The wait is finally over.

In a few short days the 2010 college football season will kickoff, and it couldn’t have come sooner.

For those of you out there like me, you enjoy the summer months but there is always something missing. The roar of the crowd, the excitement and drama that unfolds each week as teams fight it out between the hashmarks for conference and national supremacy.

There really is nothing like College Football.

And while I can hardly wait to see how well Florida State starts its season, this one is remarkably bittersweet.

Its the first time in my life I’ll be cheering on FSU without seeing Bobby Bowden roam the sidelines. No matter your opinion on how his career ended, you cannot take away what he has done for the University and the state of Florida in general. He is an icon and will be truly missed.

But with the talent coming back on offense and the offseason turnaround made by Jimbo Fisher, I am looking forward to seeing the Seminoles post better numbers on both sides of the ball.

Will we go undefeated? Doubtful.

Will we win the Conference Title for the first time since 2005? Its possible, but not a guarantee.

Can we win our division for the first time since 2005? I see this as a very likely scenario.

The Seminoles have the talent to do great things this year. But with so many question marks on defense there is little that can be said beyond winning the (weaker) Atlantic Division.

Samford will provide a great scrimmage, as long as we don’t lay another egg like we did against South Florida and almost against Jacksonville State last year. Oklahoma will be the real test, though, If we can keep that game close, or even pull off the upset in Norman, then it will go a long way into building this program back to the heights in enjoyed in the 90s.

As an added bonus we’ll also get a new addition to our sod cemetary.

Keep the faith, Seminole Nation. While this isn’t your daddy’s Seminoles anymore it doesn’t mean we can’t do great things. The Dynasty will be reborn in 2010.

And our weekends will once again become something to look forward to.

This was a game that the Seminole Nation has had circled on its calendar since Bobby Bowden announced his retirement.

And its just a Spring Game.

But its so much more than that.  Its a measuring stick not only for the coaching staff but for the entire student body, Seminole fans, and the world of college football to see just how Jimbo’s new team will look this fall.

And with just less than five months until their first game, things are definitely looking up.

This year’s Spring Game was setup as more of a traditional styled football game, and the 50,000+ Garnet and Gold faithful that attended were definitely given a show to remember.

Heisman-hopeful Christian Ponder gave those in attendance a collective sigh of relief as he displayed no real signs of a letdown after injuring his shoulder late last season and required surgery.  Ponder went 16-of-34 and threw for 266 yards, two touchdown passes, and rushed for another as he lead the Gold team to a 29-17 victory.

Sophomore receiver Rodney Smith showed just how great he can be as he had three catches for 124 yards and one touchdown for the Gold team.  On the other side, Bert Reed had ten catches for 163 yards and one touchdown for the Garnet.

The top rusher of the day belonged to Debrale Smiley, a JUCO transfer, who notched 58 yards on only three carries for the Gold team.

The Gold team totaled 399 yards on the day (295 passing and 104 rushing) while the Garnet put up 246 yards (210 passing and 36 rushing).

But offense wasn’t the biggest concern for the Seminoles last year.  What the team is really looking to improve upon is one of the worst defensive efforts since the 1980s.

They, too, did not disappoint.

Brandon Jenkins lead the way with three sacks and six tackles for the Gold followed by fellow Gold teammates Vince Williams and Nigel Carr who each knotted six tackles apiece.

“I thought the defense did a real good job in the second half controlling the line of scrimmage,” Fisher said.

“I think today was great for not only the players to see the support and everyone wanting to watch them play but I think it was good for the fans, too,” Fisher said. “Getting back here and enjoying yourself in a spring weekend and getting to see a lot of friends and family and tailgate and have fun and remember why you enjoy Florida State, why you came here and why they love it.”

And if this was even just a glimmer of things to come this fall and in years to come, the Seminole Nation will soon be back on top and competing for Conference and National titles.

And opponents will once again “Fear the Spear”.

What fol­lows is a col­lec­tion of images cap­tured by Niki Everson of Think Pink Sports Media of all the action on Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium .  Re-cap story provided by guest author.  As always, all mate­ri­als con­tained within this post remain the sole prop­erty of Niki and Think Pink Sports Media and may not be repro­duced with­out per­mis­sion, obtain­able by email­ing niki@thinkpinksm.org.  Click each sin­gle image to enlarge or choose “View with Pic Lens” to begin slide show.

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Louisiana State Uni­ver­sity has his­tor­i­cally been known for its abil­ity to pro­duce NFL-caliber tal­ent, and with this year’s Pro Day, held Mon­day, March 15 in the Tigers’ indoor prac­tice facil­ity, scouts rep­re­sent­ing all 32 NFL teams were con­vinced of lit­tle otherwise.

