Tuesday Top Ten: Things I'm Looking Forward To This College Football Season

It's that time of year again. In a few short days, the 2009 college football season will kickoff, and I'm as giddy as a Chicago Public School girl whose parents forgot to send her to the first day of classes.

This season is particularly exciting because my daughter is due at the end of November. With a little luck, she can follow in the hallowed footsteps of her mother and father by being born on, or beginning to be born on, a college football Saturday. Myself, I was born in a Minneapolis hospital while Lee Corso's Hoosiers trounced #19 Minnesota 34-22 in front of 30,399 rabid Memorial Stadium fans. Take that, doctors and nurses! Less than two years later, Jester's mom's water broke at Camp Randall Stadium while she and Jester's dad were watching the hapless Badgers lose to UCLA before a capacity crowd. Despite her dad's pleadings and offering of a blanket, they went to the hospital, and Jester and Ari were born the next day to significant fanfare.

With that, here are the ten things I am most looking forward to this college football season:

10. The Forde Yard Dash. ESPN.com college football (and basketball) analyst Pat Forde's weekly column is always a good read. I just wish he'd do an APB on Vaughn Dunbar.

9. Ohio State finally getting busted for paying players.

8. Rich Rodriguez trying to dig himself and his exhausted players out of a hole.

7. USC continuing to skate unscathed.

6. Notre Dame once again failing to live up to their overinflated expectations, yet still rationalizing why they should keep Charlie Weis as their head coach.

5. The Heisman race. When was the last time two former Heisman winners were in the race? And not favored to win? It's crazy to think that next year's NFL draft might feature three Heisman winning quarterbacks, or it might feature only the second player ever to win two Heisman Trophies.

4. The national title hunt. Things are as wide open this year as they have been in a long time. There are seven to ten teams that have legitimate shots, and they all have some pretty tough games. A look at the AP top ten shows you how insane this year will be:
#1 Florida has scheduled three non-conference cupcakes (Charleston Southern, Troy, and FIU) and doesn't have to play Alabama or Mississippi this year, but they do have to play Georgia, Florida State, and at LSU. They have a pretty good shot at going undefeated.
Of course #2 Texas and #3 Oklahoma play each other, so they both can't be undefeated. Both teams also play #9 Oklahoma State, so only one of those three teams can end up undefeated.
#4 USC plays at #6 Ohio State, so they both can't be undefeated. USC also has tough road games at Notre Dame, Oregon, and Cal. If USC makes it out of their schedule with one or fewer losses, they probably deserve to be playing for the national title. Meanwhile, OSU also plays at #9 Penn State (yes, both Penn State and Oklahoma State are tied at #9) so, unless OSU loses to both USC and Penn State, only one of those three teams can end the season undefeated. Penn State also has a laughable non-conference schedule (Akron, Syracuse, Temple, and Tony Romo's alma mater, Eastern Illinois), and the only other real challenge other than OSU should be a road game at Michigan State to end the season. They probably have the best chance of going undefeated of any team in the top ten.
#5 Alabama and #7 Virginia Tech open the season against each other on neutral ground in Atlanta, so they both can't be undefeated. Alabama also plays at #8 Mississippi, so they both can't be undefeated. Alabama's only other tough game is a visit from LSU. VaTech's only other tough games are home games against Nebraska and North Carolina, and a road trip to Georgia Tech. Finally, Ole Miss has a pretty light schedule outside of the Alabama game, with a home game against LSU as their only really tough game.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are two one-loss teams playing in the BCS Championship Game, and another five or six one-loss teams extremely pissed off on the outside looking in.

3. Attending my first game in the newly renovated Memorial Stadium. Yes, I realize you might think it's odd that a perennially terrible football program such as IU would horseshoe off one of the ends of its usually half-full stadium, but they did it with good reason: (1) the addition houses the largest weight room in the country and a new student academic center, to provide our student-athletes not only with strength, but also with cunning; (2) it looks totally badass; (3) they only gained a few thousand seats, while making the stadium look like a real college football stadium; (4) there is an IU sports Hall of Champions that overlooks the field, so maybe having a hall honoring the many national titles the Hoosiers have won in soccer, swimming & diving, and basketball (and other sports) will rub off on the football team; (5) it still looks infinitely better than Ross-Ade Stadium ever will.

2. IU going to their second bowl in three years. Don't sleep on the Hoosiers. I'm just sayin'.

1. Introducing my newborn daughter to bowl season. Sure, she probably won't be as excited about it as I will be -- and I probably won't be vomiting and shitting as much as she will be -- but, if she's at all attentive, I'm sure she'll quickly come to understand in intricacies of the BCS, which conferences are tied to which bowls, and the ins and outs of why I think a hybrid bowl/playoff system just might work.