by  Jack Kerwin  |  [email protected]
First impressions ...
Well, with it only being Week Zero, last weekend’s Weight Watchers-ish slate to kick off the college football season only offered so much material. Or, really, variety.

Merely a Chuck Woolery special – two FBS games and two FCS games.

Of course, one of those renewed a previously heated rivalry.

So, away we go …

Lose the battle, win the war: Not for nothing, but Miami Hurricanes fans have more reason to feel upbeat than their counterparts of the Florida Gators.

Yeah, Miami lost, 24-20, in pretty brutal fashion, unable to get over the hump no matter how many opportunities the Gators gave it to do so. But, push comes to shove, we’re talking an unranked team with a new, first-time head coach going toe-to-toe with an outfit regarded as a surefire top-10 squad.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Jarren Williams held his own, despite coming under heavy pressure all night. He was calm, cool and collected … and, frankly, only done in by his untested offensive line getting manhandled by Florida’s defensive front.

Reality check … already: OK, here it is – Feleipe Franks just isn’t good enough. Gator Nation can rationalize all it wants in order to feel better about the guy directing the Florida offense, but the fact is the kid is just too erratic in every measurable facet to guide the Gators to fulfilling their potential.

He’s a deceptive athlete … in that he fools his supporters in that there is more to his game, because he looks the part, and he has a big arm and can move for a big guy. Truth is, there isn’t. He is what he is … up and down, dramatically so. Not just week to week, but snap to snap.

Could be a problem: If Florida defensive coordinator Todd Grantham isn’t able to drill into the heads of his cornerbacks and safeties proper technique to pass coverage, the Gators could be looking at a bunch of “Ampipe coughs it up at Walnut Heights” experiences with any one of his guys playing Stefan “no play ball, just tackle receiver” Djordjevic.

In short, they got lucky against Miami. Two pass-interference calls, including one on fourth-and-a-country-mile, kept the Hurricanes’ last-ditch drive alive, and another easily could have been called in the end zone on that same possession.

Uni watch: Miami, flat out, smoked Florida on the threads … which isn’t exactly that hard to do. The Gators went with their usual clown outfit, an amazing misuse of good colors (orange, blue and white) that somehow makes Penn State’s forever ugly all-white road unis look stylish.

The Hurricanes’ white lid, white top and orange pants was exquisitely sharp by contrast.

Truth be told, both could take a lesson from Villanova, which opened the 2019 campaign for all of college football last Saturday with a noon start at Colgate. The Wildcats’ blue-white-blue road wear is as sharp as it gets, and to make matters even better for their followers, they ripped the 13th-ranked Raiders, 34-14.

A real star: Gotta be honest, the setting for the latest edition of Miami-Florida, held at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium seemed special. The City of Orlando, where the venue is located, owns and operates CWS, which most of us born before millennials would know as the old Citrus Bowl, and it appears to be first-rate after tons of updates and renovations.

by  Jack Kerwin  |  [email protected]

Play along for a few minutes ....

We got two NFL quarterbacks. Veteran starters. Taken in the same draft.

Still young, but the narratives to their careers seemingly written in stone already.

One considered a superstar, the type of once-in-a-lifetime franchise quarterback who would lift the spirits of any fan base, no matter how emotionally torn and tattered it may be.

The other considered, well, almost an afterthought. OK mostly, and, perhaps, even good at times, but, really, not the kind of QB who has anyone thinking, “yeah, he is THE guy.”

Funny thing is, when you cut through the hype, skip the BS and just get down to facts, it’s pretty hard to differentiate between the two, say, during the past three seasons.

Or, more to the point, which is which.

To wit:

• Quarterback A has a 57.5 winning percentage as a starter in that time.
• Quarterback B 66.7.
• QB-A completes 63.7 percent of his passes throughout his career, averaging 7.0 yards per attempt and has a passer rating of 92.5.
• QB-B 66.1, 7.4 and 96.0.
• QB-A has been named to one Pro Bowl.
• QB-B two.
• QB-A has never taken a snap in a playoff game.
• QB-B has started in three playoff games, posting a 95.7 passer rating and accounting for seven touchdowns.
• QB-A has directed four comebacks and four game-winning drives.
• QB-B has eight and 14.
• QB-A has run for two touchdowns, averaging 3.8 yards per carry rushing.
• QB-B 18, 5.0.
• QB-A is considered the superstar.
• QB-B is considered … OK.
• QB-A is Carson Wentz.
• QB-B is Dak Prescott.

Welcome to reality, Philly fans, media and the national talking heads far too influenced by their man-crushing comrades who cover the Eagles masking themselves as professionals with unbiased insight.

Look, you wanna argue that Wentz is better, or will be? OK, fine. Not even gonna debate that, even though the above evidence pretty much destroys any case you could make right now – and, sorry, being injury-prone such as Wentz happens to be is not a “chalk one up” for you.

Thing is, it’s never about who is better. It’s about the absolutely absurd levels to which some fans – and, yeah, hell, yeah, that includes a lot of media members anymore – push their favorites as the ultimate, alternating hyperbole with almost hallucinogenic rationale to make their, uh, point.

