2011 College Football Season

We are in a brand new college football season and like any other season there are three teams I follow closer than others. The University of Alabama which looks to be on the path of another excellent season and how they do in certain games will determine National Championship caliber team or just another good season. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is my alma mater and they look to be heading to a bad to mediocre season. The last team is the University of Memphis and unless something drastically changes they are going to have another disastrous season.

Alabama has beaten to bad teams, one mediocre team in Penn St and this past weekend the badly beat the first team that might have been a challenge for them Arkansas. I watched Most of the Penn St game and all of the Arkansas game, and I have been very impressed with what I have seen. Next week is another challenge in Florida. If they get by Florida, they should handle the rest of their games, with LSU and Auburn being the biggest games left on the schedule. They have an incredible defense again and if they can score enough points they will be in the running again. Two years ago they won all the close game and last year they lost a few of them. Last year's season would have been good for most teams but a bit disappointing for Alabama.

The UAB Blazers have been blown out two games and lost a close game to East Carolina. Looking at the schedule, they appear to be better than Memphis and Florida Atlantic, but outside of the it is a stretch to say they will beat any other teams. I do not get to watch UAB up here very much but I follow them as closely as I can, and this year we are going to the Memphis game here in town. In the past few years UAB has been flirting with getting enough wins to make a lower tier bowl, but usually comes up short. Considering they are currently 0-3 I think winning 5 or 6 games would be a successful season. I would love them to get the point where they can win 8 plus games a year.

The last team I tend to follow is Memphis. I have a closer connection to Alabama and UAB, but I live in Memphis and there are a lot of people I know that live and die with the team. Even for a team that has not a huge football tradition the past couple of seasons have been hard for Memphis. Outside of beating Middle Tennessee State and Austin Peay Memphis has lost all of their games and have been beaten badly in most of those games. This year they have another game versus Middle Tennessee but other than that based on what Memphis has done so far the rest of the season looks bleak. So far this year Memphis has scored 44 (27 of those against Austin Peay) and had 154 points scored against them. You are not going to have a good season with that kind of ratio. Since I have lived in Memphis most seasons go like this, early in the season the fans are saying that year will be different, but after a few weeks of disappointing losses or more recently getting blown out, the thoughts of most Tigers fans turn to basketball very quickly. Like UAB fans I think most Memphis fans would like to see consistency out of their football team. Outside of a few good seasons when DeAngelo Williams was here Memphis football has been mediocre to bad. The future does not look good but with some commitment and money from the school and winning a few games to attract some fans back, there is a way to make Memphis a success in football.