James has been naming every player on the EA Sports video game rosters for half a decade now, he’s finally putting his knowledge to better use writing for us here at CappersPicks.com. Your comments are welcome below…Give Us Your Take!
It is true that Auburn is recovering from the incident of its poisoned sentimental trees, but those in the Tuscaloosa region are trying to bounce back from a much more real catastrophe.
Auburn must be excited to put the despicable incident of the poisoned oak trees in Toomer’s Corner behind it and just play some football.
One of the first games of the 2011 regular season is a clash of one team (Memphis) that has nowhere to go but up after an awful 2010 showing in Conference USA, with another (Mississippi State) having already begun its ascent in the SEC.
Until last season’s 7-6 finish, Army hadn’t had a winning season since the 1990s and hasn’t beaten a Top 20 team since 1972.
Once former head coach Paul Johnson took over and installed his option scheme in Annapolis – early in the last decade – the Middies ascended from laughingstock (11-45 from 1998-2002) to a streak of eight straight bowl games.
Syracuse had a very strong football program until the middle of the last decade, when the school hired Greg Robinson and he made the switch to a West Coast offense.
It has been a quiet postseason party scene in Louisville, Kentucky since 2006, when the Cardinals played Wake Forest in the Orange Bowl, and nearly appeared in the national title game.
Previous coach Randy Edsall did a remarkable job in bringing this program from literally non-existent in the FBS ranks to national relevancy – the Huskies were in the Fiesta Bowl vs. Oklahoma last year.
The Scarlet Knights have been bowling in the latter half of the last decade, which says something considering how futile this program used to be.
The Bearcats have some of the best names in the conference: Munchie Legaux, J.K. Schaffer, Solomon Tentman, Ralph David Abernathy and Silverberry Mouhon.
The Pittsburgh Panthers football program is in the unique (and rather strange) position of firing coaches once they start to pay dividends in the win column.
Over the past few seasons, South Florida has been predictably… well, not world-changing, but decent. The Bulls have churned out eight-win seasons since 2008.
This season has some potential for awkwardness in Morgantown, after sought-after former Oklahoma State offensive co-ordinator Dana Holgorsen comes over and becomes the coach-in-waiting; Stewart will be nudged out after this season.
Edsall comes to College Park after building the program at the University of Connecticut basically from the ground up. He was the 2010 Big East Coach of the Year and looks to assert a Terps team that has an excellent underclassmen quarterback, but not much else.
Cutcliffe has made some progress with the Blue Devils, though with a team that went 3-9 last year, progress is a relative term.
The Cavaliers had some good years in the middle of the last decade, but they’ve had a bowl-less drought since 2007. Coach London is now in his second year in a bid to bring UVa back to respectability in the conference.
