A few years ago, ESPN created the perfect drug for the general college football degenerate: College Gameday Live, a once-a-week quality-produced show that is not only insightful but also entertaining. Needless to say, I quickly became a regular weekend user. But after growing accustomed to the euphoria of this early Saturday morning show, it would take months for me to come down and re-enter normal civilian life. I considered this a good thing. A once-a-week user. It didn’t affect my life negatively and I could only convince myself of the positives. I’ve now realized it was only a gateway.

The geniuses at ESPN, knowing my addiction, decided to street College Football Live—the crack to College Gameday Live’s cocaine. They have helmet contests and sound offs. They rotate anchors, giving any columnist who has ever written an article in a major publication a chance to give his thoughts on why the grass (actual grass, not the mary jane) in Florida seems to blow out as many ACLs as Joe Pa does birthday candles, along side an over-hyped, overrated College player who never did anything at the next level, so he can say things like “Well, when I played” or “Back when my coach [fill in the blank]”. Every day, some player that’s in line to be placed on the mantle of over-hyped tell us he and his team are going to take it one game at a time.

But here’s the catch, the thing about crack: I can’t stop watching it. I watch it nightly as soon as I get home, like a jonesin’ junkie. I need to watch FSU beat USC in a helmet on-line vote off. (Really? It doesn’t help that it airs when we’re still at work and they’re already a few drinks past happy hour.) I need to watch unwatchable Sound Off smack running videos. I need it until College Gameday Live returns in three weeks (and even then I’ll still probably watch). I simply need it.

Please—if anyone has any good cures for getting me off this crap until the good pure rush of College Gameday Live returns, I’ll gladly take it.

Please feel free to post suggested cures in the comments.

SC fans planning on traveling for the game: follow the link for gameday poster ideas.

* Aug. 30: USC opens season at Virginia.

Last time Trojans opened against a Virginia team on the road (2004 vs. Virginia Tech) they finished 13-0 and won the only Bowl Championship Series title of the Pete Carroll “dynasty.”

Those quotation marks seem a bit unnecessary, but maybe that’s just us.

10. Mark Mangino begins a rigorous pre-season fitness regimen.
9. OU cheerleaders scramble to memorize the words to Boomer Sooner.
8. Nerds across the country prepare for twelve weeks out of the shadows as they don Micheal Jackson-esque pseudo-military uniforms to march in the band.
7. A Northwest Florida cryogenics lab begins de-icing Bobby Bowden.
6. Joe Paterno starts sundowning.
5. BYU embraces its African-American population (may also be an indicator of the start of college basketball, or track, or baseball, or hockey).
4. Los Angeles County Superior Court places priority on the probation hearings of the USC backfield.
3. Schools like Boise State escape safety school obscurity and begin to matter.
2. Perennial powerhouse Notre Dame prepares for a daunting schedule against such formidable opponents as San Diego State, Stanford (err, wait a minute), and Navy.
1. Louisiana increases to the 49th most desirable state as LSU makes a run at another championship.

• A judge ruled that Reggie Bush must quit stonewalling and must testify.
• O.J. Mayo was reported to have taken $30K in cash and gifts.
• DeMar DeRozan (second-highest rated basketballer ever to sign with the school) is reconsidering after the Mayo incident.
• That ridiculous youtube video with Brendan Carroll f-bombing the walk-ons has exploded all over the Internets.
• Lofa Tatupu, one of the few USC products who hasn’t been an utter disaster, got a DUI.

Just to repeat: that’s JUST THIS WEEK.

I hear about it nonstop: USC’s athletic department is worse than Ohio State’s, worse than Florida State’s, worse than Miami’s, USC is an SEC school and not in a good way, lack of institutional control, inmates running the asylum, a school without any shred of integrity, etc.

Maybe it’s because I have two kids now and going to the games isn’t quite as logistically easy as it once was, but I’m giving serious thought to selling my season tickets and staying home this season. (And yes, I know that doesn’t hurt the athletic department, but at least karma-wise it might if my tickets go to the opposing fans at each game). Based on the goodwill of a few great teams, they have jammed the entire community with higher ticket prices and a raw deal, and now every SC alum gets to walk into the office every day and hear about how they went to school at “The Program” and are basically one notch above SMU.

If there’s another way to file some kind of protest, I’m all for it … not that the school would give a damn, but still. Anyone associated with the school who has any interest in sports whatsoever should be embarrassed by it.

Alabama is in the post-Major Applewhite era, and seems very happy with the new offense.

Oklahoma is trying to forget their last trip to Arizona. I think they might refuse a Fiesta Bowl bid this year.

Still no offense for the Seminoles. Good luck, Jimbo …

Florida’s spring game highlights Chris Rainey in the backfield, not former USC RB Emmanuel Moody. Anybody still (ever) think this transfer was a good call?

UCLA names Patrick Cowan (aka USC killer in ’06) starting QB.

LSU’s Ryan Perrilloux apparently didn’t need spring practice in order to start for LSU this fall.

USC’s first opponent apparently wants the Trojans to worry about their new passing attack.

Finally, from University Park/Howard Jones Field, Joe McKnight can’t handle 3 classes this semester and Mark “Dirty” Sanchez will be SC’s starting QB unless his arm falls off before August 30th.

But let’s look at the other side of the free-ride story. First, some facts regarding Ray Ray McElrathbey, and then some outrage from ESPN.com’s Jemele Hill. Now, as we all know a scholarship is not a 5-year contract; it is a 1-year promise to pay for everything, and each year every player is re-evaluated to see if they should stay in the program. While Ray Ray is in a very unusual circumstance in the fact that he is raising his 12-year old brother, Clemson can’t keep him around forever when he isn’t that good. Also, Clemson is offering Ray Ray his scholarship through the summer (when he is scheduled to graduate) and then a position on staff as a grad-assistant. So, the negative press on this story only points out the facts that college sports are as much of a business as the professional leagues they feed.

Both agree that the best non-conference game is Ohio State vs. USC on September 13th. I would put Georgia’s trip to Tempe on the following weekend at #2, but Fiutak has it at #4—he thinks that the border war in St. Louis between Illinois and Missouri is #2. Now, both of those teams might be good again this year, but it seems more interesting to me that the consensus #1 team isn’t playing four complete pushovers.*

* Though of course any SEC team can get away with non-conference pushovers, right? I mean, conference play is just brutal, so they clearly need a rest. In fact, why don’t we just go ahead and give all of them four non-conference wins?

SC starts March 25th and ends with the Spring Game April 19th. According to Rivals, the biggest SC question is QB (Scott Wolf’s boyfriend or Mark Sanchez), while the secondary story is the lack of defensive line studs. The latter is the bigger question in my opinion as they are the most important part of the Cover-Two SC runs.

* I still refuse to use the new name.