At least one non-Sooner moment to look forward to this weekend

[Jacie]

I am guaranteed to see a team on my like-to-see-them-lose list go down.

sa*et @ domer, one of them starts 2015 0-1.

[dwarthog]

Yep, horns are likely going to start off with a loss. Hopefully it's an epic one so the meltdown for the fans kicks into high gear immediately this year!

[BigTip]

There are just so many times when you can root for texass guilt free. This is one of them. Let them win...good for Big 12, better for us when we beat them.

I don't see them winning though.

[TheHumanAlphabet]

A ShaggySaxet meltdown and shutdown would be nice followed by the eating of their own young (coaches) would be nice!

[dwarthog]

Oh yeah. The pump is primed too with them being forced to do a name change by Patterson's hit lawyers. IF they get rolled over up there it could be epic.

[KantoSooner]

That game alone is proof of God's existence. Only a supreme being could have created something so perfect.

[VegasSooner]

One of those games when you wish that the NCAA still allowed ties.

[dwarthog]

I have no love for the domers, but beating saxeT is always something to root for. Particularly if the domers run over and through them like they are a JV squad.

[aurorasooner]

Pretty good article in the NY Times about the scheduling of these high quality match-ups on CFB's opening weekend instead of major college teams playing the east popcorn states and directional U's. The payouts from these ""kick-off classic decent match-up type games on the Labor Day/opening weekend may be getting too high for some athletic depts to ignore.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/03/sp...ry-continues-2

“It was difficult to find good inventory in Week 1,”

Previously, college football had eased into the season with a glut of low-risk mismatches, which produced a series of blowouts that came and went unnoticed amid the fanfare of the arrival of the N.F.L. season.

There are many reasons behind the surge in neutral-site games, including fans’ thirst for marquee matchups early in the season and the more practical budget needs of athletic directors.

Alabama and Wisconsin will each receive $4 million for their game this weekend. Stokan, whose organization created the early Atlanta kickoff game because it did not land a Bowl Championship Series game under the old format, said Auburn and Louisville would each be paid $3.5 million for their visit on Saturday.

In many cases, striking deals has been about money. Brown said he often made more calls to colleges gauging their interest in playing neutral-site games than he received because athletic directors did not want to surrender their home-game revenue.

But the payouts from the games have begun to overcome that hurdle; Alabama will receive $6.5 million for its appearance in next season’s kickoff game against U.S.C. in Texas.

“From the business side of it, when you play home-and-home, like we did with Penn State,” Saban said, “you do great financially when you play them here; you don’t do great when you play them there. These games give you an opportunity to be positive every year.”

For coaches, though, the opening games have quickly become valuable opportunities because of the influence they can have on the calculus and perceptions that produce the rankings for the annual College Football Playoff.

A game against a top-10 team at a neutral site to start the season might have lifted the profile of one-loss Baylor or one-loss Texas Christian in 2014. The Bears and the Horned Frogs did not play a conference championship game, and their relatively weak schedules were used against them in the debate over the four teams picked for the first playoff, in January.

On Saturday, No. 6 Auburn will play Louisville in the latest kickoff game in Atlanta, and No. 15 Arizona State will face Texas A&M in Houston. The third-ranked Crimson Tide will play their sixth neutral-site kickoff game in the last eight seasons when they meet No. 20 Wisconsin in the Cowboy Classic in Arlington, Tex.

In 2016, Orlando will join the schedule when it hosts a Week 1 matchup between Florida State and Mississippi. Other games next year will feature Southern California playing Alabama in Arlington, Louisiana State playing Wisconsin in Green Bay, and North Carolina playing Georgia in Atlanta. (That first weekend in 2016 will also include U.C.L.A. playing the first game in Texas A&M’s expanded stadium, Clemson’s visit to Auburn, and Notre Dame’s season opener at Texas.)

[Therealsouthsider]

.....the rare Alpha-Omega game

.....The 47game win streak began with a victory over Texas and ended with the loss to Notre Dame

.....a very rare mtg for sure


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