We Survived The Off Season & Are Finally Rewarded

It has been 8 months, 3 days since the Clemson Tigers took the field in the Music City Bowl and beat Kentucky.
It has been 8 months since South Carolina took the field in the Papa Johns Bowl and lost to Connecticut
It has been 7 months, 26 days since Alabama beat Texas in the BCS Championship game (the official end to the college football season)

It has been 6 months, 26 days since New Orleans beat Indianapolis in Super Bowl XLIV (the official end to any football being on TV - aka THE OFF SEASON).

Let's be honest, for us college football fans, you've been looking forward to today since the final play of your favorite team last year (or in some cases this year). After the final play, you been holding onto football season with signing day, spring practice, a meaningless spring game(but it gives you hope for the coming season and cause you to believe your team is on the brink of something special)...the boring days of summer...who you lost because college kids are still college kids and make stupid decisions, and finally August comes around and practice begins and everything is again right with the world. 118 (Division I, called something else today by big brother - NCAA) teams are 13/14 victories away from an undefeated season and the hope of at least a partial National Championship. Some fans are realistic and understand that going undefeated will not be a possibility and decide to make the best of it and party like it's 1999 (it eases the pain) and you have other fans that will rant and rave and call for the coaches head on a platter after every close game that should have been a blowout and after any loss and the groans get louder with each loss (in some cases, I agree...for example Tommy Bowden - great guy, crappy motivator, couldn't take Clemson any further, we got stuck climbing the hill...time to go, see ya). So who will it be this year? Alabama, Ohio State, Boise State and TCU (which based on strength of schedule, have the easiest road to the BCS Championship game), Flordia, Oregon, Texas or a dark horse that all the analysts has missed. I am going to watch every week and attend a couple of Clemson games (looking forward to Clemson's games against - Auburn, Miami, UNC and SC) and will even attend a SC game here or there (like tonight). I am going to tailgate at home and at the games. I am going to help the economy by spending some dollars on tickets, food, gas, lodging and maybe even a Clemson logo Snuggie for LA.

As I was finishing up writing this post, I began to wonder about how big of a business is college football and it is huge. The latest numbers just for football from 2008 are as follows.

College football is big business - 2008 2.4B (That B for BILLION).

ESPN - Outside The Lines
Top 25 School Total revenue in millions
1. Texas $87.6
2. Ohio State $68.2
3. Florida $66.2
4. Georgia $65.2
5. Alabama $64.6
6. LSU $61.9
7. Penn State $61.8
8. Auburn $58.6
9. South Carolina $57.1
10. Notre Dame $56.9
11. Nebraska $55.2
12. Michigan $52.2
13. Michigan State $43.5
14. Tennessee $42.8
15. Oklahoma $42.6
16. Wisconsin $40
17. Iowa $38.9
18. Arkansas $38.6
19. Texas A&M $38.4
20. Clemson $35.2
21. Southern Cal $35.2
22. Washington $34.2
23. Oregon State $30.9
24. Arizona State $29.9
25. Virginia Tech $27.7

There is a big difference from 1-12 to 13-118.

Based on the dollars spent just on college football (if you wanted to get the economy rolling again expand the college and pro football season to year around and do away with baseball) and the passionate fans who purchase anything with their favorite teams logo, I am not sure how baseball is called America's sport but I can only assume it is because it is played everyday from April to October (7 months, 162 regular season games + playoffs). For me, it is just SportsCenter filler until football season starts up again. For everyone I know, we are ready for some football (I am not linking or posting the silly MNF video by Hank Williams Jr...it's just corny to me and don't mistake that I don't love some Hank Jr. music because I am a fan from his early days.)

Here are a couple of interesting matchups coming up in September:

Alabama vs Duke (at Duke) - 9/18 (are you kidding me, how did Duke get a home and home with Alabama, there's got to be a basketball tie-in...as in we will not play you in basketball unless you come to Durham to play us in football...actually, Duke's new coach David Cutcliffe decided that Duke would not longer accept a buyout for Alabama not coming to Durham and would require them to play Duke at home...he said it was the only way to be taken seriously in football...and the Alabama fans bought all the available season tickets to get tickets to one game in Durham.)

Presbyterian vs Wake Forest 9/2 - 1,224 Students vs 7,089 Students (skip the football game and line up the students in a last man/women standing battle royal)

Presbyterian vs Clemson 9/11 - 1,224 Students vs 15,346 Students (After the conquering of Wake Forest it is actually 8,313 but not looking good for a battle royal two weeks in a row...if it was a night game maybe because the battle would be even because 3/4 of Clemson students couldn't walk or find the battle field by then)

Let The Games Begin and the money flow like water - spend today and win tomorrow. And to borrow a saying from Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders to my Clemson Tigers - "Just Win Baby" and "Wherever you go, you are the Clemson Tigers...I don't care who you are or what you've done. You're here now, and you're going to win, win, win."