College football is finally upon us and not a moment to soon for Mizzou fans who have been looking forward to this season like a 6-year-old anticipating Christmas morning. Fans in Columbia believe this is their year to break into a BCS bowl game and beyond, and with good reason.

The Tigers return their top three offensive players and ten starters on the defensive side of the ball from a team that was ranked #1 in the nation at one point last year. The 2007 Tigers beat not one but two BCS bowl qualifying teams at neutral sites in the regular season before beating down on an SEC team in a New Years Day bowl. The annual Black & Gold Spring Game was nationally televised for crying out loud! Expectations are high!

With all of this preseason hype I feel it is my duty as a constantly disgruntled college football fan to step in and warn everyone jumping on Gary Pinkel’s bandwagon about the dangers of their high hopes.

These high hopes come from fans, college football fans are by nature irrational; fan after all is short for fanatic. Once these irrational fanatics get one taste of success they quickly develop an overbearing sense of entitlement. "To the victors go the spoils," and in the world of college football the fan bases become spoiled quickly. After a good season or two fans, alumni, and boosters start thinking like the kid who gets the N64 one year for Christmas one year and assumes he will get a PS2 the next. When that poor misguided kid ends up getting a Webster’s Dictionary he is so disappointed that he losses sight of what is really important about Christmas (the birth of Christ or a few weeks off school depending on your outlook).

Irrational expectations create an environment where coaches quickly become victims of their own success. Take Phil Fulmer of Tennessee for example: he won a National Championship in 1999, has 147 career wins going into this year, and has won a share of the SEC East title 6 times in 15 years. Despite all of Fulmer’s success common thought in Knoxville is that if Fulmer were fired tomorrow it would be three years too late.

I myself was once a spoiled college football fan. Allow me to take you back to the early ‘90s, I was just a little red, trying to think of schemes to keep from going to elementary school and still wetting the bed on a semi regular basis. Sometime around fall of 1991 I began to hypothesize that Santa Clause was not as real as I had been lead to believe and realized I needed a new grandfatherly figure of excellence to worship. To fill the void left by Kris Kringle I chose…Lou Holtz.

The Lou Holtz Notre Dame teams of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s were arguably the best in the country at the time. To an eight year old Brian Bardsley they were the ninja turtles, G.I. Joes, and a supersoaker 250 rolled into one.

  In November of 1993 Notre Dame was ranked #1 in the country after beating Florida State who hand previously held the top spot. A week later in their last regular season game Notre Dame was upset at home by Boston College effectively ruining any chance the Irish had at the National Championship that year. I figured Notre Dame would be back in the title hunt the next year and every year after that for the rest of my life, I was wrong to say the least

Since Holtz left South Bend I have watched a clueless former Texas A&M defensive coordinator Bob Davie defecate on the program I loved (is clueless Aggie too redundant?). Then there was the brief George O’Leary debacle and then the absolutely failed Tyrone Willingham era (I feel like I need to note that Willingham’s tenure at ND was not because he was black.  Its cause he is a garbage coach who lost to USC by 31 points back to back years and cared more about improving his golf game than recruiting in the off-season). This past season I watched the team I once thought would never finish outside the top ten in the nation win a grand total of 3 games and lose on back to back weekends at home to military academies.

The point I am trying to get across to Mizzou fans is they should take nothing for granted and keep their expectations in check. They won’t win the National Title this year, not even the Big XII Championship, and probably won’t even make it to a BCS bowl game. While most major publications predict the Tigers to improve on last year’s two-loss season I actually see them taking a step back and losing three.

They proved last year they could not hang with the big boys of the Big XII South losing to Oklahoma twice. Beating a team twice in one season is supposed to be one of the most difficult things to do college football and the Sooners made it look easy. This year OU will only have to be the Tigers once and will do so the first week of December at Arrowhead Stadium in the conference championship game. The other loss of this season at the hands of the southern half of the Big XII will be October 18 at Texas.

The neutral site rivalry games that bookend the schedule should not be a problem for Chase Daniel and the boys, I see them beating Illinois and Kansas by 10 points apiece. The third loss of the season will come in banana peel slip fashion at hope in the ladder third of the schedule.  Similar to when you are dominating the field at Bowser’s castle in Mario Kart then slip on a banana peel just before the finish line and finish in fifth place.  You can’t believe it happened, your upset, and you want to restart the game.  Sadly for the Tigers they will not have the luxury of a redo when they fall to an inferior opponent this season. 

I can see the October 25 home game against Colorado as a prime candidate for the banana slip. The Buffs gained some street cred in the upset category last year when they beat #3 Oklahoma. This year’s team should be even better due to sophomore quarterback Cody Hawkins having another year to learn the Colorado system. The game is on homecoming and is the week after the Texas game. There’s no way a team of Mizzou’s caliber could lose back to back games on homecoming to a coaches son, is there?

If the Tigers do make it past homecoming expect them to have a hiccup November 8^th against Kansas St. on "Black Out Day," in Columbia (I could go on a heck of a tangent about blackouts and Saturday afternoons on a college campus but I don’t see how that could add to my credibility). The Wildcat’s QB Josh Freeman is one of the best in the nation, and this is the same KSU team that beat down Texas in Austin last year.

3 losses, it’s not that bad. It’s not great, probably not what MU is hoping for, but not that bad. Remember Tiger fans, last year you were not even ranked in the preseason top 25, you are improving steadily. Freshman quarterback Blaine Gabbert was one of the top recruits in the nation this past year; Jeremy Maclin and Sean Weatherspoon will have eligibility left after this year, the program is headed in the right direction.
Now for some more quick predictions for this years upcoming season:

1. Kansas’s fans will be even more disappointed than Missouri’s. Note to KU: You’re a basketball school in a cool college town with a football program that will never win the Big XII. Missouri is a flat out better football program, Nebraska will be back, and you will never be able to compete on a regular basis with OU or the big 3 Texas schools in the Big XII South.  The Jawhawks can look forward to a five loss season.

2. The winner of the Ohio St. USC early season match up will play for in the BCS title game. Everyone wants to rip on the Buckeyes because of their performances the past two seasons in January. This is the most talented team Tressel will field in his tenure at Ohio State, even better than the 2002 team that won it all. The Todd Boeckman/ Terrell Pryor quarterback combination is similar to the Florida combination of Chris Leak and Tim Tebow that beat Ohio St. in the title game two years ago.
We know USC will be good "they don’t rebuild they reload," is every talking heads favorite line about Pete Carroll’s program. If quarterback Mark Sanchez is healthy early he should develop into a fine player as the season goes on, and their defense should be one of the best in the nation.
3. Clemson will be the wackiest team in the NCAA. They will be the David Hasselhouf of college football; fun to watch, but nothing to take too serious.  They have offensive skill players that can hold their own with any team in the country, but inexperience on the offensive line. They’ll lose up to four games this year, but because of how weak the ACC is they’ll win the conference and then inexplicably beat the number two team from the Big XII in a BCS game.
4. Louisville will be the flavor of the year in the Big East. The Big East is as crazy as any conference in college football. Louisville, West Virginia, USF, UConn, and Rutgers have all held the top spot in the conference over the past two seasons, I didn’t even know half those schools had football programs. Quarterback Hunter Cantwell’s ability to stay healthy compared to West Virginia’s Pat White makes me think Louisville is the team to watch in the northeast.

5.  Most of what you have just read well end up being wrong, and that is what makes college football season so great.