August 5th update

Oklahoma Sooners: Best in NCAA Football?

• Sportico has spent many a update discussing the NFL. However, today it's time to start paying some attention to the younger players as the NCAA is preparing for their season. USA Today has released its first preseason top-25 ranking, picking the Oklahoma Sooners as the team to beat.
• Oklahoma, lead by Junior Quarterback Landry Jones (pictured), won the Fiesta Bowl last year and return a large crop of starters from that team. Alabama, the 2009 National Champions, ranked second, while last years runner-up Oregon ranked third.
• This ranking has no actual impact on who ends the season playing for the championships, but is a good directional indicator of who will be ranked highly in the all-important Bowl Championship Series rankings that are released for the first time in the middle of October.


NFL Hall-of-Fame Inductions this Weekend

• This year’s class is highlighted by a couple of razzle-dazzle players. “Primetime” Deion Sanders, and Marshall Faulk changed the way the game was played during the 90s. Joining them are Shannon Sharpe, Richard Dent, Chris Hanburger, Les Richter and Ed Sabol
• Sanders won Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers, in the mid-90s and also played for the Atlanta Falcons, Washington Redskins and Baltimore Ravens in the NFL and Florida State in college. While playing in Atlanta the versatile Sanders also played baseball for the Atlanta Braves. He remains the only player to ever hit a home run and score a touchdown in the same week, also the only player to win both a Super Bowl and World Series. Sanders was known as a ladies man and cad during his playing days, but has since turned to the church and began mentoring young men helping them avoid the same mistakes he made.
• Ed Sabol enters the Hall of Fame as a “contributor to the game.” Sabol and his son Steve founded NFL Films. This repository of films of NFL games has become a great bridge between the younger generation and the great players of the past. Sabol (94) has been hospitalized for various reasons recently and his son lead a big push to get him into the Hall of Fame before he passed away.
• Faulk and Sharpe were both among the greatest players ever at their position as Faulk set the single season TD record and Sharpe set almost every receiving record for Tight Ends (although they have since been broken by Tony Gonzalez).