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The Goal - See 'em all!

Change in opener - Gas prices will play some havoc as we build this year's slate.  We'd love to see Turner Gill coach Buffalo in its home opener against UTEP.  It's the 25th anniversary since we saw Gill win the MVP award in the inaugural Kickoff Classic when he and the Huskers crushed Penn State, 44-6.  It would also be fun to watch UTEP start our season for the second time in three seasons, but other opportunities as well as gas prices, saving a vacation day for a better opportunity, and a night at a hotel made us re-think our first weekend.  Army moved its home opener against Temple up to a Friday night start.  Makes us think we can enjoy a long Labor day weekend and spend an afternoon relaxing at West Point before the kickoff.  The next day, instead of six-hour drives to and from Buffalo, we'll drive four to Annapolis to see Navy open under Ken Niamutolo against Towson.  The start at 3:30 may allow us to get home late that evening to settle in on Sunday.  Then, in a surprise move, Rutgers hosts Fresno State on Labor Day.  We may be sitting in the visitors' section through our Fresno connection, Frank Cheimenti.  A triple-header weekend to start our 2008 season.  We'll take it!

New Championship Division venues - We've seen the College of William & Mary play from Rhode Island to Annapolis.  In all, they've played on our slate seven times over the course of our history.  Well this year, we finally plan to see The Tribe (the NCAA has approved their right to keep the name) play a home game at beautiful Cary Field at Walter J. Zable Stadium.  The Tribe still continues to thrive under Head Coach Jimmye Laycock who we saw coach in his second season at W&M back in 1981!  Not only will it be a first-time venue for us, but the Tribe's foe will be a first time team for us as we see them host Virginia Military Institute.  The second new FCS venue where plan to attend a game is Christy Mathewson Stadium, home of the Bucknell Bison.  Though we've passed the stadium many times during travels out to State College and even participated in a scrimmage there while attending Juniata, we've never seen a game there.  It's a beautiful little stadium, but sparsely attended by the student body.  Hopefully winning some games will liven things up at the venue named after the Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher when we plan to see them host Lafayette! 

Rubbing it in - On Monday, April 14, the Naval Academy football team visited the Rose Garden at the White House where President George W. Bush presented the Midshipman with their fifth consecutive Commander-in-Chief's Trophy.  He commended the team as the national leader in graduation rate.  On the field, he commented that the team set a school record by scoring 511 points and that they beat  Army for the sixth straight time, the longest winning streak versus Army in series history. But the real kicker was when President Bush announced that they beat Notre Dame for the first time since 1963. What timing!  He followed by saying, " I'm probably not going to spend much time talking to the Pope about it."

Scheduling possibilities- Games at Ohio State, Michigan, and West Virginia still loom as possibilities in 2008.  We won't hit them all this year, but LSU and Michigan State home games are also in the mix.  It comes down to the question of which games we can possibly get tickets for and which games we an get to most economically. Regretfully, it doesn't look like the Tulsa at Marshall game can work into our plans as the game is on tap for Thanksgiving weekend.  Time to get there is prohibitive without flying as we plan to be up in New England as usual,  and the cost of flying that holiday weekend is outrageous!   We still want to get to a game down there and want to visit the Memorial in honor of the people who died in 1970 including QB Ted Shoebridge who we watched play baseball growing up as kids.  Tennessee's Neyland Stadium is a primary target on our list of stadiums to attend games at, but we plan to kill two birds with one stone when the Vols host Western Kentucky to open the season in 2009.  We will add WKU as our 120th team when they officially transition that year to become Football Bowl Subdivision's newest member.

Army season tix?-Maybe! We're thinking about it as the package we were waiting for fell right into our laps.  The Temple game works out as mentioned.  Akron will be convenient as we have to attend a high school cross country meet not too far that morning, and Louisiana Tech will work out unless we come up with a ticket for one of the three new venues we have in our sights this this year.  A couple of these dates might be possibilities for the Big Tailgate party as well!  The Louisiana Tech tix may go to the Pee Wee League pre-season auction as a major possibility out of town is under consideration on the same date, Oct. 25.

