By Bill Kristoph

Hi everyone. Every Thursday I’m planning to release Power Rankings this year. It’s solely based on my opinion, and it meant to open up some debate.

15. Arizona State - ASU has a potent offense.

14. Miami - They might be a lot better than #14, or a lot worse.

13. California - They have USC’s number. Will they have the rest of the Pac-10’s?

12. Georgia - The Bulldogs have one of the best backfields in the nation.

11. Florida State - If FSU stays healthy, they will contend for the BCS game. Short-term, however, another ACC title should be the goal.

10. Notre Dame - Not as good as the hype many are giving them, but not as bad as they used to be.

9. West Virginia - They’re a solid team in the awful Big East. That alone will get them far this season.

8. Oklahoma - If they get by the Oregon Ducks, they might go undefeated.

7. Florida - Year two of the Urban Meyer Experience should yield an SEC title and a major bowl game.

6. LSU - Survive the schedule and they’ll win the National Title. Too bad they won’t win a couple of those road games. (@ Florida, @ Tennessee, @ Auburn)

5. Virginia Tech - Is this the year the Hokies don’t choke?

4. Ohio State - Loaded with talent and with versatile Troy Smith at QB, the Buckeyes will kill the Big 10.

3. USC - Until someone knocks them off in the Pac-10 they are a de-facto Top 3 team.

2. Auburn - The Bowl Game loss to the Badgers will motivate the Tigers this season.

1. Texas - Vince Young is gone, but Texas is primed for another title run.

I was checking out Seminoles.com and came across a small blurb about FSU having the nations #5 media guide for football in 2005. While I realize that there are editors that were undoubtedly pleased and honored by the recognition, I wonder who and why someone bothers to track the quality of media guides? And what is the grading system for them? I tried to dig up how they are graded, but I couldn’t find it on the CoSIDA website… anyone out there have an idea?

ScalpEm.com wishes you a Happy Independence Day.
And don’t forget to wish me, NoleCC / Bill, a Happy Birthday!

When looking at the upcoming 2006 football season, there are a number of traditional picks for the football team’s MVP. Quarterback is always a likely candidate, and #11 Drew Weatherford certainly has the leadership ability and talent to be FSU’s #1. Lorenzo Booker & Antone Smith also could be picked at the running back position, provided the offensive line gives them some lanes to run through. However, both will see a lot of action, likely negating an opportunity for out-of-this-world stats. A defensively-minded person could point to the numerous talented players on that side of the ball, but let’s be honest, it’s a rare defender that wins MVP.

So who will carry the ‘Noles to great heights this season? #89 Greg Carr (pictured). How can FSU’s key player and ScalpEm.com’s pick for MVP be a young wide receiver? Simple, Greg Carr makes other coaches plan specifically for him.

As an opposing coach, there are two schools of thought. Double-team Carr to eliminate him from the game, or match him up 1-on-1 and see what happens. In the second half of last season, both strategies seemed to work. In reality, it was because Drew Weatherford spent more time on his backside than upright throwing passes. If Weatherford has time, a 1-on-1 matched Carr will out-jump and out-play any defender. The ‘Noles have a big, strong, athletic #1 receiver for the first time in ages. As for the double-teaming idea that worked so well last year, with FSU’s newest offensive weapons that option is not viable. Can teams afford to leave Caz Piurowski uncovered at Tight End? How about a streaking Antone Smith out of the backfield? And if Chris Davis reaches his potential at wide receiver, the opposition had better buy plenty of Tums for their sour stomachs.

Seminoles fans should keep their eyes on #89 this season, or risk missing one of the best the ACC has to offer.

Welcome to the new format of ScalpEm.com! Things have changed. ScalpEm.com is lighter, faster and better. So what’s a visitor to do? Well, let’s start with: What’s missing from this new site?

• Message Board
• Calendar
• Schedules
• Other Extraneous Junk

Why are they missing? First off, I’ve switched the webhost for ScalpEm.com. By doing so, I’ve increased the flexibility of what I can do with the site. For instance, I have full control over creating email accounts, so maybe, just maybe, if you’d like a ScalpEm.com email address, you can get one. The old site was running on a very old version of PostNuke and had become unruly. While it was nice to have one login for various things, it came down to the fact that I don’t want to manage all of it. There are ample places on the web to get the FSU Athletics schedule (I recommend Seminoles.com). Also the Message Boards are gone because I never generated enough traffic on them. Instead, we’ve implemented blog-style comments. Granted, this prevents any old user from starting a topic, but then again that’s not always a bad thing. Also, the blog format supports full emailing and printing of the articles, just click on the little icons after each story.

The whole idea behind this new version is that it’s lightweight and fast. The blog will be the source for anything the Authors feel like writing about, opinion or news. If you’d like to be an author on the site, send me an email (NoleCC@scalpem.com) and we’ll see how things go. The blog has RSS feeds for both the articles and comments, so feel free to subscribe to those! Printing and emailing articles is also easier than ever, just click on the appropriate icon following the article. And you can now rate the posts, just click the ratings area… the more stars you give, the higher the rating of the post.

Also included as a separate part of the site (and nearly it’s own site) is the new ScalpEm.com Photo Gallery (http://gallery.scalpem.com/). The FSU photos are free, as always, but now registered users can create their own Photo Albums. I think most will agree that the new interface is cleaner and simpler for most people to use. Bare with me as I get the entire archive of photos back online (Softball & Football are current), including better processed / cropped images than previously released. Also, as a NEW feature, we’re offering our stories in WAP format for your cell phone, just point your cell phone browser to http://mobile.scalpem.com/ for the mobile version of the site!

Speaking of mobile… Version 3 gives me the ability to submit a post from my mobile phone… so final scores at football games will no longer be delayed. You might even get my thoughts at halftime, or at the post-game tailgate.

So how does it work? If you want to comment on the blog, just click the comment link. You don’t even have to register anymore! If you’d like to register though, to have a username associated with your comments, then click the “Register” link on the right. If you’d like to have your own photo albums, register for the gallery. And frankly, if you’d like to just read both, minus a couple of perks, then don’t register for anything, simply enjoy the site! Just don’t forget that your old login was wiped out in the move. ;-)

Thanks for hanging in there during the hiatus! Enjoy the new site, and many more photos to come (thanks to my improved camera, a Sony DSC-H1 with a 12x optical zoom. Check out the 2006 Softball Photos to see the difference in quality).

-Bill