Many of those par­tic­i­pat­ing in Monday’s Pro Day work­outs — a list includ­ing for­mer LSU play­ers such as Bran­don LaFell, Charles Scott, Ciron Black, Chad Jones, Rahem Alem, and Harry Cole­man — had already estab­lished them­selves as indi­vid­u­als likely to get a strong look from NFL teams in next month’s draft.  Nev­er­the­less, all play­ers involved aimed to fur­ther show­case their tal­ents as a means of rein­forc­ing and improv­ing their poten­tial draft stock, with few, if any, dis­ap­point­ing in their time in the spotlight.

The fol­low­ing is a run­down of some of the things heard and seen Mon­day morning:

• Lafell said he was both­ered by a ham­string injury, but still man­aged to post a 4.54 40 yard dash and par­tic­i­pate in posi­tion drills.

• Black recorded a 26-inch ver­ti­cal jump, a 7–7 broad jump and did par­tic­i­pate in some shut­tle and posi­tion drills.

• Jones ran a 4.57 in the 40, had a 9–7 broad jump and did 11 bench press reps, improv­ing his num­bers from last month’s offi­cial NFL combine.

• Scott ran a 4.53 in the 40, had a 31-inch ver­ti­cal, a 9–6 broad jump and also par­tic­i­pated in posi­tion drills.

• Alem posted a 33-inch ver­ti­cal and a 9–7 broad jump.

• Cole­man ran a 4.48 40, net­ted a 33-inch ver­ti­cal jump, a 9–10 broad jump and par­tic­i­pated in posi­tion drills.

• Trindon Hol­i­day stood on all of his com­bine num­bers but did par­tic­i­pate in posi­tion drills.

• Richard Dick­son ran a 4.85 40, recorded a 28 1/2 inch ver­ti­cal jump and par­tic­i­pated in pos­i­tion drills.

• Every year there are always play­ers who improve their stock after miss­ing out on an invite to com­bine; this was true again Mon­day, as safety Danny McCary com­pleted 24 reps on the bench, ran a 4.46 in the 40 and had a 34 inch ver­ti­cal jump.

One of the more inter­est­ing sto­ries at this year’s Pro Day came from a guy that didn’t even play at LSU — for­mer Okla­homa State / Texas South­ern quar­ter­back Bobby Reid, who was on hand to throw to receivers and run­ning backs in posi­tion drills.  Reid  tore his ACL while under cen­ter for Texas South­ern, and after hav­ing surgery to repair the dam­age,  asked cur­rent LSU head coach Les Miles — who coached Reid while still at Okla­homa State — if he could par­tic­i­pate in LSU’s Pro Day. Miles agreed.

Reid ran a 4.64 40, recorded a 9–3 broad jump, a 33 1/2 ver­ti­cal jump, and benched 19 reps.

What fol­lows is a col­lec­tion of images from Monday’s Pro Day as pro­vided to Think Pink Sports Media by Melinda Dove.  As always, all mate­r­ial in this post remain the sole prop­erty of Melinda and Think Pink Sports Media and may not be repro­duced with­out explicit per­mis­sion, obtain­able by email­ing melinda@thinkpinksm.org.  Click each sin­gle image to enlarge or choose “View with Pic Lens” to begin slide show.

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Pen­sacola Junior Col­lege took on Chipola Col­lege this past Fri­day evening at the PJC Base­ball Field and though mount­ing a furi­ous rally in the eighth and ninth innings, could not get past the vis­it­ing Indi­ans, who ended up car­ry­ing the game by a  score of 12–11.  The Pirates played impres­sively in the lat­ter part of the con­test, cut­ting  an 11–3 lead for Chipola at the start of the sev­enth down to 12–8 at by the close of the eighth.  Pen­sacola man­aged to main­tain that momen­tum going into the ninth, with the Pirates ben­e­fit­ing greatly from a two-run homer by Harold Collins with two run­ners on base and draw­ing to within one score of send­ing the game into extra innings.  The Indi­ans allowed the tying run to get on base, but then tight­ened up its pitch­ing, dash­ing PJC’s hopes for recov­ery on a con­tro­ver­sial strike three pitch to end the game.   With the loss, Pen­sacola has now dropped two-straight to con­fer­ence oppo­nents, but looks to right itself once more on Tues­day, March 16 at home against L.B. Wallace.

