One of the most important questions of the upcoming 2008 season is this: Are the party-crashers ready to become, in this election year, party leaders? The answers will tell you how the sport's power structure is changing.
You remember the middle of last October, right? The month when the top 15 was populated by longtime stalwarts, old reliables such as... South Florida, Boston College, and Kentucky??? Connecticut came within a game of making a BCS bowl. Arizona State likewise stood just 60 winning minutes from a trip to Pasadena. Missouri and Kansas were two of the more consistent, powerful and enduringly successful ballclubs in the nation from start to finish. Illinois made the Rose Bowl under Ron Zook. It was that kind of a year.
College football therefore has a big story on its hands in 2008. The ability of these newcomers to back up their results and solidify their place atop the sport will say a lot about the programs being built in locales such as Tampa, Champaign and Lawrence. There's a world of difference between being the hunter and the hunted; while one glorious year will last a lifetime for the coaches and players who lifted their schools to the rarified air of a prestigious January bowl game, there is a more sweetly satisfying feeling to be had: the delicious sensation of knowing that you maintained your level of excellence the very next season.
The 2007 season was a crazy, dysfunctional mind-bender of a ride. The scary thing is that we're likely to see more such seasons in the future, as withering pressure and continued coaching carousels combine to have a leveling effect on the competitive balance of the sport. The teams that can attain any appreciable degree of stability are the teams that will enjoy a better long-term future. We'll begin to separate the marathon runners from the sprinters in 2008.
