The 2014 college football season, more than any other, may be the year you need to load up on NoDoz to follow the late-night happenings of what should be the most competitive season on the gridiron in the Pac-12 Conference.
The latest edition of The A Lot of Sports Talk Podcast continues its look at some of the main storylines heading into the beginning of the college football season, and we spoke with national college football reporter Lisa Horne, formerly of FoxSports.com and Bleacher Report reporter and the founder of PigskinGrind.com, to preview all things Pac-12 football. How highly regarded is the Pac-12 going into the season? Well, half of the league’s members were ranked in the Preseason AP Top 25, and two of those teams – Oregon and UCLA – were ranked in the Top 10. (In ALOST’s 2014 Preseason College Football Top 25, Stanford also made the Top 10 at No. 10.) Lisa breaks down each of those teams’ prospects, including whether this is a make-or-break season for Oregon in terms of finally breaking through and winning a national title. Also, we discuss whether Chris Petersen (Washington) or Steve Sarkisian (USC) will have a bigger impact in year one at his new school, as well as share our opinions of the new College Football Playoff in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
There’s already a playoff in the Football Championship Subdivision, and last season, the Fordham Rams were one of the revelations in all of D-1, winning a school-record 12 games, including a win in the first round of the FCS Playoffs. The head coach of the Rams, Joe Moorehead, talked with us about his team’s final preparations going into 2014 and how his team can repeat as Patriot League Champions and continue to be one of the most dynamic offenses in football.
Our first interview, though, takes us to the race track and into pit row, as we talk with Nino Venezia, mechanic/pit crew member for Andretti Autosport and driver Ryan Hunter-Reay. This past Memorial Day weekend, Hunter-Reay won the Indianapolis 500 in one of the most thrilling finishes in the race’s history, and Venezia shared with us, among many other things, how he and his crew had to be creative in watching the final lap of the race when there were technical difficulties in the pit area’s TV feed, as well as whether he had some of the milk that Hunter-Reay had after winning The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
Please enjoy the podcast, and leave us any and all comments that you have. Click here to go to the A Lot of Sports Talk podcast page on iTunes, and from there, you can download this show as well as subscribe to our podcast page and receive new episodes on your device the second it is posted. You can also open iTunes, and in the Podcasts section, type in “A Lot of Sports Talk” in the search box to find our shows.
Interview Order: Intro (0:00-3:18); Nino Venezia (3:20-20:48); Lisa Horne (20:52-1:02:53); Joe Moorehead (1:02:58-1:10:44); Wrap-up (1:10:49-1:13:28)
[Cover photo (Ryan Hunter-Reay) courtesy Chris Trotman/Getty Images]
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