The Weekly 10: Ten Notes on the 2013 College Football Season

There is nothing better than the start of football. Nothing gets it moving like high school football on Friday and college football on Saturday's.
Everyone is undefeated, in contention for a national title. August 31 is the first Saturday of the season and the best one.
Here are ten things to keep in mind while watching week 1 of college football this upcoming weekend.

As always, feel free to comment

10. Saturday's in the Fall are Awesome(r)

Saturday is the best day of the week. It's what you count down to on a Friday afternoon and is followed by the sad, sobering reality that is Sunday morning, letting you know that you're closer to being back at work.

Football is an excuse to get out of a lot of things, mainly those weekend chores you deal with from January to September.

Nothing is better than turning on that noon game and ending the day with a west coast game that ends around 1am.

9. American Athletic Conference

The conference is the remains of the picked carcass that used to be the Big East. The two best teams in the conference (Louisville, Rutgers) will be on the move to the ACC and Big Ten after a season in college football's newest combination of the MAC and Conference USA.

Due to their easy schedule, the Cardinals are a sleeper in the BCS and if they go undefeated and are one of only two teams to go without a loss, they might be placed in the National Championship against a powerhouse in the SEC (probably Alabama), which would give us another mismatch in the final title game in the pre-playoff era. Here's to the AAC, who still gets an automatic BCS Bowl bid.

8. The Expectations For Your Team are Very High 

As a Notre Dame fan, there is always a personal optimism with me and the Irish. While the program has not met its expectations over the past two decades, they caught everyone by surprise and ran the table with a tough schedule, before being embarrassed by high-powered Alabama in the title game.

A national title appearance wasn't on the mind of many Irish fans to start the 2012 season, but they can always hold out hope, and that is what every college football fan does as the season opens up.

 

7. Your School is Ranked too Low.

We all do it. We see the preseason rankings and say "Really?! Why is my school ranked so low?!"

The rankings impact our daily lives during the fall. You will not be satisfied until your team is #1.

6. Your School's National Title Hopes Might Be Gone with 1 Loss

If you play a buttercup schedule and are not in a major conference (or Notre Dame), your national title hopes are done after losing one game. That is the shame of college football, but you will still get to watch your school make a couple million bucks playing in a bowl game in late December, early January.

5. Lee Corso's Hijinks

An elderly man wearing mascot heads, handling wild animals, guns and sometimes forgetting where he is? I'm sold.

You may not watch all of College Gameday, but you turn on ESPN around 11:50am to see Corso's featured pick and loveable hijinks much like how we turn on New Year's Rockin' Eve a minute before the ball drops.

4. Pittsburgh's Home Schedule is Great! (and Hard)

Living and working in Pittsburgh sports radio, the hype of Panther football is being met with optimism and caution as they begin a new endeavor in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

PITT will not start the season with an FCS school like last season (Youngstown State humiliated the Panthers at home to start 2012). Their first game will be Labor Day night at home against Florida State on national television, so you won't have to stream the game on ESPN 3 like most Pittsburgh games to start the season.

Their home schedule should move ticket sales. With other schools like Notre Dame, North Carolina, Miami (FL) and Virginia coming in, it's a big opportunity for the school to bring some big crowds to Heinz Field.

For example, Notre Dame fans (they are everywhere) living in Pittsburgh will not only buy the tickets for the game in November, but will buy full season tickets because of the great schedule.

Beyond putting people in the seats, it might be tough sledding for the Panthers to start their era in the ACC.  

3. The Final Season of the BCS system

An Alabama-Louisville title game would be the best way to end another era of college football in which the best two teams are not playing for a championship every year. Soon we'll be yelling for the playoffs to expand from four to eight teams.

2. Louisville Could Play for the National Championship

Easy schedule, lousy conference and a possible Heisman candidate. This is Louisville's best chance to play for a national title. If everything falls into place for the Cardinals, they could play for a national title.

1. An SEC Team Will Probably Win it All

Seven straight years of SEC schools winning the national championship shows two things. The first being the conferences supremacy. The other is the decline of diversity in college football. So, if you're school is outside of the SEC, lower your expectations of a national championship sooner than later.