If you’re like us and breathe college football you spend this time of year reading Phil Steele and thinking up new ways to analyze your alma mater’s upcoming season.

Your school could be thoroughly dominate. Your school could suck out loud. Either way the one true constant is that you’ll keep coming back. The whole phenomenon is a lot like Will Smith’s career (up until the day he officially announces he’s a Scientologist, of course).

So we’ve developed this convenient new system to define the type of season your team is capable of having:

The Bad Boys Season

A surprise ten win season for a team led by unproven but highly recruited players. No one thought you’d be terrible, but no one thought you’d be this good either.

Think: West Virginia in ‘05.

2008 Potential: Oregon, Minnesota, Washington, North Carolina.

The Independence Day Season

A dominant season for a team playing a laughable schedule. Public perception has nothing to do with substance and everything to do with dropping 60 on cupcakes.

Think: Last year’s Ohio State squad.

2008 Potential: West Virginia, Clemson, Ohio State.

The Enemy of the State Season

An underappreciated season for an underappreciated team. Solid contributors all around, young and old, many of whom continue to make a name for themselves in the league.

Think: Miami 2000.

2008 Potential: Auburn, Texas.

The Men in Black Season

A team everyone knows will kill. And they do — in fact — kill. Anyone can find a hole to poke, but when it’s all said and done the school is a favorite in every sense of the word.

Think: USC 2004.

2008 Potential: Georgia, Florida, USC.

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I’ve made it pretty clear that Summer and I do not coexist well. We’re not even in July and I’m already beginning to resemble one of those fuckups on Intervention. One key to a homicide-free summer is preseason magazines. I grabbed the 2008 Athlon edition with my team’s quarterback on the cover the morning it hit the shelves. I’m kind of awesome like that.

Of course, had I known those short-sighted lemmings at Athlon were going to leave my alma mater out of their Top 25 I would have just saved my seven dollars for that copy of The Last Boy Scout I’ve been eyeing in the checkout line at Target and made an unannounced trip to the DMV in order to experience an equivalent amount of loathing.

Let me breakdown Athlon’s so-called Top 25 for you:

25) Fresno State - David Carr went to Fresno State. David Carr wears white gloves. White gloves are gay. You do the math.

24) Wake Forest - I’m of the opinion that if the majority of the nation knows your starting quarterback because he likes to take pictures of his dong and email them to co-eds then you should automatically be disqualified from any preseason rankings. Maybe I’m in the minority.

23) Penn State - Did Athlon not get the email where we all agreed to understand that Penn State is going to suck until a certain someone dies already?

22) Rutgers - Did Joe Pa not get Greg Schiano’s email to go ahead and die already so he could get the hell out of Jersey?

21) Virginia Tech No way the Hokies outrun the Vick karma another year. No fucking way.

20) South Florida - They don’t even realize they’re in Central Florida! Aaargh!

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The NFL Draft came and went faster than a weekend bender (but that may have had something to do with my weekend bender). I spent this past Sunday watching every single pick of the second day of the NFL draft, all 8 hours of coverage (awesome, I know). I watched two players from I-AA Richmond get their names called and lots of college football household names fall into the late rounds. The latter are destined to never be heard from again.

I’ve spent the last four years with these guys, watching them play, wagering on them, inevitably violently cursing them, so the whole experience was weirdly nostalgic seeing that now they’re irrelevant.

And don’t give me the Tom Brady / Terrell Davis argument. The Tom Brady phenomenon requires a player not to get any playing time in college because they are sitting behind another great college football player. The Terrell Davis phenomenon requires a major injury in college that sidelines the player for most of their collegiate career. In either case, pro scouts know these guys have talent, but they don’t know exactly what they are getting so the players fall in the draft.

The guys I’m talking about have all played A TON of college football; the pro scouts know what they’re getting when drafting these players and they’re looking for them to to fill out the roster, help out during training camp, and eventually quietly disappear without even a mention on ESPN’s Bottomline.

So without further ado, one final look back…

Dennis Dixon, QB - Oregon

5th round pick # 156 (soon to be cut by Pittsburgh Steelers)

Steelers Logic: Maybe we can turn him into Antwaan Randle-El.

Reality: Dixon is coming off a serious knee injury. He’s never experimented at receiver in college like Randle-El did. And generally the QB to WR doesn’t work (see: Matt Jones, Eric Crouch, etc.).

Most Memorable Degenerate Moment: When Oregon putting a 39-7 beatdown on Michigan in Week 2 last season. Oregon ran the statute of liberty followed by a fake statute of liberty in the process. Both were pretty sweet. The Ducks were +8 going into the game and a lot of people enjoyed a nice payday rolling on the moneyline.

