The Miami Hurricanes have been crowned College Baseball’s National Champion for the second time in three years. They played wonderfully throughout the tournament, coming from behind to beat Tennessee and then knocking off Stanford easily in the championship game. Lead by Charlton Jimerson and Javy Rodriguez, the Hurricanes proved once again the baseball in the south is better than that played on the west coast. The hometown favorite Nebraska played two one-run games in Omaha, but they lost each of them and took an early exit home. The Nebraska-CS-Fullerton game on Friday was exciting to watch. Komine, the ace pitcher for the Huskers, was wonderful and there was lead change after lead change.

There were also several football-like scores in Omaha. When that wind begins to blow out at Rosenblatt, as it often does, games can turn into homerun derbies very quickly. The Miami-Tennessee contest that ended in a 21-13 score sounded more like the score of a possible game in early January of 2002 played in Pasadena (the college football national championship game). This was a better game than the score indicates, though, as the Vols repeatedly came from eight-run deficits to make it a game. And yet they still lost by a TD and 2-point conversion, er, 8 runs. But in the end, the most consistent team won, and the Hurricanes have a lot to look forward to in the years to come.

I’m sure you’ve heard by now the debate over Friday night college football. The presidents and athletic directors of certain universities believe that this is a great time to get national exposure and be the only game on TV. High school officials and others say that college football is invading the territory they have owned for years.

So my question is this: 1) Are you a high school football fan that goes to see your team play most Friday nights? If you answered yes to this, then keep going. Just because there’s a college game on that night doesn’t mean you can’t go. It’s not stopping you. So no problem there. Or 2) Are you a college football fan that doesn’t care much about high school football? If you answered yes, then there’s still no problem. You never like HS football anyway, and now you have a game to go to on an occasional Friday night, and you still get to catch the other games from around the country on Saturday afternoon. No problem there, either. It doesn’t matter when the college teams play. They’ve got just about every day covered now. You’ve got Sunday NFL, Monday night NFL, Tuesday night NCAA, Wednesday off day, Thursday NCAA, Friday NCAA, and Saturday NCAA. This should be a football fan’s dream. So why are so many people complaining? I’m not, and I don’t think you should be either. Just sit back and enjoy. And by the way, college football is still better than pro is, no matter how much heat it takes in situations like these.

Be sure and check the schedule to see when your favorite conference and team will be previewed. The schedule is posted at the bottom of the main page. The predictions will include the returning starters, schedule, predicted wins, predicted losses, and predicted record for each team. Also included will be the out-of-conference opponents for each team, the predicted standings , the coaching changes, the rating of toughest schedules in each conference, and the must-see games of each conference. Be sure to visit each day to see where we predict the teams around the country, every team in Division I-A! These predictions all lead up to the All-America teams and the first preseason College Football Top 25 poll for 2001. During the season, check back to see how good/bad our predictions were. And, when you see a prediction you don’t agree with (which we’re sure you won’t), email us and tell us about it. As the season progresses, we will also have such things as bowl predictions and week-by-week game predictions. Thank you for visiting T&J SportSource, and be sure to let us know what you think about the site!

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