Preview Review Part 2

The next magazine we review for the 2009 college football season is Lindy's.

As we flip through, we don't see anything pertaining to Nevada or the WAC until we hit the Coaching Changes section, where they review DeWayne Walker at New Mexico St and Gary Anderson at Utah State.

This is typical of these magazines and makes reading them some what boring for us.

Then we hit an interesting section loaded with a bunch of little factiods. New Mexico State gets a blurb for being the longest bowl drought at 48 years and counting. Boise State makes the list of top non conference games with their Sept match-up with Oregon. The list of top conference games is only BCS games. They do a look ahead to the first 50 picks of the 2010 NFL draft which contains only Kyle Wilson from Boise and John Estes from Hawaii from the WAC and then Weatherspoon from Missouri and Sam Young from Notre Dame as Wolf Pack opponents.

We are glad they don't feel we play much NFL caliber this year. We feel our game with Notre Dame is as big a non conference game as any when you consider the Irish's recent track record in openers and their national clout. New Mexico St: insert Nelson Ha Ha.

Next are a bunch of pages on the last years big three Heisman candidates and other BCS stuff and then it gets to their preseason list of top teams. They rate BSU at 13 and claim no one in the WAC will beat them. The next Nevada opponent is Notre Dame at 37, followed by Missouri at 46. Then Nevada checks in at 69 and the remaining opponents follow behind.

Again, we feel like we are not in the bottom 40-50% of college football. And we don't feel that the WAC's #2, regardless of who it is, should be rated such. Whatever!

Lindy's then covers the All-American Teams. They rate John Estes as second team center. Weatherspoon and Wilson make the second team defense.

Nothing much to talk about here!

Now we get to the individual player rankings:

At QB Kaep checks in at 16. Opponents are Kellen Moore at 21 and Jimmy Clausen at 23.

At RB we have Taua in the 21 spot. The only opponent on the list is Derrick Washington of Missouri at 24.

On the WR list Nevada does not have anyone. Unfortunately this list does feature multiple opponents. Golden Tate and Michael Floyd from ND are 15 and 20. Ryan Wolfe from the Webels is 19.

The O-line shows John Estes as the #2 center and Sam Young is #7. No Nevada players.

No one makes the Defensive Ends or D-Line lists. Nor the Inside Backers list.

Weatherspoon is #2 on the Outside backers list.

The final positions that features an opponent is Kyle Wilson as the #4 corner.

So stupid. Like Basped shouldn't be on this list? Like Kaepernick and Taua are that low? No Nevada linemen? This just irritates us.

Ranking the offensive units as Lindy's does, we'll just say it right now. Dumb. They have Notre Dame as the #4 WR unit. That's it.

Next is the recruiting, which doesn't give any respect at all to Nevada. Team wise or individual wise.

Finally we get to the conference and team reviews:

There is a paragraph about Nevada in the WAC write-up which claims Kaepernick is the best all-around play maker in the league and Taua is the best back in the conference. They claim Chris Ault's pistol formation is a loaded gun this year.

When picking the WAC they list Nevada at #2. The good news: Chris Ault's pistol offense has perfect QB at helm in Kaepernick. The bad news: Too often this team does things like lose to New Mexico State. Our call: If they can navigate the WAC without incident, a Nov 22 game at BSU could be fun.

So after reading this magazine, it's very obvious they have no respect for the WAC at all. Typical.

When picking the All-Wac Team:

1st Team: QB Colin Kaepernick, RB Vai Taua, TE Virgil Green, OL Alonzo Durham, DL Kevin Basped, P Brad Langley.

2nd Team: OL Mike Gallett, DL Dontay Moch.

They listed Green, which is interesting. We think he'll have a big year too, but it's surprising that a national magazine would know that.

As for the big games, they list Nevada at Notre Dame and Missouri at Nevada.

Well those are big games, but how can you not say the Nov 27th at BSU game is not THE big game on our slate this year?

Top 10 NFL Talent:

1. Kaepernick (Fifth person to rush for 1,000 and pass for 2,000 yards)

4. Taua (Led league with 1,521 rushing yards 15 touchdowns)

MVP: Kaepernick

Honor Roll:

Strongest Arm: Kaepernick

Best Scrambler: Kaepernick

Toughest to Bring Down: Taua

Best Pass Rusher: Moch

Now onto the Nevada Preview:

Players to watch are listed at Taua, Lippincott, Kaepernick, Basped, Moch, Amaya, Wellington, and Gallett.

Primary Strength is: offense, offense, and oh yeah, offense. Kaepernick is the reigning Offensive Player of the Year in the WAC. The Pack has the leading rusher from last season (Taua) and from two years ago (Lippincott).

Potential Problem is: the growing pains from the switch to a 4-3 defensive alignment were on display at times last season as Nevada lost - and won - several shootouts. The loss of Marko Mitchell and Mike McCoy will leave the receiving duties in some young hands.

The write-up breakdown of the team covers things pretty well. They believe the Pack will be able to score with even more ease this year. Wimberly and Sessions are listed as replacements for Mitchell and McCoy. They also talk about the running game and having Lippincott back for a 6th year. They talk about the growing pains of the 4-3 switch and some of the individual highlights like Basped and Moch, Amaya, Thompson, Johnson and Marshall. They also talk about Langley as a punter and the recruiting of Ricky Drake to kick.

For the fantasy portion of the magazine they rate the following:

Colin Kaepernick #8 QB

Vai Taua #23 RB

Nick Rhodes #15 K

That wraps up the magazine.

Overall, we didn't think Lindy's was that favorable of us, and therefor we didn't think it was that great. Guess the team is going to have to prove just how wrong they were during the season.