Andy

This. Every time I've ever tried 'playing matchups' with offensive players, it fails. OTOH, if you don't have one of the stud defenses, you can't go wrong plucking whoever is available and playing the crappiest team. I'm in a keeper league with 2 DEF's as starters and it worked terrifically almost every week the year I tried it.

Top 25 games ------------------------ Western Kentucky at (1) Alabama (3:30 pm, SEC Network/ESPN3) (2) USC vs Syracuse – in East Rutherford, NJ (3:30 pm, ABC/ESPN2) Washington at (3) LSU (7 pm, ESPN) Fresno State at (4) Oregon (6:30 pm, Pac-12 Network) Florida A&M at (5) Oklahoma (7 pm) Savannah State at (6) Florida State (6 pm, ESPN3) (7) Georgia at Missouri (7:45 pm, ESPN2) (8) Arkansas vs UL Monroe – in Little Rock, AR (7 pm, ESPNU) East Carolina at (9) South Carolina (12 pm, SEC Network/ESPN3) (11) Michigan State at Central Michigan (3:30 pm, ESPNU) Ball State at (12) Clemson (12:30 pm, ACC Network/ESPN3) (13) Wisconsin at Oregon State (4 pm, FX) Central Florida at (14) Ohio State (12 pm, ESPN2) Austin Peay at (15) Virginia Tech (12:30 pm, ESPN3) (16) Nebraska at UCLA (7:30 pm, FOX) New Mexico at (17) Texas (8 pm, Longhorn Network) (18) Oklahoma State at Arizona (10:30 pm, Pac-12 Network – Regional) Air Force at (19) Michigan (3:30 pm, ABC/ESPN2) Grambling at (20) TCU (7 pm, FSN Southwest) Miami at (21) Kansas State (12 pm, FX) Purdue at (22) Notre Dame (3:30 pm, NBC) Missouri State at (23) Louisville (3:30 pm, ESPN3) (24) Florida at Texas A&M (3:30 pm, ESPN) Duke at (25) Stanford (10:30 pm, Pac-12 Network – Regional) Other nationally available games --------------------------------------- Pittsburgh at Cincinnati (8 pm Thursday, ESPN) Utah at Utah State (8 pm Friday, ESPN2) Auburn at Mississippi State (12 pm, ESPN) Maryland at Temple (12 pm, ESPNU) New Hampshire at Minnesota (12 pm, BTN) NC State at UConn (12 pm, Big East Network/ESPN3) Penn State at Virginia (12 pm, ABC) Tulane at Tulsa (12 pm, FSN) Maine at Boston College (1 pm, ESPN3) Southern Illinois at Miami (OH) (1 pm, ESPN3) North Carolina at Wake Forest (3 pm, FSN South/ESPN3) Weber State at BYU (3 pm, BYUTV) Eastern Washington at Washington State (3 pm, Pac-12 Network – Regional) Sacramento State at Colorado (3 pm, Pac-12 Network – Regional) Southern Utah at California (3 pm, Pac-12 Network – Regional) Howard at Rutgers (3:30 pm, ESPN3) Iowa State at Iowa (3:30 pm, BTN) Rice at Kansas (3:30 pm, FSN) South Florida at Nevada (3:30 pm, CBS Sports) Indiana at UMass (3:30 pm, ESPN3) Georgia State at Tennessee (4 pm, ESPN3) Akron at Florida International (6 pm, ESPN3) UTEP at Ole Miss (7 pm, FSN South/ESPN3) Eastern Illinois at Western Michigan (7 pm, ESPN3) UL Lafayette at Troy (7 pm, ESPN3) Idaho at Bowling Green (7 pm, ESPN3) Memphis at Arkansas State (7 pm, ESPN3) New Mexico State at Ohio (7 pm, ESPN3) Presbyterian at Georgia Tech (7 pm, ESPN3) UT Martin at Northern Illinois (7 pm, ESPN3) Idaho at Bowling Green (7 pm, ESPN3) Texas Tech at Texas State (7 pm, ESPN3) Army at San Diego State (7:30 pm, NBC Sports) Kent State at Kentucky (7:30 pm, CSN South/ESPN3) Louisiana Tech at Houston (8 pm, CBS Sports) Vanderbilt at Northwestern (8 pm, BTN) Illinois at Arizona State (10:30 pm, ESPN)

No idea what to expect from Carolina this season. Most people are not as high on us as I was expecting, which is probably a good thing because it never seems to work out for the 'trendy' team on the rise year to year. I'm just very excited to see where this team can go. If not for Olindo Mare Carolina might have been 8-8 last year and I have to think with Kuechly, Davis and Beason back the defense should improve. Beat Tampa.

