Three and Out - Week One

(1) I have been listening to the Rivals.com radio network on Sirius for the past couple weeks and am fired up for the season to start. The hatred some of these FBS fanbases have for each other is intense and never quits. I don't share the hatred for Sam or SFA that many Bobcat fans do but I can see some long term bad juju coming for UTSA. Texas State is very fortunate to have a rival so nearby with the size and ambition of UTSA. I watched every episode of "Birth of a Program" on Saturday after one of our friends to the south alerted me to a marathon on Fox Sports Southwest.

Coach Franchione will lead his Bobcats into hostile Texas Tech this weekend.

My thoughts are that they might have a huge hit on their hands as long as they win, and win often. The Express News preview put them at 4-6 and I think they have to do quite a bit better than that to keep the buzz up. It's mentioned that no startup has ever gone to FBS in two seasons several times. As I said earlier, the ambition is enormous for the Roadrunner program, but I don't think a major city has ever bought into a startup the way San Antonio is. I could see them being a major pain in the backside for Texas State and other FBS programs in the very near future. They have pressure on them to succeed at a level unseen outside the BCS ranks due to the investment of the city.


(2) I spent four months in Lubbock for work about ten years ago. In fact, I went directly from the Panhandle to Chapel Hill (home of the University of North Carolina). I liked Chapel Hill much better. Lubbock's a pretty rough town for outsiders and non-Tech students. I hear it's not a dry town anymore so you don't have to endure "the Strip" - a trip to be talked about and not experienced. They don't throw tortillas anymore, and Tech fans don't dress up like pirates like they did under Leach. They do have an SEC caliber coach (Tommy Tuberville) and one of the hottest offensive coordinators in the country (30 year old Neal Brown). Tech reeled in the best recruiting class in their history in January and run an offense reminiscent of Houston's which the Bobcats were witnesses to last season, except faster paced with a greater emphasis on the running game. Less jet sweeps, more power running. They, like Texas State, are installing a 4-2-5 defense under former TCU secondary coach and new defensive coordinator Chad Glasgow.

I would be inclined to pick Tech by forty and call it a night, but I'm not going to bet against a Franchione-coached team getting run out of the stadium. In fact, I would love for this matchup to be in 2013 and not this season due to the immense difference in depth between the two teams. I like the spread option to confuse a defense that's been lining up against something different all preseason, and I am going to hope the installation by Naivar progressed faster than Glasgow's. Texas State will keep it close for almost three quarters before the fresh bodies Tech has plus just the general difficulties of being an away team in a Big 12-level hostile environment take their toll on the Bobcats.

Texas Tech 34, Texas State 17.

I'm not into moral victories, but I think both sides leave the field with their heads up and Texas State spends the 2011-12 offseason dreaming about knocking the Raiders off in their home opener. They'll put the work in to try to make that happen.


(3) Other predictions for week one:

Top 25 matchups -

Georgia 27, Boise State 24

Oregon 42, LSU 35


Around the state -

FIU 28, North Texas 17

TCU 37, Baylor 24

Houston 42, UCLA 38

Texas 24, Rice 10

UTEP 51, Stony Brook 7

A&M 31, SMU 24


Around the WAC -

Idaho 14, Bowling Green 13

Auburn 35, Utah State 10

Stanford 45, San Jose State 13

Cal 28, Fresno State 21

Ohio 16, New Mexico State 10

Southern Miss 31, Louisiana Tech 21

Hawaii 35, Colorado 24