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Die hard college football fans like ourselves have spent the week questioning the motives behind South Carolina quarterback Stephen Garcia’s actions after he once again failed to avoid getting busted for underage drinking this week. Outside of an unfortunate haircut and the inability to drink booze behind closed doors, Garcia seemingly has a lot going for him: strong arm, Spurrier’s offense, program dying for a game changer, good family, etc. So why does this kid continue to sabotage himself by doing the same GD thing over and over? Does he simply just love the beers that much?

Then it hit us like a ray of sunlight creeping through a fatty’s apartment window on a Saturday morning: Stephen Garcia wants to be Tim Riggins.

Tough to blame the kid, Tim Riggins is really awesome, and who doesn’t want to be awesome? The problem is Riggins is a fictional character and Garcia is apparently too naive (or maybe dumb or delusional) to have yet grasped that real life is not as cool as fiction. If it was we would have gotten laid a whole bunch instead of being escorted out by security when we tried our hand at wedding crashing.

We’ve been lucky enough to stumble upon Garcia’s checklist of how to be more like Tim Riggins. It’s pretty obvious the endgame here is to be awesome like Riggins (i.e. bang hot chicks and make everyone think you’re a tortured, complex individual).

Stephen’s List of How to Be More Like Tim

1) Drink Beers. All. The. Time. Just like Tim does. Nothing spells out how cool and tough you are for you like ALWAYS drinking. For breakfast, in class, during two-a-days. CHECK

2) Be Aloof. You’re actions need to tell the world that you are your own worst enemy. No one will take you seriously as a complicated bad ass unless you keep repeating the same stupid shit to fuck up your life over and over again. In Progress

3) Get Cool Hair. No explanation necessary. CHECK

4) Bang Best Friend’s Hot Girlfriend. Two-parter. First get best friend with hot girlfriend, then bang her. In Progress

5) Create Issues with Dad. Keep telling him he’s an asshole for abandoning us. He may act confused but stay the course. In Progress

6) Bang Hot Older Chick. Continue to lay ground work with several female professors. Should probably be coring one of them out any day now. In Progress

7) Piss Off Coach, Then Earn His Respect Back, Then Piss Him Off Again. Continue to repeat. CHECK

Man, Spurrier must be dying for this show to get canceled already.

You’ve probably gotten a whiff of the story about the Nevada high school kid who committed to play football at Cal even though the school had never heard of him. When the story broke Kevin Hart claimed he was duped by a con artist and garnered a lot of media attention.

But last night–in a crazy turn of events–Hart confessed too engineering the whole sham himself. Why? We’re not sure. Must be that guilty conscience thing that chicks we cheat on keep telling us about.

So in honor of the Kevin Hart Conspiracy, here are the Top 5 Reasons the Kid from Nevada Faked It All:

5) Always Wanted to Hold a Press Conference

Kevin Hart thinks press conferences are totally boss. So much power, glory, and prestige at your fingertips. Kevin’s been simulating his own press conference in his garage every weekend for the past four years. You can imagine how devastated he was to find out he’s not physically talented enough to warrant one.

So he faked it. AND THEN ALL HAD TO LISTEN TO EVERY GD WORD KEVIN HART HAD TO SAY!

4) Hoping to Slip Through the Cracks

Hart hoped to follow in the footsteps of that dude in your fraternity who wore jean shorts. He figured if he enrolled to Cal and just kept showing up at practice it would all shake out. Sure, people might wonder how or why he was there, but they would just assume someone fucked up and invited him.

Of course, Kevin didn’t realize that–whether it’s Cal being alerted by the media or the dude in jean shorts touching girls with his penis at a party–the truth always surfaces.

3) To Drum Up Some Kevin Hart Buzz

Any press is good press, right? All these media outlets spelled Kevin Hart with one “t”, right? Some school has to start wondering if there isn’t something to the Kevin Hart Phenomenon, right?

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Tomorrow is college football’s signing day. The day where a recruit signs with the school he’ll spend the next three to five years representing on the field (unless he ends up ends up sucking or is stupid enough to get caught stealing stereo equipment).

No, I’m not nervous. I’m not one of these no-vag-getting losers that’s obsessed with recruiting. I’m too busy with my career to give a shit about the number of stars some geeks at a recruiting service assign an eighteen year-old kid. All I ask is that my school signs a solid crop of hard-working young men with good characters. And that they win football games.

Of course, I know enough to know my school’s star average WILL kick the shit out of your school’s. That’s a promise I can keep. We recruit nationally. You recruit regionally. My head coach could sell diaphragms at a nunnery. Your head coach sweats and makes people uncomfortable. Rest assured my coach will earn his seven figure contract tomorrow when he signs nothing but 4 and 5 star FUCKING STUDS at a rapid clip.

