The 5 Things You Need To Know Before You Go: Pre-season Edition

My goal when I started this blog was to educate, enlighten, and expand my readers' knowledge regarding the world of tailgating and gamedays. To this end, I will be including a weekly post for those who don't have the time or inclination to read endless tweets, articles, broadcasts, or blogs from sports pundits concerning the latest sports news. Every Friday (hopefully), I will provide the top 5 stories or talking points that those sports fanatics in your life will be discussing, so you can join in on the fun and conversation. Seriously, you start talking to the sports fan in your life about Nick Saban's hatred of up-tempo offenses, and their face will light up. Unless, of course, they're an Alabama fan. Then you're in trouble because Bama fans don't criticize St. Nick. Again, most of the stories will be geared toward college sports, but I might also throw in some NFL or other sport if there is a good story evolving. With college football media days wrapping up and fall camps about to start (hallelujah!), I thought I would begin with a Pre-season edition. So here we go!

1. Targeting Rule:  In March, the NCAA (the governing body of college athletics) decided to allow college football officials the power to eject any player who targets a defenseless opponent above the shoulders.  The reasoning behind this new rule is attributable to one man:  Jadeveon Clowney, a defensive end from South Carolina.  Check out his hit from the Outback Bowl in their game against Michigan.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC44nP7ClxM   I've watched that clip several times and wince every time.  It's so awesome!  The problem is that the NCAA has instigated this new rule in reaction to that hit, but during media days, the officials from the various college football conferences all had different answers as to how they would have handled that play under the new rule, so it will be interesting to see how officials enforce this rule in the upcoming season.
2. Is the NCAA a doomed organization?:  A lot of discussion was had during the various media days regarding the frustration that the major conferences have with the current structure of the NCAA.  Currently, in the NCAA, every Division I school is equal as far as their voting power.  Which sounds nice in theory.  However, the reality is that there is a big difference in the athletic budgets of the University of Texas and Central Michigan University.  How this disparity will be addressed is still to be determined.  Some current thoughts/musings are:  (1)  creating a new division for the five major conferences or (2) establishing a new governing body.
3. Conference realignment:  The ACC has picked up Pitt and Syracuse.  The ACC has also struck a deal with "Holier than Thou" Notre Dame to play five football games per year, even though Notre Dame has only joined the conference for basketball.  (In case you didn't know, Notre Dame football has the distinction of being independent, i.e. never belonging to a conference.)   Additionally, a new college football conference was added this year - the American Athletic Conference - which is basically a revamping of the former Big East Conference.  Just reference When it comes to the new AAC, just reference Tommy Tuberville (former Ole Miss, Auburn, and Texas Tech coach who is now at Cincinnati) or Teddy Bridgewater (talented QB for Louisville and possible Heisman trophy candidate), and you'll look like a football genius.
4. University of Florida's Football Class of 2008:   This summer has been a media firestorm for former Florida football players from the 2008 team.  First, former Florida QB, Tim Tebow, was traded to the New England Patriots.  For some reason, even though his reputation is clean as a whistle, he's always talked about by the media.  God, that kid is boring.  Then, the most shocking news was that Aaron Hernandez, who also played for Florida and the Patriots, has been charged with murdering a friend.   He is currently awaiting trial, and there has been new information that might link him to other murders.  Freaky.  Lastly, a former wide receiver, Riley Cooper, who now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles, was caught on video hurling racial slurs at an African-American security guard during a concert.  
5. Johnny "Football" Manziel:   Unless you've been under a rock, you've probably heard of this wildly talented and controversial freshman Heisman trophy winner from Texas A&M.  (Wow, that's a lot of adjectives...sorry).   He's a known party boy and a month ago, he overslept at the Manning passing camp and had to leave early.  It was right before media days so he got a lot of attention, both negative & positive, about that.  Even more recently, he got kicked out a Univ. of Texas frat party.  Why would you go to a frat party at your major rival's campus?!  Dumb ass. Basically, everyone is waiting to see if he'll crash & burn this year with all the media hype.  But he's not making it easy to root for him when he does such stupid crap.  Much has been made in the last few days of the Wright Thompson ESPN article profiling the Manziels, but personally, I love the response to that article by Deadspin.com writer, Tim Marchman, who noted in his article:

"It is, of course, possible that Manziel is the very most important of the 50,000 unique souls who attend his school, and that what he does over the course of a few football games during the months before he turns 21 will prove to be what decides whether he'll spend his life as a boy or become a man. (Thinking of things this way will certainly keep us tuning in to ESPN to see how the story plays out.) It's also possible that he's just another kid with a drinking problem and an awful family who will take a long time to figure things out, getting fussed over because there is good money to be made fussing over young men who throw footballs well. Who can say? It's all very ambiguous."

I hope I have given you some insight into the various top stories of college football and something to keep an eye on and discuss as the season progresses.  Only 28 days left!