Ricky Jean-François and DE Tyson Jackson, is flat-out frightening. 4) Three second-tier teams—Auburn, South Carolina, Tennessee—would contend in the other BCS conferences. 5) Both Ole Miss and Bama have the talent to pick off a fave on the right week. Like I said, there's no better conference. —KIRK HERBSTREIT
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A detailed look inside the schools from non-BCS conferences.
Any non-BCS team that wants a title shot had better go undefeated, which explains BYU's 2008 motto: "Quest for perfection." And the Cougars have a chance, with a stocked offense led by QB Max Hall and RB Harvey Unga. Watch Fresno State, too. With 16 starters back, including QB Tom Brandstater, the Dogs start at Rutgers, host Wisconsin and end at WAC stalwart Boise State—three potential BCS haymakers. What's that? Whither Notre Dame, you ask? Well, Charlie Weis can recruit and call plays. But can he lead young men? Dunno yet. That's why I'm saying eight wins. Which is far from perfect.
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Do you want to chronicle your season for ESPN The Magazine?
What makes college football great? Tons of things; obviously, though,it begins with the students themselves. ESPN The Magazine and its digital home, ESPNTheMag.Com, are looking for one (1) student from EACH of our Top 4 preseason schools: Georgia, Ohio State, USC, and Oklahoma. Well, that's the plan now. Go to another school? Keep reading. We're always open to new opinions. Feel free to try and sway us!
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What's the best college football game of the BCS Era?

WHEN IT COMES TO THE BEST COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMES OF THE BCS ERA, WE'LL RUN TO THE CORNER WITH VY ANY DAY

[Ed's note: Not sure what All-World Power Rankings is? Please click here.] Today in 1951 was the first live sporting event seen coast-to-coast in the United States: Duke vs. Pittsburgh in football. (Times have changed, eh?) That, coupled with the barnburner finish of LSU vs. Auburn on Saturday night, got us thinking of the best college football games ever. That's a fairly Herculean task to rank, so we narrowed it to the BCS era. We did tend to slide towards championship-level games, since more is at stake. Give it a whirl.
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A look at Florida QB Tim Tebow's summer of 2008
Just how does a Heisman trophy winner spend his summer? On a goodwill tour of his home state and a missionary trip to Thailand, of course. Here's a peek at some of the gator signal-caller's favorite memories.
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A look inside what makes the student section so special
For a look at video clips from some of these student sections, please go here. [The ratings: Every student section has its own (ahem) personality. We risked double-secret probation to ask a panel of 20 college football experts—coaches, ADs, players, refs and the media—to sort 'em up. We'll start with the best overall below. But as you'll see over the next few pages, it's not the only way to grade.] ---- Adrian Peterson shook his helmeted head and slapped his earholes. But the ringing wouldn't stop. "OOOOOOOOOOOOO…"
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Michael Crabtree is the nation's most dynamic receiver
Michael Crabtree looks overmatched. It is July 31, 2006, and Crabtree is getting posted up in the Texas High School Coaches Association all-star basketball game. In a few days he'll begin his football career at Texas Tech, but tonight the 6'3", 200-pound kid is locked up with Dexter Pittman, a 6'10", 320-pounder with a backside as broad as a Buick. Pittman wants position, and Crabtree isn't about to give it to him.
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Some backs travel far from home to become college football stars. Here's a few.
Sometimes to achieve your potential, you gotta get away from your comfort zone.
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Soph sensation Knowshon Moreno could lead Georgia to a title
OTHER RUNNING BACKS WHO PLAY FAR FROM HOME Fate has brought him here. At least that's what the Georgia football faithful buzzing around Transmetropolitan, a bar and pizzeria in downtown Athens, believe. Knowshon Moreno, the running back who many Bulldogs fans think might be the second coming of Herschel Walker, is seated at a long, rectangular table smack-dab in the center of the joint. If his party weren't so big, if Moreno didn't have to sit at the biggest table in the restaurant, he'd likely be near the back, maybe by the kitchen or in a corner. Someplace he could celebrate his 21st birthday in peace, which he gets less and less of these days.
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