Weekend Football Preview

NFL

- Although the season has technically already begun with the defending Super Bowl champion Giants losing 24-17 to Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys, the real fun is yet to begin.  Every team plays this weekend (except for the 4 teams that play on Monday).
- The premium matchup of the weekend asks the question, 'What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?'  Most of the experts predicted that the 49ers supercharged defense would face off against the Packers electric offense in the NFC championship game last season, but the Giants beat both teams to take the NFC for themselves after a less than stellar season.  Now the two best teams in the NFC's regular season in 2011 start off 2012 with a bang.
- Another game that will be sure to draw plenty of attention is Peyton Manning's new team, the Denver Broncos going against the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Even though Tim Tebow, now with the New York Jets, was the quarterback who led Denver to an upset over the Steelers in the playoffs last year, the Steelers will be sure to look for revenge.  And Tebow will have a chance to watch his old team and the man who replaced him this weekend and every other because strangely enough, the Jets and Broncos don't play a single game at the same time slot for the entire 2012 regular season.
- Other big games include:
1. Falcons at Chiefs.  Two likely playoff teams with the added intrigue of TE Tony Gonzalez, the all time career record holder in most categories, going back to Kansas City for the first time as a visitor.
2a/2b. Colts at Bears and Redskins at Saints.  Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III play their first meaningful professional games but both are on the road against quality squads.  If either of the two games is even close, it will probably take a stellar effort from the rookie QB's.
3. Bengals at Ravens.  The Bengals made the playoffs with a young roster last season but went 0-4 against the Steelers and Ravens.  If they're going to progress, they'll need to play better vs. those teams and they get a chance to do that right off the bat.


College Preview

- Unfortunately, early season schedules in the NCAA are dominated by matchups between big schools and small underdeveloped programs.  The big schools give a percentage of gate receipts to the small schools, who can make a much larger profit by doing so than they would by playing at home in front of much smaller crowds.  The trade off is that they almost never win, and can face embarrassing losses, such as Savannah State's 84-0 shellacking last week at the hands of Oklahoma State (Savannah St. didn't learn their lesson apparently, and play Florida St. this week).  They do occasionally deliver upsets though.
- In some of the few games between two legit programs, Missouri plays Georgia and Texas A&M plays Florida (the first SEC games ever for Missouri and Texas A&M), Nebraska plays UCLA, LSU plays Washington and Kansas State plays Miami. 
- Here are the AP and USA Today rankings, both of which have Alabama jumping up to #1 following their impressive win over Michigan last week.