College Football:

The Forde Yard Dash is back and that means college football is right around the corner! Can you believe we made it through the offseason?

On top of that, Kirk Herbstreit released his 11th annual Herbie Awards this week covering the best players, coaches and some predictions.

SI.com’s Andy Staples is one of my favorite writers (if you read this space regularly, I’m sure you already knew that) and he was at it again with with the college football fan’s prayer including, “Lord, please make them kick the damn ball already. Amen.” I couldn’t agree more!

With the season starting tomorrow, Kegs ‘n Eggs has your Tailgating Dos and Don’ts: 3.0. Definitely some sound advice that I’m sure some of you could use!

ESPN.com’s Adrea Adelson made three predictions for the MWC and wrote a good piece about Boise State’s seniors trying to make history.

Mr. College Football compiled a list of ten games that will settle the BCS title matchup. I can’t wait for all ten of these but luckily two of them are this weekend!

AP writer Tim Booth profiled Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore and all he’s meant to the Broncos. I’m excited to fwatch Kellen’s precision passing, calm under pressure and ability manipulate defenses for one more season in Boise.

Photo via zimbio.com

Speaking of Moore – Thayer Evans from FoxSports.com also wrote an excellent piece about Moore’s unchanged will to be great even after getting *gulp* married this summer.

Despite taking over for Andy Dalton, TCU sophomore quarterback Casey Pachall sees no reason for the offense to take a step back. As metioned in the article – running backs EdWesley, Matthew Tucker and Waymon James should help ease his transition.

Dr. Saturday has been working through the BlogPoll Countdown and today he revealed The Cream (teams 1-5). With Nebraska coming in at 5, Oklahoma at 4, Boise State at 3, Stanford at 2, Bama at 1. He even suggests the Broncos might have a legitimate path to the BCS Championship Game.

The Freshman 15: First-years who will make an instant impact from Andy Staples. You might want to get familiar with a few of these names including Clowney, Brown, Thomas, and O’Leary to name a few.

Sports Illustrated’s all-star staff had a College Football TV Roundtable discussing everything from Gus Johnson to everyone’s favorite, Craig James. Chances are you’ll enjoy this! (HT TheUpsetBlog)

Either a whole bunch of writers have been covering Boise State or I luckily managed to stumble upon a bunch of articles this week – Here’s how the Broncos can make it to the national title game.

Here’s your CBS Sports 2011 Preseason All-American Team (featuring three Broncos) and the Preseason Freshman All-American Team (no Broncos but does include Georgia RB Isaiah Crowell).

Stewart Mandel’s (another good one at SI.com) College Football Overtime Week 1 addresses Oregon’s spread offense against LSU’s D-Line, Georgia’s statement game, current BCS forecast and more.

I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet but Dan Wetzel’s inaugural college football podcast came out this week and he had Willie Lyles on to breakdown the “Will Lyles Bowl” between LSU and Oregon, and Chris Vernon to talk a variety of topics including A&M leaving the Big 12 and Boise State-Georgia among other things. Will Lyles on the “Will Lyles Bowl”? It’s gotta be good, right?

Surfing:

Surfline took photographs of Lower Trestles at the same time, same place, for 30 days - it’s actually pretty cool.

It looks like Kelly Slater is back to business after winning the Billabong Pro Tahiti defeating Owen Wright in the final. It’s seriously ridiculous how good Slater is at surfing.

Day 8 of the Billabong Pro was a lay day because Teahupoo was absolutely MASSIVE. Nick Carroll wrote a great piece about the insane day – Where No Human Was Meant To Go. Surfline (of course) has a bunch of excellent pictures and video of the tow session on Saturday. Here’s video of Bruce Irons breaking down footage from his bombs that day:

Soccer:

Champions League groups were drawn last Thursday - the toughest group appears to be; Bayern Munich, Villarreal, Manchester City & Napoli. The weakest seems to be: Manchester United, Benfica, Basel & Otelul Galati. After Arsenal squeaked into the group stage I was happy to see them get a fairly decent group.

Spanish forward Juan Mata completed his transfer to Chelsea thanks to some help from fellow Spaniard Fernando Torres. After rumors of Mata transferring to Arsenal this one stings a little.

After being humiliated by Manchester United last weekend 8-2, Arsenal offer free tickets to fans that attended the game at Old Trafford. When was the last time an American sports team did something like this?

Real Madrid-Barcelona is arguably the best rivalry in all of sports right now but the two teams could be killing Spanish soccer.

National Hockey League:

I mentioned Chris Drury’s retirement last week but had to put this on here – Without fanfare, Drury makes his exit. (HT Michael Brady)

Technology:

SI.com’s Adrian Dater wrote an interesting piece about team bonding suffering in the modern tech age. I obviously wasn’t around waay back in the day, but I think he makes a pretty good argument.

Any good articles or videos I missed? Happy Humpday Everyone!