One of the reasons the Pirates are in first place in the NL Central is that they have fared well against the Cardinals this season. They are 6-1 in their last 7 games facing them and the last time they faced them in a series they won 4 of 5 games.
The Tulsa Golden Hurricane have a nice history in college football. Tulsa hasn’t necessarily gotten a lot of attention because of their competition, but this is a program that just constantly puts up impressive seasons. They went 11-3 last year and won Conference USA.
The UCF Knights are moving to a new conference and I think they are really going to thrive in the American Athletic Conference. With experienced coach George O’Leary’s defense first approach they were kind of like the anti-Conference USA team and the success speaks for itself – twice in the last three seasons they have won 10 or more games and they have won their last two bowl games.
After some nice years in the Mid American Conference, Temple returned to the Big East last season and was welcomed with a two win conference season. Now they are in the American Athletic Conference and the prospects don’t look much better under new coach Matt Rhule.
The Diamondbacks have lost 2 in a row and with the Dodgers being red hot it looks as if Arizona may have to snag a Wild Card to make the playoffs. The Orioles have won 6 of their last 10 games and they are in 3rd place in the AL East 4.5 games back of the Boston Red Sox.
The Minnesota Twins took both ends of their Friday double header to distance themselves even further from the last place Chicago White Sox. We are through two thirds of the season and the Twins are proving to be closer to bad than horrible, with a great chance to extend their winning on Saturday afternoon.
The consensus is that this year’s Big Ten should be better than last year’s. Sure the Ohio State Buckeyes had a perfect season but it might have been the least impressive one in recent memory, and their inability compete in the Championship game or BCS allowed some other teams to step forward who really didn’t deserve it – we are looking at you Wisconsin.
The Big 12 should be one of the most competitive conferences in the nation this season. Usually a conference has one or maybe two legit contenders but this year in the B12 there are 4 programs that could reasonably walk away with the title.
There is little hope that the Jacksonville Jaguars are going to surprise and be good this season. The question is whether they are going to be bad, as bad as last year or worse.
Tennessee is a classic team that is not sure if they have a quarterback or not. The athletic Jake Locker has been outshined by other young signal callers and until they know whether he can be a legit pro or not it is going to be tough to know whether this current group can be a playoff contender.
Things went about as good as could be expected last season for the Indianapols Colts. They transitioned from one franchise QB to another about as seamlessly as possible and made the playoffs in the process. It was almost a little too fortuitous which is why almost nobody thinks Indianapolis can repeat that success against in 2013.
Baltimore is working their way up the coast trying to steal some wins against struggling National League teams to stay afloat in the American League Wild Card race. They took two at San Diego and are now hoping the Giants will be equally hospitable.
Detroit is wicked hot right now. Not only have they won 12 games in a row but they just walked into the second place team in their division’s house – Cleveland – to take the last 4. They have now built a 7 game cushion and asserted their dominance over the division.
There is little doubt that the Houston Texans are the top team in the AFC South. The question is whether or not they are a true Super Bowl contender. On paper it looks like they are but I think this team lacks some of that grittiness you expect to see from champions.
Carolina finished the season as one of the hottest teams in the NFL but it can be easy to play loose when there is no pressure on you. The Panthers have one of the most dynamic players in the NFL in Cam Newton but the rest of their playmakers are probably on offense are not quite good enough to push this team into serious contention.
In the NFC South you have stalwart Atlanta, resurgent New Orleans and intriguing Carolina thanks to Cam Newton. The one team that no one seems to be paying much attention to is Tampa Bay, who should be much better than they were a year ago as coach Greg Schiano waded into the NFL pool for the first time.