The Wentz craze is unlike any in my lifetime as far as Eagles players go. So much so that it has no barriers.

Nope. No sticking within city limits, or just within the region. It’s gone national. Hell, it’s gone international.

To where any amount of money paid to him is considered a bargain … and any Prescott may want from Jerry Jones in Dallas even remotely in the same ballpark is labeled an outrage.

​More? Unthinkable.

It’s beyond laughable. Just a complete disconnect with what is and has been. All that discarded for what the hope is for the future.

You know, where Wentz is the ultimate superstar and Prescott is, grudgingly at best, OK.

Here’s the deal at this point: No matter how you slice it, or how much you really want it to be otherwise, neither of these guys has proven to be elite or awful for any extended period. They’re both flawed and they’re both talented.

Their legacies are far from the foregone conclusions being put out there en masse.

Besides, all that matters is that they’re both better than Jared Goff. Way better.

​Cue the comedy laugh track.

by  Jack Kerwin  |  [email protected]

For me, it's here.

​Once the press junkets clear, the training camps start and the calendar inches into August, for me, it’s football season.

All day. Every day.

Oh, when it comes to sports, the mind will wander off into other directions, usually being baseball. But the focus zooms in on football. Hardcore.

Especially college football.

Before delving right into the upcoming campaign of pomp, pageantry and bone-rattling circumstance, it seems like a good time to step back, take a deep breath and gain a little perspective.

Not an easy task considering the social and political climate in which we live.

But … here’s the deal:

It’s all about Alabama and Clemson, again, and, no, there hasn’t been a changing of the guard as to which program heads the nation’s elite.

Probably because they’ve been on a pair with each other for the past four seasons.

They’re equal.

Read that again: Equal.

At least as equal as two best-in-the-country programs can be.

With all due respect to Paul Finebaum, SEC lovers and ACC haters, the evidence is overwhelming on that aspect.

Recite the silly claptrap about the weakness of Clemson’s week-in, week-out competition, about how Georgia is Alabama’s biggest obstacle, or roll out some silly tired, old rants about how many more national championships the Crimson Tide has in their history.

These are the realities of the last four seasons:

• The two have played each other four times — all in the College Football Playoff — and split.
• The two have won a pair of titles each.
• The two have won 55 and lost four apiece.
• The two have won 30 conference games and lost two apiece.

The only differences are these:

• Clemson has won four conference titles to Alabama’s three.
• Alabama has played in four national-title games to Clemson’s three.

Frankly, the similarities between the two are striking. Not only do the Tigers match up with the uber-hyped Tide on NFL draft picks (Both had three first-round picks, plus Clemson had four of the top 40 selections back in April, Alabama four of the 50), but they’ve even had their share of off-the-mark talking heads stating how their program stood so far above all others.

Remember the resounding conventional wisdom the moment Clemson wrapped up last year’s 44-16 victory against the Tide in Santa Clara, Calif., to clinch its second crown in three seasons?

No? Well, it went a little something like this: There is a new king in town. Move over, Alabama. Clemson isn’t just better, it’s much better.

Now, in the eight months since then, things have subsided a bit. Particularly once summer commenced and thoughts of a ticked-off Nick Saban firing up the troops in Tuscaloosa, Ala., became a little harder to ignore.

Still, Clemson being the new standard was the “word” back in January, and that hasn’t completely faded.

It just wasn’t the case.

No matter how charming Dabo Swinney was in weaving homespun logic between boyish grins postgame.

That 28-point difference was a mirage, colored in a false image tainted by a pair of interceptions and eyes focusing strictly on the scoreboard, not what was going on between the lines.

If you’re going to be the dominant program, that’s going to include a physical pounding of any and all competition. Never happened against the Tide. Thing is, ’Bama has no issues moving the ball. Was almost identical to Clemson in its success (the Tigers posted 482 yards to the Tide’s 443).

But it had those picks, and it had six penalties for 60 yards while Clemson only had one for 12.

The boasts of Clemson being THAT much better than Alabama that night were as ill-informed as those proclaiming the Tide likewise over the Tigers a year prior. In that one, a 24-6 national semifinal victory for ’Bama, Clemson only could muster 188 yards.

Yeah, and Alabama only had 261 … and the game was 10-6 in the third quarter.

The reasons for the flip from one season to the next: Turnovers and quarterbacks. Period.

Clemson moved on from Kelly Bryant in favor of Trevor Lawrence, and the two fumbles by the Tigers in the 2017 title game were supplanted by a pair of Tua Tagovailoa picks in 2018.

Alabama won their 2015 title tilt and Clemson returned the favor in 2016, and in both cases, either team could have won. The first one ended 45-40 and the second 35-31. ’Bama wore down the Tigers late in ’15 and Clemson returned the favor in ’16.

If it matters, Clemson, behind the legs, arm and improvisational skills of DeShaun Watson, outgained ’Bama in both, 550-473 and 511-376.

For this unofficial, four-game “series,” the Tigers hold an edge in yards (1,731 to 1,553) and points (125 to 116).

All things considered, sounds pretty equal to me.

Perhaps a fifth meeting in five seasons would prove something else.

Just don’t count on it.