CRAWFORD | Raise a glass! A dozen thoughts (and a limerick) on college football’s return

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — College football has returned, and not a moment too soon. It began with poetry, in Ireland. What better way to start?

Florida State, having argued for two years that it deserves better than the ACC, becomes the first team to occupy 17th place in the expanded conference. Pour a Guinness, if you haven’t already, lift it to toast Georgia Tech, and let’s count some things we have to look forward to this season.

What’s that? You need a season-opening limerick? Let’s give it a whirl.

• There once was a lad named Norvell
• Whose team didn’t play very well
• All summer they swore
• That their league leaves them poor
• Now their playoff hope’s all shot to hell.

Hey, look. I’m writing on deadline. Got better? Shoot it to me on Twitter @ericcrawford or e-mail ecrawford@wdrb.com.

It has been a strange preseason here in Louisville. In a rarity, the Cardinals play a typical college football opener. That is to say, it’s just a regular ho-hum opponent with little to distinguish itself (sorry, Austin Peay) beyond an offensive coordinator who was just fired after being arrested on human trafficking charges. Just going to leave that there.

It is, by my count, Louisville’s least consequential opener since 2016 when it opened with a 70-14 win over Charlotte. Since then, Louisville has opened with Purdue (coached by Jeff Brohm), No. 2 Alabama, No. 12 Notre Dame, WKU, No. 11 Ole Miss in the Chick Fil-A Kickoff game, at Syracuse and against Georgia Tech in the Aflac Kickoff Game in Atlanta.

Still, it makes a difference in terms of preseason anticipation and urgency, at least among fans and us media types. It’s probably not the worst thing, however, for a football team that may as yet have a few offensive wrinkles to iron out.

As far as future openers, Louisville opens with Eastern Kentucky next season, Villanova in 2026, at USF in 2027, at Texas A&M in 2028 and at home against Texas A&M in 2029.

Kentucky, meanwhile, has an intriguing first-game opponent in Southern Miss. As someone who has criticized the Wildcats for starting too soft and perhaps hurting their preparation for the rigors of SEC play, this game is a legitimate test, and one that could be beneficial with South Carolina visiting Lexington in Week No. 2 and top-ranked Georgia coming in Week 3.

The wake-up call comes early for Kentucky, which also has questions on offense but could have a top SEC defense.

The fact is, we know less about college football teams than we ever have, with the advent of the transfer portal and the tendency of college coaches to close the preseason doors. We know more about Louisville than most teams, because Brohm opened the team’s first seven practices to the public and media.

ESPN’s Andrea Adelson illustrated the difficulty of getting only the company line all preseason after Saturday’s Georgia Tech win, when she said via X, “everything we were told about Florida State — its strength up front, its depth at RB, DJU (D.J. Ulagalelei) acclimating, the defense with the potential to be the best under Adam Fuller — not as advertised today.”

Kudos, by the way, to WDRB and University of Louisville alum Katie George, for drawing the Week 0 assignment in Dublin. Was glad to see she got some golf in, and I have full confidence that she made the most of the Irish experience.

Katie has become a go-to for ABC/ESPN, drawing prime-time sideline assignments and knocking them all out of the park. She’ll return to the states for this week’s Miami-Florida matchup in Gainesville.

Which brings us to our announcing portion of the college football anticipation. Saturday was our first look at the new College GameDay, with Nick Saban easing into his seat on the desk. Saban is going to be outstanding. He’ll bring the same kind of preparation to his studio work as he did to the football field.

Unfortunately, neither one is a lock when it comes to winning. He picked Florida State as a No. 3 seed in the College Football Playoff. Rookie mistake.

Louisville fans were a bit miffed that the crew didn’t discuss the Cardinals at all when talking about the ACC leadership landscape, one year removed from playing in the league championships game. That just illustrates Louisville is in a “prove it” year, where the schedule is perceived as more difficult, and the team’s three-game losing streak to end last season is given more weight than the 10 games it won

In the end, however, it doesn’t matter how much the experts talk about you. Shoot, in addition to Saban, But he can be forgiven. Kirk Herbtreit and Pat McAfee also picked the Seminoles to make the playoffs.

It’s worth remembering, though, that Herbstreit did point out, via X, “Man, tough loss for the ‘Noles over in Ireland to a good GT team. The great news is that with the new 12 team bracket, there’s still plenty of opportunities to climb back into the bracket. Regroup and keep battlin’!”

And with that consolation from a guy FSU fans have been at war with all offseason, I’m sure their pain is made complete.

We have new rules. The two-minute warning is now part of college football, and played a role in Georgia Tech’s win, stopping the clock as it was marching down the field, trying to drain the clock before a game-winning field goal attempt. It also gave SMU an extra timeout late as it drove toward a game-winning touchdown late at Nevada.

My friend Steve Andress threw a flag on my use of “two-minute warning,” noting correctly that the college phrasing is “two-minute timeout.” He said I can expect a cease-and-desist order from the NFL anytime.

I don’t know. I do know you should watch for his Beat the Spread sports wagering show to resume soon on the WDRB Plus streaming app.

That’s also where you can catch Overtime, where Rick Bozich and I take a 30-minute look at a variety of sports topics twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays.

One more announcer note. Did you catch Trevor Matich on ESPN’s College Football Countdown after the Georgia Tech upset? Talking about the Yellowjackets’ answer to FSU’s scoring drive to open the game, Matich said, and I quote, “It just makes me think of women’s soccer.”

Awkward second of silence, then host Matt Barrie pipes up, “Do tell.”

Matich: “One of my favorite sports to watch, outside of football, is USA women’s soccer in international play, whether it’s in Olympics, or World Cup.”

He then went on to make a bit of a tortured comparison to a comeback in that sport versus Georgia Tech’s answer against Florida State. All due respect, our guy Tyler Greever would’ve tied it together better.

The other rule change in college football includes in-helmet communications for quarterbacks and a designated defensive captain. The move is expected to curtail sign stealing, which has probably been more rampant than most of us realized. Brohm talked about it at ACC media day. Last fall, Bobby Petrino said Clemson did a nice job of stealing signs against Louisville in his time there.

And last week, Arkansas defensive coordinator Travis Williams accused Louisville (under Scott Satterfield in 2021 and ’22) of stealing UCF’s signs when he was an assistant there.

“I remember we played Louisville, and he was really good,” Williams told On3Sports. “I saw the TV copy, and I could see the whole time he was just like this [writes on notepad], just watching, watching, watching. And then by halftime, they got your signals. I was at UCF. We played them that next year. I got his contact, and I called him. He sent me the whole thing. He said, ‘This is what we had.’ And it was like 80 percent correct. So we had to change our signals, because they just pass it around.”

Ahhh, college football. We’re so glad you’re back.

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