Brennan: Start of college football brings excitement, uncertainty

For much of the sports nation, Thursday is Christmas morning. Our greatest sports passion will be rekindled in dozens of giddy outposts across the nation over the long holiday weekend. Nearly eight months after it left us in a blur of scarlet and gray happiness, college football is back.

Never has the game been more flawed, or more beloved. There is serious, real-life controversy at Baylor, Southern California and North Carolina as the season kicks off, and all kinds of other shenanigans and mischief playing out in the name of college football around the nation, but somehow alums and fans at those schools will carry on as if nothing much is happening, just as so many alums and fans from other schools have done for generations.

This is what we do. College football isn’t apart from us. It’s attached to us.

Check that.

It is us.

It’s a reflection of everything that is good and bad in American society. The NFL is coming soon in all its massive grandeur, but for now, the college game has the football stage to itself, and that stage is going to be packed this weekend.

Leading the way will be the reigning national champion and preseason No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes, harboring a deep, dark secret as they face the only team to defeat them last year, Virginia Tech, on Monday.

Hold that thought for a moment. Remember, decades ago now, when it was a revelation that the NFL was playing on Monday nights? Now college football plays almost every night of the week.

Remember when serious people worried about how this would affect the players’ studies?

Never mind.

So Ohio State coach Urban Meyer isn’t saying who is going to be his starting quarterback: Cardale Jones, who led the Buckeyes to the national title in January, or J.T. Barrett, who led the team to a 10-1 record before breaking his ankle against Michigan last season, opening the door for Jones.

“We’ll announce the starter when the first guy takes the snap,” Meyer said.

I’m not sure an announcement really is necessary by that point. We should be able to see who it is ourselves.

This idea of not naming starting quarterbacks until they magically appear on the field seems to be catching on, at least among Big Ten coaches born in the same Toledo hospital within seven months of each other in 1963-64.

Anything Urban Meyer can do, Jim Harbaugh can do, too. Harbaugh, the new head coach at his alma mater Michigan, has not publicly announced a starting quarterback for his maiden voyage Thursday at Utah, although he says he has informed the two players who are vying for the job.

With this kind of prelude, Nov. 28 can’t get here quick enough. In case there’s any doubt, that’s the date of the first Meyer-Harbaugh Bowl in Ann Arbor. Ohio State could very well still be undefeated and No. 1.

If it seems we’re looking a bit too far ahead by talking about late November in early September, check out all the current College Football Playoff predictions and bowl projections. I don’t want to say we’re putting the cart before the horse, or the victory ceremony before the first kickoff, but anyone who revels in these fantasies should not complain when stores put up holiday decorations before Halloween.

Those predictions tell us to watch TCU, which opens at Minnesota on Thursday. And Auburn, which plays Louisville on Saturday. And Notre Dame, which hosts Texas on Saturday. And the Pac-12, and the SEC — and basically everyone else, because they’re all undefeated.

Well, not everyone is undefeated. Last weekend, Montana defeated North Dakota State. It was an upset, the first of the season, but certainly not the last.

So as the college football season begins, pay no attention to the fact that it has already begun. In America in September, you can never have too many kickoffs.

Follow Christine Brennan on Twitter @cbrennansports.

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