Wednesdays With Dr. Football, is it August yet?

Wednesdays With Dr. Football comes at you a bit late because today there is so much going on. My gosh, football season must be around the corner.

1. I was watching a couple of interviews with Charlie Strong during Big 12 Media Days on Tuesday and it’s pretty clear he has taken a lot of Urban Meyer with him. He has cordoned off the Hook ‘Em display in the locker room and players can’t get near it until they’ve earned the right. (Remember when Meyer kicked the team out of the UF locker room when he first arrived?) And this quote could easily have come from Meyer when he was at Florida. “We you talk about core values, it’s very simple. When you talk about honesty, when you talk about treating women with respect, when you talk about no drugs, no stealing, no guns, that’s something that they’ve grown up with.”

2. OK, which of these three statements during the talking season do you think is true?

Jimbo Fisher: “Jameis Winston made an honest mistake.”

Bob Bowlsby: “Cheating pays in college football.”

Bobby Petrino: “The ACC Atlantic reminds me of the SEC West.”

Jimbo, how do you know what his intent was? Bob, you’re right because there are no more TV bans but it’s not fair to paint all programs with a broad brush. Bobby, if that is true why can’t you find 10 college football fans who can identify which teams are in the Atlantic?

3. ESPN is counting down its top 25 games from last season and it has Alabama-Texas A&M as No. 23. No. 23? It might have been No. 1. All I know is I watched the entire game Tuesday night when I knew who had won it.

4. Bovada came out with its odds to win the national titles and FSU and Alabama are co-favorites. Florida is 33-1 which is also what the odds are for Stanford, South Carolina and Wisconsin. I’m not trying to be a pessimist but I guarantee I’d bet on those other three before I’d bet on Florida. I think the Gators are going to have a very good team but national champs? Of course, we also know that there could be a team that comes out of nowhere like Auburn did last year and with a playoff the odds of a darkhorse winning it all have to be increased don’t they? If I was a betting man, I’d probably lay some bucks on Michigan State, which is 25-1. But I don’t gamble.

5. If the odds are correct, it would mean we’d have these semifinal games — Alabama-Oklahoma and FSU-Oregon. That should get you fired up. My biggest question about the committee is whether they will manipulate rankings to avoid rematches. Let’s say they have Alabama one and Georgia four. Or Oregon one and Stanford four. Might they bump up one of those No. 4 teams a notch to avoid two conference teams playing each other? Or let’s say Auburn, with one loss, hands South Carolina its first loss of the season in the SEC Championship Game and the committee has them ranked second and third. Does anybody think they’d match them up in the semifinal? Do you care in July?

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