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.

Also, they’ve predicted each of the bowl games. Their prediction of a 3-point win for Utah in the Poinsettia was pretty much right on, so hopefully that bodes well for their Rose Bowl prediction (27-10 SC, with Stafon Johnson as player of the game).

Tonight: The Battle of the Techs, with the lovely Erin Andrews on the sidelines. I might watch, since there’s nothing else sports-related on television, but these two teams are seriously dull.

Saturday:

• Early Games: Wisconsin at Ohio State on the Big Ten Network (noon Eastern). For those of you without DirecTV enjoy not seeing this game—meanwhile, I will try and watch on mute as Thom Brennaman and Charles Davis suck. FOX and the BTN should fire them now.
• A little Nebraska at Kansas (12:30 Eastern, FSN) should be interesting, if only to see how Mangino looks in his TENT sweatshirt and how Nebraska responds to playing without Sam Keller.
• Navy at ND (2:30 Eastern, NBC). Will the streak end, or can Charlie the Weis make it 44 in a row against the Middies? If I wasn’t going to be in LA for SC’s homecoming, I would probably see how this one goes.
• Late afternoon: none of the 3:30 Eastern kicks are exciting, so you’ll just have to wait until 5:00pm for the Saban Bowl. LSU will be fired up, but since Les Miles is still on their sideline, I like Alabama’s chances if they can keep it close into the 4th quarter.
• Story of the week: ESPN worked it out with the Pac-10 and FSN to broadcast the ASU/Oregon game to the rest of the country (6:45pm Eastern). Bonus points because Gameday will be there, even if they are making Herbstreit fly to Boston after the show instead of trading him for Blackledge. Maybe Herbie hates Mike Patrick as much as the rest of us do? Dennis Dixon for Heisman can take another huge step forward here.
• Finally, the ABC regional games at 8pm are not great, but most of America will get to see if BC can beat FSU at home.

1  USC at Notre Dame            20-Oct       $409          1        $379
2  Ohio State at Michigan       17-Nov       $408          3        $876
3  Oklahoma vs. Texas            6-Oct       $400          2        $419
4  UCLA at USC                   1-Dec       $312          4        $172
5  Tennessee at Alabama         20-Oct       $238          5        $181
6  Georgia at Florida           27-Oct       $274          7        $284
7  Texas at Texas A&M           23-Nov       $268          6        $233
8  Alabama at Auburn            24-Nov       $373          8        $321
9  Tennessee at Florida         15-Sep       $248          9        $180
10 Michigan at Michigan State    3-Nov       $218         11        $193
11 Notre Dame at Purdue         29-Sep       $105         10        $281
12 Arkansas at LSU              23-Nov       $128         12        $226
13 California at Stanford        1-Dec       $118         13        $ 77
14 Miami at Florida State       20-Oct       $113         14        $137
15 Army/Navy Game                1-Dec       $285         16        $150
16 Florida State at Florida     24-Nov       $401         15        $195
17 Georgia at Georgia Tech      24-Nov       $156         17        $161
18 Oklahoma State at Oklahoma   24-Nov       $160         19        $228
19 Pittsburgh at West Virginia   1-Dec       $139         18        $ 87
20 Oregon State at Oregon        1-Dec       $170         20        $173
21 Clemson at South Carolina    24-Nov       $414         21        $282
22 Virginia Tech at Virginia    24-Nov       $191         23        $147
23 Iowa at Iowa State           15-Sep       $122         22        $218
24 Arizona at Arizona State      1-Dec       $ 80         24        $ 69
25 Purdue at Indiana            17-Nov       $ 77         25        $ 59

Granted, this is a fairly useless ranking, as it only uses gross dollar volume of tickets sold through StubHub. But it’s interesting nonetheless. Also, it looks like the Washington schools didn’t make the cut.

Enter college fantasy football. Now, this Saturday, not only will the Urban Poet be rooting for the Trojans, but he will also be cheering on the passing game of Bowling Green. Who? Bowling Green. The “Falcons” are apparently from Ohio of all places—and they’ve been there since 1910! If the Urban Poet’s future kid ever wants to go to a school in Ohio, he prays to god it is to do some vandalism at Ohio St. But not only do the hopes of notable alums Tim Conway, Robert Patrick (“have you seen this boy?”), Eva Marie Saint, and at least three dozen other ruddy faced Midwesterners lie with the fate of the Falcons against the Ohio whatevers, but so does the Urban Poet’s passing offense.

So while you fantasy football participants prepare to root for Toledo, Texas Tech, Navy, Hawaii and the like, we sing together:

Forward Falcons, Forward Falcons,
Fight for victory.
Show our spirit, make them fear it,
Fight for dear Bee Gee.
Forward Falcons, Forward Falcons,
Make the contest keen.
Hold up the fame
Of our mighty name,
And win for
Bowling Green.

Now for a real list:

5) Texas A&M Yell Leaders
4) Army/Navy
3) USC Song Girls
2) Walking the Grove at Ole Miss
1) Script “Ohio” and the dotting of the “i”