Rutgers season tix?- We're applying.  The good thing is that the Knights play a couple of convenient Thursday night games so we have flexibility to attend games elsewhere on the following Saturdays.  If we lose out on the package and get a selection of one game like we did last year, we'll definitely jump on the UNC game on Thursday, September 11.  Surely there will be a lot of tributes that night on the seventh anniversary of that cowardly attack on the World Trade Center. As mentioned earlier, we also have a Fresno State connection to attend the opener.   RU will host UConn, and on a Thursday on December 4, they host Louisville in what ESPN is hoping to have some Big East Championship potential.  Other than that, nothing else on the schedule seems exciting.  A non-conference 1AA opponent is still being sought for September 27.  We hope it's more viable than Howard originally scheduled on August 30 or Army on Nov. 22.  Syracuse also plays at Rutgers Stadium on November 8. 

It's about time! -  Recently, we attended several sporting events at West Point this past spring including the Air Force vs. Army lacrosse game played in Michie Stadium.  We laugh when se looked up to see a "big screen" scoreboard sitting atop the south end of the stadium which looks big enough to fit in a good size living room.  It wasn't built for a football stadium.  It was recently announced that a new 30' X 50' screen is being installed this summer at that end of the stadium.  This should greatly improve Michie as a good place to enjoy a game!

A CFF first - Lehigh Valley DH - Our possibility for this year fell through as Lafayette's game against Harvard on Oct. 4 is slated for 1 pm, the same time Lehigh will probably kick off against Cornell.  Between the two game, the Leopards and The Crimson seem the better match since both may be pre-season favorites in their respective conferences.

Second timers - Now that we've seen every FBS team once and have a plan to see #120 when they become official, it's interesting to note how many opportunities have popped up this year to see some teams for only the second time!  Fresno comes to Rutgers. Oregon State journies to Penn State.   Akron will be seen for the second time playing at this level, and Indiana was only seen back in 1993!   Other games still under consideration may offer some second timers as well. 

CFF Ten years ago - On September 19, 1998, the family attended the sold-out opener of the new Princeton Stadium when the Tigers defeated Cornell, 6-0.  We had front row seats in the end zone which I have to say was the only time I can say the crossbar on the goal post obstructed my view of the playing field.  It didn't bother 5-year old Alex and 3-year old Eric as much. Ten years later, the kids have seen quite a few college games since.

CFF Twenty-five years ago - On September 10, 1983, John Massimilla and I watched Lafayette defeat East Stroudsburg in Easton, 20-10.  LB Mike Reichenbach who played for the visiting Warriors, went on to the professional level where he played for the Philadelphia Eagles.  The great shock to John and I came on the way home after this game learning that PSU, whom we saw trounced in the Kickoff Classic ten days earlier, lost to hapless Cincinnati, 14-3!

Joe names successor! - No not that Joe! Joe Tiller of Purdue will run the Boilermaker program through 2008 before handing head coaching duties to Associate Head Coach, Danny Hope.  Hope left Purdue in 2001 to take over as Head Coach of Eastern Kentucky.  He returns to West Lafayette this season after leading EKU to record of 35-22. As for Paterno, he and the PSU administration will discuss the future of the 81-year old legend after the 2008 season.  JoePa says he's good for another ten years!

Big loss - PSU has already lost its Linebacker-in-waiting already as they announce senior LB Sean Lee tore his ACL in practice and will be lost for the season.  We looked forward to watching him play next season as he is ready to step into the shoes of Dan Connor and Paul Poszlusny.  This will be a major loss for the Lions in 2008.

Delaware on board - One way or the other, we want to get the Fighting Blue Hens on this year's slate to see senior OL Jon Hermann play again.  We know his dad from playing at our alma mater, Juniata College.  Right now, we hope to see UD play on Oct. 11 when they host Maine in a 6pm start.  If we do, we'll have seen every current member of the best conference in the championship subdivision, The Colonial Athletic Association. If not, we'll see them play at Villanova on Nov. 22. We hope we can work out a chance to see the former.

Bowl bids - We're keeping an eye out for the date to be announced for the Holiday Bowl in San Diego this season.  That always seems to turn out to be an exciting bowl game between the Big 12 and PAC-10 every year.  If that makes sense, we're hoping we can call on some Rose Bowl connections to add the California Bowl swing to those to Florida and Texas over the last two years.  We figure where we go PSU goes.  They followed us to the Outback and Alamo Bowls the last two seasons after we already had our tickets in hand.  Get ready PSU fans!

Watch for more updates monthly during the off-season!  Watch us build our schedule and keep you up to date on highlights of the college football!

- Steve Koreivo, ed.