Sure, we’ve only got like ten kids “verbally” committed so far. I’m not worried though. All those gay verbals don’t mean shit. Tomorrow is where we make it happen. WE KNOW HOW TO FUCKING CLOSE. Tomorrow’s gonna be like grocery shopping on an empty stomach. Mmmm, mammoth left tackle committed to some crappy Big 10 school. That sounds good. We’ll take him. Geeee, freak wide receiver that thinks he wants to catch lame ducks from subpar ACC quarterbacks. Rethink that, pal. Time to sign with the big boys.

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On December 1, 2007, the Pitt Panthers defeated the West Virginia Mountaineers 13-9 in a game that the Mountaineers should have won handily on their way to play for the BCS Championship.

The ripple affect that followed Pitt’s win has been of a magnitude previously undocumented. Historians will later theorize that the body of Dave Wannstedt was possessed by the soul of Vince Lombardi for an evening.

What If Dave Wannstedt Had Been Dave Wannstedt for a Night?

West Virginia and Rich Rodriguez play Ohio State in the National Championship game. The two weakest BCS conferences go head to head in a competitive game that suggests both teams deserve to be there, quelling the notion that a playoff needs to happen ASAP. University of Georgia President, Michael Adams, doesn’t do an eightball and make the brazen claim to the rest of college football that he’ll be pushing for an eight team playoff.

LSU doesn’t backdoor their way into the National Championship. They play in the Sugar Bowl, and Les Miles takes the Michigan job shortly after the SEC Championship game. Miles and Bo Pellini bolt for the new respective jobs leaving Matt Flynn to player-coach the team against Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl, “Varsity Blues” style.

Children across the nation are never scared into wetting their beds from this press conference:

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How exhilarating were those two BCS games last night, huh? It sure was awesome to see top notch teams playing such high caliber football against one another, wasn’t it?

For our money it just doesn’t get any better than a Pete Carroll / Ron Zook coaching matchup. Or a JV offensive line versus a SEC defense for that matter. Another sweeping victory for the BCS.

Look, even your grandmother bitches and moans about the BCS. Everyone knows it sucks. Google the subject and you’ll find a million sites offering their opinion on the system’s ineptitude. But it’s not changing, so whatever. We’re not going to bitch and moan about it.

What we are going to bitch and moan about are the crotchety old bastards that run the Rose Bowl. These blazer-wearing, cigar-smoking, old money assholes are killing our bowl watching experience by continually pitting Pac 10 and Big 10 teams against each other in the Rose Bowl. They blatantly care more about staging a kick ass parade than a kick ass football game. And as far as we’re concerned there is no room for that mentality in America. Move to Europe if you want to prioritize like that.

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Greetings all, and Merry (belated) Christmas.

I am happy to have survived Shitty Bowl Week in positive units (+3.6). Had a couple of calls gone our way we could be up even bigger, but that’s just how it goes. Now it’s time to buckle down and start rolling the dice on games that offer a bit more excitement. Tonight’s game features the second Purdue/Central Michigan matchup of the year.

Earlier in the season Purdue took care of Central Michigan 45-22. Purdue, however, comes into the Motor City Bowl on a 3 game skid and has to be disappointed with the end result of their season. I look for Purdue to come out slow and for both offenses to take a few possessions to get things churning. The first half will be close, but Purdue’s spread attack will eventually be too much for Central Michigan to handle.

Since both teams have already faced each other this year, I look for the time in the film room to pay off on both sides of the ball, especially defense. Both Ds should come up with more 3rd down stops, causing the final score to come in significantly lower than Vegas has set the total.

Tonight’s plays:

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Greetings NextRound faithful, and thanks to Team Cool & Tough for the opportunity to make everyone money during Bowl Season.

This season has been quite the roller coaster for gamblers and football fans in general. It’s seen more action than Paris Hilton’s dong pocket, more highs and lows than Amy Winehouse, and bigger disappointments than Jessica Alba’s recent fertilization.

The good thing is that Bowl Season presents the perfect opportunity to kick your bookie back in the nuts and end the year in the black. (Those of you who actually have the self control not to bet on the NBA, MLB, and American Idol during the dreaded offseason, that is.)

As for the picks, I will be submitting them the day of the each game in the comments section of this weekly column. If a game falls at night on a non-holiday weekday the pick will be posted by 2 PM EST at the latest. If a game falls on a weekend or Holiday, the pick will be posted by 11 AM EST at the latest. This is the way handicappers run their show, and for good reason, especially during bowl season. Way too much can happen the week leading up to a team’s bowl game (curfew violations, injuries, weather conditions, etc.)

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