FanNation - The Republic of Sport

It's been a long off season, college football fans, but in a little over a month, the college football season will begin, so grab your college football preview magazines, soak up info from ESPN and collegefootballnews.com, talk to your friends about the upcoming season, and get ready for another great season.  I don't know if it's possible to surpass last year's season in terms of unpredictability and excitement, but in the magical world of college football, anything can happen.

Missouri can rise up from years of being OK and fight for a National Championship bid.  South Florida can rise to #2 in the nation only to drop out of the polls in a few weeks.  Kansas can come out of no where and win the Orange Bowl.  Appalachian State can prove that FCS or Division 1-AA doesn't mean a loss when playing a top 5 FBS or Division 1-A team such as Michigan.  Stanford can show that just because you're a smart kid doesn't mean USC scares you on the gridiron.  Notre Dame, Michigan, and a slew of others can prove that preseason rankings mean absolutely nothing.  Nebraska can lose games they never would have dreamed of losing.  Florida State can have Jenn Sterger, a girl, be more popular than any of their players.  Oklahoma can crush a hopeful teams dream's...twice.  Illinois can make a BCS game.  Boston College can perform miracles.  USC can show Illinois that BCS means nothing if you don't show up.  Florida can give the world the first ever underclassman Heisman winner.  Tim Tebow can do almost anything and still be humble.  Michael Crabtree can destroy wide reciever records no one ever thought would be crushed like this.  Dennis Dixon can be a Heisman leader and get an unfortunate injury only to see his name off the ballot in a few weeks.  Todd Reesing can be shorter than six feet and still complete passes and lead his team to victory.  Rich Rodriguez can break hearts, piss a whole state off, and give hope to a whole state at the same time.  Mark Mangino can weigh well over 300 pounds and coach as well as anyone.  Colt Brennan can break almost every throwing record but still get crushed by Georgia because passing records don't mean anything when it comes to playing the game.  You can have your rankings, your prestige, your pride, your adrenaline, your future hall of fame players and/or coaches, your record, your first round draft picks, your homefield advantage, your screaming fans, your fancy offense, your rock solid defense, and all the confidence in the world but your opponent worked just as hard as you did.  Your opponent could care less if your stadium seats over 100,000 people and theirs seats about 25,000.  They didn't travel all the way to your fancy palace to roll over and die.  They came to rip all your confidence out of your body and stomp all over it.  They came to crush every single one of your fans hopes no matter how much they paid to get in.  And maybe, just maybe, they can do all of that...and win the game.

So buckle up and get ready to rumble, college football fans.  This season could be just another year.  Or it could be another 2007...maybe even better.  No one can know, as teams prepare for the upcoming year with grueling two-a-days and 7-on-7 and all the preparation that every single team puts in every summer, but one thing is for sure:  anything can happen.