It’s that time of year again. The awkward part of the two month frenzied build-up to the start of the college football season that doesn’t involve minute-by-minute accounts from fall training camps across the nation. That’s right, we’re in “Preseason Top 25″ land, that magical time when college football pundits come out in droves to let the world know just how they think the best 25 teams in the country stack up and just who those teams are…in their opinion. Usually, these lists are accompanied by lengthy explanations meant to back up some insane pick that no one in their right mind would make, like placing Syracuse at #14 or predicting that Purdue won’t utterly collapse in the second half of the season. Stuff like that.

Well, you’ll find none of that here at Sod. I don’t believe in well-ordered ranking of squads based on their strengths and weaknesses relative to the schedule that they play. No no no. That’s too easy. In fact, ranking teams at all is just too much to handle. I’m going to stick with things that you should be aware of in your preparation for the season. Let’s get on with the list.

Author’s Note: Because I’m too lazy to come up with 25 things to watch for this college football season, this list has been pared down to a svelte 15, kind of like the BCS rankings. Also like the BCS, our system makes little to no sense and takes a roomful of computers to calculate. Unlike the BCS, our roomful of computers are mostly broken or too old to be of any use. (Maybe that is what the BCS is like, on second thought…)

15. Insider Comparisons - Get ready for announcing teams to make mention of stuff that no one with any sort of actual life would know off the top of their head. We’re talking comparing a spectacular block by a Fullback to a block made 32 years ago by a guy who is now selling Real Estate in Tulsa. Or the fact that some kid that rides the pine is the son of a guy that rode the pine for that same team 30 years ago. You’ve been warned.

14. This Years’ ________ - Insert “Boise State” or “Rutgers” or “Hawai’i” or “Tim Tebow” into that blank space and you get the idea. We love to compare seemingly unprecedented events to strikingly similar (or even vaguely similar) events that happened in years past. It’s the same thinking that leads to “Coldplay are this generation’s Iggy and the Stooges” kind of stuff. It helps no one and explains nothing, but it makes us feel better to have a bit of misguided historical perspective.

13. Debates Over the Best Conference -  Yet another silly discussion. Who has the best conference? It’s impossible to quantify that without looking through a homer-istic pair of glasses. You can make the case for just about every conference without “Sun” or “Mid” or “Mountain” in it’s name, although someone will probably try to argue that the MAC is very strong this year. Watch out for Bowling Green, they’re a team on the rise!

12. Insanely Early Title Game Predictions - These have already started. In fact, they began about .00005 seconds after the final gun sounded in LSU’s trouncing of Ohio State. Before the confetti had even hit the field, the big question was “Who will be here next year?” Because we can’t just enjoy what just occurred, we have to be in a state of constant speculation. The people covering college football are sex addicts who never want to enjoy the climax.

11. The Hot Seat - Coaches are on it, starting QB’s are on it, Athletic Directors are on it, hell, I assume even cheerleaders are on it from time to time. Get ready for the ceaseless discussion of who’s on the “hot seat” after every big loss (and sometimes, even narrow victory) or poor performance. To hear analysts tell it, everyone in college football has a continually chapped and scorched ass.

10. Lee Corso - One of the always entertaining (if not for the reasons they intend) hosts of ESPN’s College Gameday, Lee is a walking, talking characiture of everything that makes college football great. He’s bombastic and unapologetic and steeped in history and tradition. You think he puts on those mascot heads at the end of every show because they smell nice? Hell no, he does it because now he has to. The same way that Notre Dame plays service academies every year or that Georgia and Florida fans will forever refer to their annual meeting as “The World’s Biggest Cocktail Party” no matter who tells them not to. Tradition in the face of changing times, man. That’s why teams still run the Wishbone and the Triple Option.

9. Fiery Coaches - You’ll notice them on the sidelines as the game is in full tilt, screaming and hollering until they’re red-faced and the poor bastard kid that’s in charge of corralling their headset cable is tied in knots trying to follow them. They’ll berate officials and players alike and then smile and laugh after they get the Gatorade bath at the end of the game, like it was all in good fun. Well, if it was just all in good fun, then please explain why you have a multi-million dollar salary or why you were screaming for the last three hours for your linebackers to break the running back’s kneecap.

8. Mascots - The oft-overlooked workhorse of the program. This hapless undergrad in a giant foam costume or silly get-up that has to be as excited as humanly possible for three hours every Saturday in the fall never gets the credit he/she deserves. I knew one of the people who wore the Dragon suit at our football game (yes, Virginia, there are sometimes more than one mascot) and he was the most miserable, pissed-off son of a bitch you’ve ever met. But during the game, he was electric. Being a mascot is a grueling, thankless job. Support your local collegiate mascot’s union, please. If it wasn’t for them, you might have to be Big Red (pictured hilariously above) one day.

