Despite the optimism that always accompanies the beginning of a new NFL season, when I look at all of the news coming out of the league I am left a little down. It seems like that until the real season starts, the overriding stories in the NFL are about greed and ego run amok. Look at the big stories in the NFL today:

Brett Favre’s ‘me-first, I am more important than the rest of my team’ approach to playing seems to have already alienated some of his Viking teammates. In record time for him – at least he is getting better at one aspect of his game with age.

Brandon Marshall was suspended by the Broncos due to having the maturity and intelligence of a 12-year old. If there is one way to increase your value and get a team to meet your salary demands it is to quit on your team and be disruptive. Especially coming off yet another legal problem and hip surgery. Employers love that.

Among the rookies, we still have two holdouts. Michael Crabtree is depriving us of probably the most exciting rookie in the league in some mis-guided attempt to squeeze an extra couple million out of his contract. I love the threat of sitting out a season. Brilliant logic. So he does sit out a season, losing an entire year’s salary and re-enters the draft next year – then what? He has already shown he is difficult to work with, so he gets drafted even lower than tenth and is offered an even lower contract. The offers keep getting lower and he keeps missing prime years of his career. That is a great career move. He must have the same business advisor as Brandon Marshall. Crabtree should ask Aaron Crow how this strategy has worked for him.

The other hold out is Andre Smith who is not nearly as interesting but his impact could be more far-reaching. There are no winners from him holding out the finest man-breasts this side of Phil Mickelson from Hard Knocks.

With all of this negativity (who would have thought Michael Vick would be the lone feel good story so far this season), I woke up a little down this morning.

But then the clouds parted and a beam of light shown upon my TV. While I waited for the epic Arsenal – Manchester United match-up (yes, I am a Gunner fan, deal with it). I watched ESPN’s College GameDay preview special. The combination of an important (if early) soccer game and the realization we sit 5 days from college football, helped to brighten my mood.

So, with the predictions of Kirk, Lou and Robert Smith fresh in my mind, I present my annual college football predictions:

-  The thing that makes me most excited about the season? It is the consensus of all the experts picking a Texas/Florida national title game. You would probably assume that the prospect of two of my least favorite teams playing for the title, would send me spiraling into a Leaving Las Vegas-level funk but it is actually the opposite. You see, every season proves the experts have no idea what they are talking about in the preseason. So, the more convinced they are that something will occur, the more likely it will not. Their picking a UF/UT BCS title game makes it all but certain it won’t happen.

-  So, what will keep the two teams from making it? Well, on the UT side, it could be argued they will lose to Oklahoma. Not so fast. They have a better defense and a better offensive line. If OU didn’t win last year they won’t this year (sorry, Turner). However, what seems to get lost is that UT barely beat Oklahoma State last year – in Austin. OSU is going to be very good and they are going to be gunning for UT when the Horns come to Stillwater. I can see the Big Twelve south having the same Ro-sham-bo problem they did a year ago, with 3 teams with a single loss. Unfortunately after a less-than-impressive bowl season, they won’t get the benefit of the doubt like they did a year ago.

-  As for UF, everyone is sure they will breeze through their schedule on the way to the BCS title game. While it is true that UF’s schedule is only slightly more difficult than SMU’s, everyone should remember that UF has the bad habit of taking off one Saturday each season – unfortunately not during their bye week. The obvious candidate would be at LSU. I would point out that their slip-ups tend to occur in the Swamp but the Gators home schedule is a joke. FSU may be the only legitimate team coming into the Swamp and not even the kids who he circumcised think Tebow is going to lose his final home game to a rival. Really, the only other team coming into the Swamp that could surprise would be Arkansas but I did some research and they are still coached by Bobby Petrino. At least right now, he might have jumped ship by the time you read this.

-  One thing I will guarantee about UF is that Gary Danielson will spend 3 quarters of every UF game he announces trying to make the argument why Tebow will succeed in the NFL. At least it will be a new twist on Danielson’s traditional attempt to make every game a nearly unwatchable 3-hour commercial for Tebow for Heisman.  

-  As would be expected by a guy with the objectivity of Sean Hannity, Lou Holtz believes Notre Dame will play in the National title game. This year. Should I give you a minute to stop laughing before continuing? Yes, Lou’s blind love of all things Irish, is pretty humorous, given that Notre Dame hasn’t been relevant to the national title conversation for over 15 years but I actually agree with him to a point.

-  It’s not that I believe Notre Dame is one of the 2 or 3 best teams in the country but they have a ridiculously easy schedule and as we all know with blind partisans like Lou and Beano Cook still helping to drive the college football conversation they will be greatly overrated. They could be 5-0 taking on USC in October. They could go into November at 7-1. If you don’t think a 7-1 Notre Dame is in the top ten, then you think way too highly of the college football writers and coaches. The Irish won’t play for the National title but I think we can all look forward to them getting absolutely annihilated by a superior team in a BCS bowl this season. Now that is a holiday tradition I missed the last couple years.

-  Speaking of USC, I think they fall short of the title game as well. Losing both coordinators, starting a true freshman at quarterback and losing most of their defense may be too much to overcome. Factor in their inevitable Pac-Ten loss to a lesser team as well as going into Columbus the second week of the season and I don’t see a 2-loss USC team making the BCS title game.

-  Yes, I know I always assume Big Ten loses to more athletic teams but I put an asterisk next to this one. A true freshman QB going into the Horseshoe? Yeah, good luck with that. For the first time in memory, I like the Big Ten quarterback more than the competition.

-  So, if OSU can get by USC, is there any team that can beat them? They have to go to Penn State, but the Lions lost much of their already anemic offense. Can they find enough points to beat a more mature Terrell Pryor? Probably not.

-  Yep, I am picking yet another OSU appearance in a national title game. But at least you have a few months to prepare yourself…you know, to make other plans for the night of the BCS title game.

-  So then who do they play? Well, there are two things you can bank on in any college season. First, Notre Dame be vastly overrated should they show just a little life and Second, when a team is widely believed to be the best team in the country, voters will find a way to get them into the national title game despite all evidence to the contrary.

-  At this point, I would guess much like last year, we will end up with a log-jam of one-loss teams behind an undefeated OSU team. If that is the case, is there any chance the voters keep UF out? They could lose 43-3 to Florida International while OU loses only one game to Texas 43-41 on a hail mary and UF will play in the national title game.

-  Voters want to prove their own intelligence. If they vote someone pre-season number one, they are going to do anything they can to prove themselves right at the end of the season, just so they can point to their own brilliance later (I told you UF was the best team and now they are in the title game), ignoring that they are the reason they are in the title game.

-  So, we face the prospect of a UF/OSU title game. We have seen this before and it wasn’t pretty. Any reason to believe this would be different? No. UF wins another title and unfortunately things turn dark when Gary Danielson, distraught over no longer announcing Tebow games actually kidnaps him and keeps him chained up in his basement until the SWAT team stages an epic assault operation to free him.

Now that I see it on paper, the whole college football season doesn’t make me feel any more optimistic than I did coming in.

Oh, and my boys from Arsenal lost 2-1 on an own-goal.

Dark days indeed.