I'm excited about writing the first preview of the year; however I never realized why it's so hard to preview the first game. It turns out that nothing has happened yet for me to talk about. Hmm. I guess I could always make stuff up. Since that's what I always do anyway. Or I could ignore football completely and tell you about the books I've been reading all summer. But then you'd just make fun of me, because I read "Eats Shoots and Leaves" and I still can't puncuate correctly.
So, the Wildcats are going to TCU. First and foremost, it gives me a chance to relive my rage from the last time we played at TCU. As I recall it was 2000, and everyone was excited about the season after NU went 2-0 to start off. TCU had ace running back LaDainian Tomlinson and ran him all over the place using a pretty decent option attack. NU had, let us say, "issues" stopping the Frogs' rush offense. I watched the game with my parents from Coach's Cafe - I think it was still called "?" at the time - and I totally freaked out on every play that TCU ran because I felt they were holding on every down. Let me tell you, they were. It was so blatant that I expected the field to be so cluttered with flags that the yellow ESPN line-to-gain would be completely obscured. Sadly, it was not so. Damn. We lost pretty badly. I guess I'm over it, but sometimes I wake up screaming, "Hey linesman! What the hell!"
But, that's in the past.
This week, I think the NU defense will have a much better time in Fort Worth. And I know that TCU won't have Tomlinson. A quick perusal of the TCU website reveals that coach Gary Patterson only just picked a starting QB for Thursday's match-up. It'l be Tye Gunn but Brandon Hassel will also see time throughout the game.
I haven't seen a line for this game, but I really haven't looked. I'm also on the bus right now, so unless we hit a stop light with a hotspot nearby, I'll have to edit this once I get to work. I'm guessing that TCU is favored by 4 with an O/U of 40. Let's see how awesome I am. Update: TCU by 7, with an O/U of 56. 56? Well, maybe.
That's about it for now. I'll get going with the Whether Report, and I'll be looking for one or more weather forecasters. Let me know if you're interested in being Brad Jepson. Or if you are Brad Jepson.
