Lots to look forward to this season

Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, August 11, 2015

There’s a lot of excitement surrounding the upcoming college football season.

It’s the second year of the College Football Playoffs, where the top four teams in the land will duke it out for the chance of being champion. Last season, a few teams got edged out down the stretch and will surely be looking for vengeance on the gridiron. There’s no motivation like being kicked out of the loop.

I’m excited to see what new Michigan coach Jim Harbough will bring to the program up in Ann Arbor. It was shame to see such a notorious program self implode last year under the clearly unqualified Brady Hoke. Now the whole country has perked their ears with a successful NFL coach and Wolverine alumni stepping back into the picture.

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Though Harbough’s awkward, stream-of-conscious manners make his press conferences and interview fun to watch, I think he is legitimately invested in making Michigan football a powerhouse again. Urban Meyer and his Buckeyes better watch their backs—those Wolverines will be biting soon.

Down in this neck of the woods, Florida State appears to be on a rebuild season. After the insane amount of attention (both good and bad, but mostly bad) the Seminoles have gotten for the last two seasons, I’m sure Jimbo Fisher can breathe a little easier. Jameis Winston was an all-star on the field, but a little too irresponsible off the field. It’s the next chapter of Seminoles football, and it will be fun to see how they fall in the ACC with teams like Georgia Tech quickly blasting their way to the forefront of conversations.

Move an hour and a half down U.S. 316 to that other Georgia school and you’ll see a team of Bulldogs with high talent and even higher hopes. Every season is a balancing act for Georgia—if the wind blows too hard, they topple. I hope they can hunker down and deal with adversity. There’s one game I see that will set the tone for the season.

Alabama, in Athens, on Oct. 3. Whoa, nelly, is this going to be a big one or what? The last time these two teams saw each other was that fateful 2012 SEC Championship. My dad orders season tickets every year, but something tells me he’ll be watching this one at home and enjoying the extra cash from selling his seats.

If both teams can make it to this game undefeated, it will be one of the biggest college football games of the season.