College Football Blog

Dean & Carol Decker recently spent their New Years holiday on a Sports Traveler tour to the Tournament of Roses Parade and wrote in to let us know how it all went. They stayed in Marina Del Rey as part of the fully guided four-night Rose Parade tour package. One of the biggest highlights of their trip was a tour of LA, including a visit to Beverly Hills and the world-famous Rodeo Drive.  The day before the Rose Parade, the Decker family even went behind-the-scenes to look at the float decorating barns.

The Tournament of Roses Parade has been setting the standard in Pasadena, California since 1890, and for 128 years has proven to be one of the most popular ways to ring in the New Year. Floats covered in hundreds of thousands of flowers, shaped into intricately designed patterns, animals and shapes wind 5.5 miles throughout Southern California each New Years Day. The streets flood with parade fans of all ages, all watching in awe of the beauty and illusions the designers create.

The 2013 college football bowl season is almost upon us.  Here is a look at our bowl game predictions for all five BCS games this season.

2013-14 BCS Bowl Projections

BCS Championship
January 6, 2014 - Rose Bowl - Pasadena, CA

Florida State Seminoles vs. Ohio State Buckeyes

The SEC Championship has a rich history of great football games and is consistently a showcase for NFL talent.  In fact, the last 7 winners of the SEC Championship have went on to claim the BCS National Championship.

The Future

The national championship landscape will soon be changing with the introduction of the College Football Playoff in 2015.  However, one thing we don't anticipate changing is the dominance displayed by the SEC in college football over the last decade.  SEC fans can look forward to a bright future full of great football.  That will never change as long as Nick Saban and Les Miles are coaching in the SEC.

Last night the college football season initiated the 2013 campaign.  Ranked teams South Carolina and USC already claimed their first victims of the season with victories.  This season has a little uncertainty around it when it comes to deciphering who is the best team.  On Thursday we got a pretty good look at one of those teams in South Carolina.  But are the Gamecocks and the "Ole Ball Coach" the best?

As a tribute to the new season I have ranked the 7 best teams in the country for Sports Traveler's 2013 College Football Power Rankings.  Spoiler Alert:  This list contains mostly SEC teams, as you can imagine.  Alabama seeks its third straight national championship and there are a few teams around the country that have the talent to knock them off the mountain.  But it will most likely still be another SEC team.

Welcome to the final year of the BCS Championship.  Today we will take a look back at the history of the BCS in its final season.  Some claimed the system worked but many others felt the procedure was flawed and unfair.

The BCS will live to see the 16th season and that is where this controversial system will come to end.  This will be last time the BCS will upset a school and its fan base who felt they should have been there.

Its hard to say that BCS system worked and moving to a playoff format is best for college football in the future.  There is still work to be done and hopefully the playoff format will evolve but I don't want to concentrate too much on the new system.  The purpose of this blog is to reflect on the history of the BCS and who sustained the most success during this era.

There are just a few weeks left in the college football regular season and things took a crazy turn this past weekend.  I think everyone, including myself, had (4) Alabama penciled in for the BCS Championship game until (8) Texas A&M pulled off the surprising 29-24 upset last Saturday.  This has opened up the field a little bit for spots in the national championship.  So lets take a little time sort of some of this chaos caused by the Alabama loss.

The loss does not eliminate Alabama from BCS contention but it puts them on the outside looking in when it looked like they were a lock.  Here are the current BCS standings as we head into this weekend's games.

BCS Standings

1. Kansas State
2. Oregon
3. Notre Dame
4. Alabama
5. Georgia
6. Florida
7. LSU
8. Texas A&M
9. South Carolina
10. Florida State

BCS Forecast

In the driver's seat:

So at the moment we are looking at a Big XII and Pac 12 showdown in Miami.  Both (1) Kansas State and (2) Oregon control their own destiny.  If Oregon and K-State win out then I believe both would be in the BCS Championship.  Oregon is an absolute no doubter if they win their last 2 regular season games and the Pac 12 Championship.  Kansas State does not have a conference championship game to bolster their resume but an undefeated record should be more than enough to secure a spot in the title game.

So it might be a little early but I think its time to start looking at the legitimate contenders as we have reached the half way point of the college football season.  As for the usual the SEC has a strong presence in the second edition of the BCS standings in 2012.  The SEC currently has 4 teams in the BCS top 10 and 7 in the top 25.  Most college football experts say the path to the national championship is through the SEC and this year is no exception.

Current 2012 BCS Standings

1.  Alabama
2.  Florida
3.  Oregon
4.  Kansas State
5.  Notre Dame
6.  LSU
7.  South Carolina
8.  Oregon State
9.  Oklahoma
10.  USC

Full BCS Standings

We have reached the 7th week of the 2012 college football season and its time to start thinking about bowl season!  The Tournament of Roses Parade is getting ready for the 2013 celebration this week by naming the seven court members of the parade.  These seven lovely young ladies were chosen from a list of 33 finalists and over 900 total applicants.  The Queen of the Court will be announced on October 16th.  The battle for the Parade Court is just another testament to the prestige of this event.

Football season is so close I can taste it.  Every year around this time you can feel the excitement in the sports community.  Football is by far the most popular sport in this country and everyone has a favorite pro team and a school that they are passionate about.  In the world of college football there are high expectations right now on many different campuses across the country.  [So called] Experts have already begun making predictions for teams and individual awards.  At this moment everything is up in the air.

Which teams or players will surprise you this season?  Who will win the Heisman?  Which teams will meet in the National Championship game?  These are all questions that everyone, including myself, can take a stab at answering but nothing is certain right now.  We have reached the calm before the storm.  In a few short weeks the thunderous cheers of tens of thousands will echo in college stadium across America.  But before we get to opening weekend,  here is a list of 10 things you should know about college football as we head into the 2012 regular season.

The schedule makers struck gold this year.  This will be the fourth edition of the annual Cowboys Classic and I don't think we could have landed a better match-up.  These two historic programs have combined for over 1,700 wins and both rank in the top 10 all-time in wins and winning percentage (Michigan: 895 - .734, Alabama: 814 - .697).  Alabama (14) and Michigan (11) are also #3 and #4 respectively in national championships won by a college football program.  Needless to say, these are two of the most accomplished athletic programs in the history of collegiate sports.

The Crimson Tide and Wolverines have only met in three previous engagements.  The maize and blue have managed to grab the advantage 2 games to 1 in the limited but eventful all-time series.  The last meeting between these two teams was at the 2000 Orange Bowl.  Turned out to be a great game that needed extra time to decide the winner.  Michigan ended up the victor with a 35-34 victory in what would be the last collegiate game for some guy named Tom Brady.