What fol­lows is a col­lec­tion of images cap­tured by Melinda Dove of Think Pink Sports Media of all the action rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Friday’s con­test between Pen­sacola Junior Col­lege and Chipola.  As always, all mate­ri­als con­tained within this post remain the sole prop­erty of Melinda and Think Pink Sports Media and may not be repro­duced with­out per­mis­sion, obtain­able by email­ing melinda@thinkpinksm.org.  Click each sin­gle image to enlarge or choose “View with Pic Lens” to begin slide show.

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Niki Everson, of Think Pink Sports Media, was at Jay Bergman field Sunday in Orlando to watch the UCF Knights take on the Hartford Hawks.  Hartford took the lead first with a double from Simon Kudernatsch, a walk from Drexel and a RBI single from Aldrich.  That lead didn’t last long, as UCF came out swinging, scoring 11 runs and 10 hits including the first grand slam of the Knights season by third baseman Derek Luciano a junior from Bradenton, FL.  Luciano hit another home-run & was 3-for-3 with six RBI in just four innings.  Shortstop Darnell Sweeney hit his first career home-run in the bottom of the 5th inning.  He had 3 RBI and finished 5-for-6.  At the top of the eighth inning Hartford’s Andy Drexel hit his third home run of the season to center field scoring their second run of the game.  UCF answered at the bottom of the inning scoring 6 runs and 7 hits.  No runs scored by Hartford in the ninth inning left the final score 24-4.

The following is a collection of images capturing all the games action.  All images remain the sole property of Niki Everson and Think Pink Sports Media and may not be reproduced without her permission, which can be obtained by emailing her at niki@thinkpinksm.org.

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Niki Everson, of Think Pink Sports Media, was at the Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium over the weekend to catch 4 games at the Lipton Invitational softball tournament.The first of the day, Campbell fell, in a 5-3 loss, to Marshall.

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Followed by a Gator victory over Marshall, 8-0.  Junior, Stephanie Brombacher, pitched for the complete five innings throwing 5 strike-outs.

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Freshman, Erin Schuppert started out the Florida’s second game vs. East Carolina (her 1st career start).  Brombacher stepped in and finished the game.  She definately showed her fans why, “Its great to be a Florida Gator”.

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In the fourth game of the day, Kansas topped Campbell by a score of 2-1.

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Below each, is a collection of images as provided by Niki capturing all the day’s action.  All images remain the property of Niki Everson and Think Pink Sports Media and may not be used with out her permission, which can be obtained by e-mailing her at niki@thinkpinksm.org

Niki Ever­son was down on the field for Think Pink Sports Media on a chilly Sat­ur­day after­noon at Ladd-Peebles Sta­dium in Mobile, Alabama for the play­ing of the 2010 Senior Bowl, a game fea­tur­ing some of the biggest names in col­lege foot­ball, includ­ing this year, Florida quar­ter­back Tim Tebow.  Here, she offers our read­ers a col­lec­tion of images from Saturday’s con­test between the North and the South squads, a game won 31–13  by a North team that played lights out on defense and impressed at times offen­sively thanks to names like Dan LeFer­vour and LeGar­rette Blount.  All pho­tos remain the sole prop­erty of Niki Ever­son and Think Pink Sports Media and may not be repro­duced with­out per­mis­sion, obtain­able by email­ing niki@thinkpinksm.org.

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Niki Everson of Think Pink Sports Media was on the field at Ladd-Peebles Sta­dium on Thurs­day after­noon as the 2010 Senior Bowl’s South squad began to wrap-up prepa­ra­tions for Sat­ur­day afternoon’s con­test, with an empha­sis on spe­cial teams work and run­ning two-minute drills.  Here, Niki offers a photo jour­nal of the days events.  Please note that all mate­r­ial included here is the sole prop­erty of Niki Everson and Think Pink Sports Media and may not be repro­duced with­out per­mis­sion, obtain­able by email­ing niki@thinkpinksm.org.   

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Niki Everson of Think Pink Sports Media was down on the field at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida Saturday after noon for the 2010 East-West Shrine Game, featuring over 100 of the top seniors in college football today.  A hard-fought defensive contest turned into a suddenly explosive game of offense with just minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, with East quarter back Mike Kafka (Northwestern) hitting Andrew Quarless (Penn State) for a last second touch down to put the East up for good, 13–10.  The following is a collection of images as pro­vided by Niki capturing all the days action.  All images remain the property of Niki Everson and Think Pink Sports Media and may not be used with out her permission, which can be obtained by e-mailing her at niki@thinkpinksm.org

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