7. Oregon’s Uniforms - Ever since Nike co-founder Phil Knight started pumping insane amounts of money into the University of Oregon’s athletic department and having the designers at Nike WHQ come up with new and exciting uniforms for his alma mater, the rest of the college football world has been aghast. But let me level with you, uniforms that were once dubbed “abominations” and “botched abortions” have been growing on me. Forget the staggering dollar amount that must go into maintaining what amounts to a total of 384 different combinations of pants, jerseys and helmets and remember that no one wanted funding for a new dormitory, anyway.

6. The Big House - Michigan’s “Big House,” Tennessee’s “Rocky Top,” LSU’s “Death Valley.” USC’s “Coliseum,” Boise State’s “Smurf Turf” and many, many more. College football stadiums have a mystique of their own. These gigantic cathedrals for the worship of gridiron excellence haunt the dreams of every foe to enter their hallowed halls. They have personalities all their own and exert a unmistakable karmic pull on those who enter. I’ve heard that Brent Musberger can’t sleep a full eight hours unless he’s in the press box at Ohio State.

5. JoePa - Time to get out your notebooks so you can keep track of how many times the venerated Joe Paterno is mentioned as old, too old, spry, or any mention of how long he’s been at Penn State (something over 50 years, or 80, I can’t remember) and how that’s amazing, but he should retire already. During all of this hand-wringing, also be ready for a video montage of JoePa looking surly and oddly enough, adorable, on the sidelines. Oh yeah, and expect whomever is calling a Penn State game to mention his career wins and probably bring up the fact that Paterno still holds the record for most career interceptions in Brown University history.

4. The SEC is Fast - Hear that? Let me say it again; the SEC is fast. Faster than you. Faster than your mother. Faster than your first real sexual encounter with a real woman. Faster than it takes Les Miles to say; Ricky-Jean Francois. Faster than…well, you get the point. The SEC is faster than you and faster than every other conference in the country, hands down. Supposedly, this is because kids born in the south have to be quicker at a younger age to avoid all of the alligators, or something. Speaking of the SEC’s speed…

3. The Big Ten is Slow - Or plodding, or methodical, perhaps cautious. Whatever you call it, the Big Ten (really, it’s eleven, but don’t tell them that, they’re a bit, y’know, slow) just can’t keep up with other conferences in terms of speed. Supposedly, this is because in colder climates, running too fast will cause you to get frostbite or will be seen as rude and unbecoming.

2. The WAC is Craaaazy - Little known fact, WAC does not stand for Western Athletic Conference, no, it’s simply short for WACky. I mean, one of their teams plays on Blue Turf, so, that’s pretty wacky to begin with. But then they have all of these high-scoring, crazy (one might say, wacky) games, like Boise State and Nevada’s 69-65 game last year, or Hawaii’s offense. Of course, it’s not just the fact that a lot of their game’s final scores could be mistaken for WNBA boxscores. They have teams from colleges you’ve never heard of, like: Utah State? Louisiana Tech? Fresno State? Hawai’i? I’m no geography whiz, but I’m pretty certain that some of those institutions aren’t a part of the United States, especially Hawai’i.

1. Student-Athletes - The onslaught of production crews trying to fit in some mention of a football player’s GPA or outstanding academic achievement during player introductions or a small biopic piece during the game is meant to reinforce the idea that these are students who just happen to be playing a game. Like college football in any way resembles the friendly competition on a field of play. Try telling that to ESPN or Nike or Under Armour or Wilson or any other entity that has a large monetary stake without breaking down laughing. Can’t do it, can you?

The entire idea that these kids (and they are kids, when you’re 18, you’re still a kid, no matter how mature you think you are) are students first is utterly insane. Sure, there are the few that are in it for the education, that’s true. They’re the players standing three-deep, near the bench at all times, helmet off, wearing pristine pants and jerseys, probably with a number that doesn’t fit their size (some 6′ 180lb kid wearing number 65, most likely). They never see the field of play unless they stick it out for all four years and get some pity time on Senior Day. Those are the kids that are students first and athletes second.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I won’t be watching with bated breath in less than 50 days, when the first game of the season kicks off and I’m once again locked in the unending struggle to get off the couch on a Saturday and do something constructive. I usually make it as far as cleaning the general vicinity around the living room television. In the fall, our hardwood floors are immaculate and our living room windows sparkle. In the fall, I sit for 5, 6, 7, even 12 hours at a time in front of the TV, watching these kids try to kill one another for the chance to one day make a living playing a game.

I can hardly wait.