BARNEStorming: Thoughts Around the College Football World
OXFORD, Miss. — Saturday is the first official day of the 2025 college football season. It also marks the beginning of year 34 of me doing this nonsense for money.
To put that into context, Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham is 35 years old now.
So when I first covered West Georgia College versus Troy State in 1991, the coach that led the Sun Devils to the College Football Playoffs last season was in Pampers.
At least I still have most of my hair.
Now onto the inaugural Barnestorming for the season.
THE KIFFIN AFFECT
Last weekend the Jets played the Giants in a preseason game. Perhaps the NFC version should be called the New York Kiffins.
One one play, former Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart was throwing to wide receiver Juice Wells who played for the Rebels last season.
At running back was Devin Singletary who played at Florida Atlantic — for Lane Kiffin.
ON THE RIGHT PATH
Recently the College Sports Commission was formed. The body will be overseeing revenue sharing, roster limits and name, image and likeness situations for all sports in college. That is a good start.
The NCAA will still regulate rules of games and eligibility.
But the CSC will have autonomous power, led by the former executive vice president of legal operations and operations for major league baseball.
Again, a good start.
A full-time commission that supervises the College Football Playoffs is the next step..
Still, a step in the right direction.
AUBURN, REALLY?
The first line of the Auburn fight song is, “War Eagle fly down the field.”
But on the Plains, I guess they think if that bird won’t fly, say it did anyway.
Auburn has decided to claim a bunch of national championships. To their credit, the Tigers have some sources to do it. AU has been awarded national titles by such credible entities as the Maxwell Ratings, the Montgomery Full Season Championship and James Howell’s Power Rating System.
Fret not, Ole Miss fans. I will publish a post-season poll this season and the Rebels can start ordering championship rings.
A GROUP OF FIVE SLEEPER
How about that team that is down the road on Interstate 55 South?
Tulane can be sneaky good this season.
The Green Wave will have BYU transfer Jake Retzloff at quarterback after he transferred from the Utah school. He had to leave Provo because he committed the sin of spending the night with his girlfriend. (As if Jim McMahon never hooked up in college.)
He is a leader as he was a co-captain for the Cougars last season, so Retzloff will be an asset to Tulane.
And the Green Wave’s schedule. They open with Northwestern at home, but will have tough back-to-back games later against Texas-San Antonio and Memphis.
There is also a trip to Oxford September 20. If the Rebels don’t have their stuff together, it could be a long day at Vaught-Hemingway. No doubt Green Wave head coach Jon Sumrall will be comfortable in Oxford; he was an assistant coach at Ole Miss before becoming the head coach at Troy and then Tulane. He worked as the linebackers coach for the Rebels in 2018.
FINALLY
Yes, Saturday we actually have college football on the field. The first game of the season is Iowa State against Kansas State.
The two good things about this one is both teams are ranked and the game is in Dublin, Ireland.
I have been to Ames, Iowa and to Manhattan, Kan. I’d rather be in a Dublin pub.
An under-the-radar game Saturday is an FCS contest between UC-Davis and Mercer in Montgomery. The Aggies are ranked seventh nationally, Mercer number 11.
My old boss, Johnny Williams, used to be in charge of this game and he passed away in the off season. ESPN should honor him during the broadcast.
I do have a connection to both of these schools. I once lived in Macon, Ga., only about ten minutes from the Mercer campus.
My high school friend Shannon Weems Anderson is Professor Emerita at UC-Davis.
She holds a degree from Harvard in business economics. I learned to type about ball and find the shortcut to Memphis through Sardis at Ole Miss.
That is a pretty good example of the spectrum of the educational experience at our alma mater, Gonzalez (Fla.) Tate High School.
I will take Davis in this one and not just because of Shannon. UC-Davis and Tate are both the Aggies.
Steve Barnes
Steve Barnes joins The Rebel Walk staff as a senior writer and brings a trifecta of journalistic experience. As a writer, he has covered college sports for Rivals.com, Football.com and SaturdayDownSouth.com as well as served as a beat writer for various traditional newspapers.
He has been a broadcaster for arena football and several national tournament events for the National Junior College Athletic Association as well as hosting various shows on radio.
A former sports information director at Albany (Ga.) State University and an assistant at Troy and West Florida, he has helped host many NCAA conference, regional and national events, including serving five years on the media committee of the NCAA Division II World Series.
Barnes, a native of Pensacola, Fla., attended Ole Miss in 1983-84, where his first journalism teacher was David Kellum. The duo has come a long way since that time.
He will bring a proven journalistic track record, along with a knack for finding the out-of-the-ordinary story angles to The Rebel Walk.
Barnes continues to reside in Pensacola a mere ten minutes from the beach because he does have taste and a brain.
