A lot of things suck about the end of summer. But as the rays of the sun begin to hide earlier in the evening as September encroaches, the start of the college football season is that last remaining ray of light that makes life a little more interesting.

Sure the sport has its flaws, but just like your wife, girlfriend, whom ever your hooking up with, and masturbating, those as well have them to. What do we do? We except them and love them for what they are.

Foolish preseason rankings that keep better teams from catapulting in the rankings as long as the teams voted ahead of them in the august ‘Coaches’ and ‘AP’ polls win their games, is kind of like your wife’s pointy nose. Seeing Lou Holtz drool on TV, and hearing him talk, is kind of like your girlfriends lopsided titties, and the extra skin on her vagina. The corruption that goes on in the sport, which is unquantifiable, is kind of like knowing your not the only one porking whomever your porking and the haunting potential of that circumstance (AIDS, and all of his little buddies that may precede him). And there not being a playoff system, is kind of like masturbating, after it’s over you get the feeling of a lack of definitiveness and ‘what could of been?’

But we still love it.

2010 is easily the most wide open year considering there is no clear cut favorite, since 2000 when Oklahoma made their surprising undefeated run, led by Josh Heupel, but more so their defense. The only three teams with any experience are Ohio St. who return their Heisman candidate quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, and Boise St. and TCU from the Non-BCS, WAC and Mountain West Conferences. The National Champion Alabama Crimson Tide lost key parts to their defense, Terrence Cody, Rolando McLain, and Kareem Jackson, while the runner-up Texas lost the leaders of their offense and defense, the all-time winningest quarterback Colt McCoy, and first-round pick Earl Thomas.

Since Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, Vince Young, then immediately followed by McCoy, Tim Tebow, and Sam Bradford, we’ve had our fair share of incumbent stars that captured our eyes for there time spent at the collegiate level. Despite the fact that 2009 Heisman winner Mark Ingram is only a third-year junior, there is still a gapping void of college football superstars, and a juggernaut team, that the 2010 season is almost impossible to forecast. I’ll give it a go anyway.

Miami, will reemerge, and the ACC will be a strong conference again:

The Hurricanes have the weapons and experience on offense, led by Jacory Harris, to make them a very good team this year. Their staple however, that made the Univ. of Miami, ‘The U,’ was always their extraordinary talent, and inclination to produce NFL talent, that happened to win them a lot of college football games. There is always going to be NFL talent coming from the high schools in the Miami area, and a couple of hours up north in the football hotbed that is Belle Glade, who produce more football talent per capita than any other region in the country. When Miami bottomed out after their run in the early 2000’s, they weren’t recruiting those areas as heavily as they always have. Once Randy Shannon took over for Larry Coker, he landed Jacory Harris, and later Marcus Forston from Miami Northwestern High School, and Travis Benjamin and Leonard Hankerson who are also Florida grown football talent. In Shannon’s fourth year it should be interesting to see what happens now that some of Florida’s best high school talent is not all going to Gainesville. As for the rest of the ACC, Virginia Tech is considered the favorite with their monster run game led by Ryan Williams, and the dual-threat QB Tyrod Taylor. Florida St. no longer has its legendary Head Coach Bobby Bowden who has been more like the elder you couldn’t go too far ahead of, or he would fall behind. And Butch Davis and UNC are ready to make a push to try and add depth, and competition to a conference that hasn’t had it in years.

Alabama loses first game to:

Arkansas. Road game, and with an inexperienced quarterback while on the other side is the highly touted NFL prospect Ryan Mallett, the Tide’s roll will be stopped short by the Razorbacks. All that experience lost on defense is going to get them torched. Notice I didn’t include talent when mentioning the things Alabama lost, cause Nick Saban certainly has plenty of it to retool and be still be competitive this season.

Team from nowhere:

Florida Atlantic. Watch out for the Jeff Van Camp and Lester Jean connection, this team might run the Sun Belt cConference table, and their non-conference opponents better watch out also.

Heisman Race:

Nothing impressed me more last season in a single-game performance, than Pitt’s Dion Lewis carrying the ball 47 times in the epic battle against Cincinatti, except maybe how Mardy Gilyard pretty much single-handedly won that same game. The boy (Lewis) got talent, and he’s going to put up numbers for a Pitt team that should win 9 to 11 games. Another true sophomore, running back Ryan Williams from Va Tech rushed over 1,500 yards last season, so he’s definitely on the Heisman radar. Of course you have to consider the quarterbacks, and since I think Boise St. is going to go undefeated, and Kellen Moore is going to put up phenomenal numbers, he fits the bill for a Heisman candidate. Washington’s Jake Locker is a ‘one man-band,’ and could display the most miraculous highlights for the 2010 season with either his feet, or his arm. His conference foe from Stanford, Andrew Luck, will lead his team to an outright Pac-10 Championship, and will also be in the race. The winner? With Boise going undefeated, and stats along the lines of 40 TD passes and 2 interceptions, Kellen Moore will get the piece.

A couple of dark-horses in the race to keep in mind are the Pac-10’s best running backs, Oregon St.’s Jacquizz Rodgers, and Oregon’s LaMichael James. If Julio Jones has somebody that can throw him the ball, he has the talent to be in New York. Case Keenum from Houston will put up the best numbers of any quarterback, and Terrelle Pryor may have more pressure on him to be in this race than anyone else.

National Championship Race:

Of course it is not always the best team in this race. Teams like Miami, Alabama, and Ohio St. have brutal schedules that will almost certainly guarantee them all a loss. Then it becomes a week to week journey of survival.

It’s within the realm of possibility that we see a rematch of last year’s Fiesta Bowl, TCU and Boise St., in the National Championship. Those two teams have the best chances of going undefeated, bar none. Iowa, and Nebraska have the defenses, but their offenses are atrocious. Other candidates for going undefeated are non-existent. If Boise St. beats Virginia Tech in their first game, and TCU as well against Oregon St. Then these two will face each other in the National Championship, which would make a sponsor cry, a TV executive try to bribe the BCS selection committee into picking a one-loss SEC team to be one of the participants, and a casual college football fan not pay attention. Trust me though, as they have proven in the past, these two programs deserve to go if they run the table.

National Championship:
Boise St. over TCU

Rose Bowl:
Ohio St. over Stanford

Sugar Bowl:
Alabama over Pitt

Orange Bowl:
Miami over Arkansas

Fiesta Bowl:
Oregon over Nebraska