This is not a SEC thing, which I fear is going to be the narrative. This is an Alabama is [expletive] awesome thing. Oh, and Michigan shouldn't be in the top 10, that too.

In six years, the NCAA is really gonna let them have it.

What is your blinding hate of the Big Ten about? Butthurt you couldn't get into any of them? Just trolling? I don't know what his B1G hate is about either but considering he is a USC grad IIRC, I'd say not getting into a school there is not the reason.

Haha, I'm right there with you.

14-team keeper league, no PPR. Auction draft, though the figures mean nothing once the draft is over as there is no in-season cap. QB - Matt Stafford (kept from last year) WR - Dwayne Bowe WR - Mike Wallace RB - Roy Helu (kept from last year) RB - Frank Gore TE - Jacob Tamme WR/RB - A.J. Green (kept from last year) WR/RB - Torrey Smith Bench - Ben Roethlisberger, C.J. Spiller, Ben Tate, Denarius Moore, Percy Harvin K - Mason Crosby Def - Texans Only thing I'm not thrilled with is TE. If Arian Foster and/or Fred Jackson become hurt or ineffective I'm in for a gold mine, I feel.

That would probably make the coin flip even more important. I would think it would be better to kickoff first in that scenario. Ok, then....college rules I don't like college rules. I'd rather see college OT start from the 50 if they're going to do it that way.

They were suspended for the first game. You really don't see the joke in holding a suspension until October while playing in the key SEC games?

Nicholls State/Oregon State postponed by Hurricane Isaac (Nicholls unable to leave the area), no makeup day set.

Well, he's no woman. If LaRussa was still the manager he'd have his pitchers throwing at the Pirates the rest of the season Westbrook did throw at Josh Harrison later, angering Rod Barajas. Don't ever change, Cardinals.

Texas A&M's opener with La Tech moved to 10/13 for Hurricane Isaac. Aggies will now open with Florida. Welcome to the SEC, I guess.

Win. Or lose. Doesn't matter.

Meanwhile, Cierre Wood and Justin Utupo suspended the first 2 games at ND for some sort of team rules violation. Does anyone on that team want to fly to Ireland?

The local media contract ends after the 2013 season. The new deal will likely eclipse the Yankees contract. Texas just got about 150 mil a year (and the Angels a bit more), the Dodgers should be worth at least twice that. So the new owners are just trying to pump up interest before negotiations. note: The Cubs receive about 50 mil a year from WGN and CSN. Though the WGN contract ends 2014, the CSN contract doesn't until after 2019. I wonder if the Cubs will even have any interest in working a new deal with WGN now that the Tribsters aren't involved in ownership.

Is it because of Beckett and AGonz that Boston can find someone to take Crawford's reprehensible contract? I'm trying to figure out how Boston is going to get rid of that thing but no one will even sniff Soriano.

I won't believe it until they cut his scene out of the movie DodgeBall.

I think there was one in the spring and until Rees got arrested but I haven't seen one shred of evidence to suggest anyone but Golson would be starting since that happened (and especially after Kelly suspended Rees for a game and made that cryptic "you can move up the depth chart after that" comment that made clear Rees wasn't going to be starting right away once he was back). And to be clear, I'm all for that and have been for a while. I just didn't think it needed to take till late August to say so. Then again, I may just be fatigued from not having a for-sure starting QB at ND for the last 20 months or so. On another topic, Skip Holtz says Aaron Lynch is getting married this weekend. That must be some [expletive] girl to go to all this trouble for.

Multiple reports that Kelly's finally going to stop pretending there's a real competition and name Everett Golson the starting QB today.

I'm biased, but trading for Cam makes sense to me. He's a 1st round pick in just about any league this year I'd imagine.

Texas will have two LHN games this year, their first two. No Big 12 games on LHN apparently. So Texas and Texas State will have the same number of football games on Texas's network.

Gary Gray...name sounds familiar, but I can't put a face to it. Would you kindly ask him to please TURN HIS [expletive] HEAD AROUND Or at least assault the receiver in the damn end zone when the only way you are guaranteed a loss is if you don't?? in his defense, he actually drew an interference flag on that play too That pathetic attempt at interference was worse than just letting him catch the ball. Let's just move on before I kick something. :twisted:

Gary Gray...name sounds familiar, but I can't put a face to it. Would you kindly ask him to please TURN HIS [expletive] HEAD AROUND Or at least assault the receiver in the damn end zone when the only way you are guaranteed a loss is if you don't??

Looking more and more like another 8-win season from Kelly would actually be kind of impressive.