College Football Preview: Tebow, Tebow, and more Tebow!

Coming into this college football season, it seems like the name 'Tim Tebow' is included in any sort of Heisman, SEC, or National Championship conversation. And rightfully so. Tebow is poised to cap off his career at Florida and become one of the best players in college football history (not to mention he has the best William Wallace impression in college football).

Think about it: If Tebow's Gators win the National Championship this year, he'll leave school with three national titles and a Heisman trophy. If the Gators somehow don't win it all, but Tebow takes home the Heisman, he'll have two national titles and two Heisman trophies. And apparently winning college football hardware has its perks...

NO ONE has those kind of college football credentials. Archie Griffin is the only player to win the Heisman Trophy twice, but he never won a National Championship. Red Grange, listed by

ESPN as the best college football player of all-time, won a National Title for Illinois in 1923, but didn't have a trophy case close to that of Tebow's.

Arguments can be made as to whether Tim Tebow will end up as "The best college football player to ever live." But after this season, Tim Tebow very well may end up as "The most decorated college football player to ever live."

Here's a conference-by-conference breakdown the 2009 college football landscape:

SEC Champion: Florida Gators.

- The Southeastern Conference is the best in college football. The Gators return Tebow and a host of others, with the only major loss being that of Brandon Spikes on defense. If the Gators can survive a road trip to LSU (Oct. 10), I see them going undefeated.

Big 12 Champion: Texas Longhorns

- The 'Horns got screwed over last year, with a couple ridiculous tie-breakers leaving them out of the Big 12 championship game. Colt McCoy returns after bulking up in the off-season (I hear he's added 10-15 pounds) and looks to take Texas back to the promised land. The loss of Brian Orakpo on defense hurts, but if the Longhorns can take care of Sam Bradford and Oklahoma on October 17th, look for them to run the table.

Big Ten Champion: Penn State

- The Big Ten is a two team race this year between Ohio State and the Nittany Lions. The return of Terrell Pryor makes the Buckeyes dangerous, but with the loss of Beanie Wells and Michael Jenkins, I gotta give the nod to Penn State (It's not like this conference has any clout, however, losing their last four trips to the Rose Bowl and Ohio State losing twice in National Title games).

Big East Champion: South Florida

- In a mediocre conference, I gotta go with the team with the two biggest names - Matt Grothe and George Selvie. West Virginia and Cincinnati may challenge the Bulls, but look for South Florida to end up on top (unlike the Big Ten, the Big East has won three of its last four BCS bowl games).

PAC 10 Champion: Oregon

- Somewhat going out on a limb here and picking against USC, mainly because of the QB issues in Southern Cal. Oregon has

an X-factor under center in Jeremiah Masoli, which could be the difference between the Ducks and Trojans this year.

BCS Buster: TCU

- The Horned Frogs are ranked in the top-20 of both major polls. They have two tough games on their schedule - September 12th at Virginia, and October 24th at BYU. If they can win both of those games, look for Texas Christian to break into the BCS bowl party.

Greg Paulus - Orange Savior?

By now, everyone knows the story of Greg Paulus. The multitalented Syracuse native is now the starting quarterback for his hometown Orange, and in charge of leading the "Cuse back to the promised land of college football.

The big question lingering now is this - how high should we set the bar for Paulus? What are reasonable expectations for him this season?

After playing basketball for four years at Duke, it is fair to assume that some rust had gathered on that cannon of a right arm that slung 152 touchdown passes during his high school career. Cuse fans have to hope that the rust is all but gone after the past couple weeks of practice. So, then, what exactly is Paulus? A legit QB threat? Or essentially a freshman who is still learning the "ins and outs" of college football?

I believe the big question for Paulus will be his mentality. Sure, his college football experience is zero, but he HAS been a college athlete for four years. The guy played in one of the toughest venues of college basketball (Cameron Indoor) and held his own (and he's also put up with some of the craziest fans in college basketball). So it's not totally fair to label him as a freshman - but yet, he still has no experience under center at the college level. If Paulus's maturity can quickly reduce the QB learning curve, then I believe the Orange can realistically look at five or six wins this season.

Regardless of what happens this season, I think the "Paulus effect" has already been positive for everyone associated with the Orange, including the fans. Think about this for a moment: The

Syracuse Orange football team has been absolutely DISMAL for the better part of a decade now. Long gone are the days of Paul Pasqualoni, Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison, and Dwight Freeney. Fans have been searching for positives over the past half dozen years, and they certainly have been hard to come by (the Orange's 24-23 victory over Notre Dame last year is probably the highest note of the past six years). Greg Paulus has brought to the Orange nation what has been missing for so many years: HOPE. Fans look at Paulus as someone who could POTENTIALLY bring the program back. The key word here is POTENTIALLY - but even potential is something that has been missing for the Orange in recent years, which is why the Greg Paulus experiment is a good thing for Syracuse.

No one knows for sure how Syracuse will perform this season with Paulus under center. All I know for sure is that I'll be tuning in on September 5th when the Orange open their season at home against Minnesota.

Brett Queener living the life

Brett Queener (Penn Yan/Albany lax alum) pretty much has what I would consider THE dream job - go around to different lacrosse camps during the summer and teach kids the game, and occasionally video tape random stuff from the camps. Oh yeah, and when he's not at camp, he plays professionally for the Toronto Nationals. Here's another installment of his famed "Queener Cam" from his time at UAlbany's "Top Dog" Lacrosse Camp.