There is a feeling in the air. It can be felt on the campuses of south Florida all the way to the most upper northwest corner of Washington; the feeling college football season is less than one week away.
Emotions of anxiousness and excitement rage as dormitories fill to capacity and college towns see their population increase by the thousands. The bars and restaurants that once lay dormant in the spring have begun to see additional bodies make their way through their doors, but for now they can only brace fore what is ahead.
This past week as temperatures fell, the only sound that boomed louder than the crack of the pads at football practice was the sound of marching bands perfecting fight songs and halftime performances. With each tackle and each horn sounded, the anticipation heightens, to the extent that we are like children waiting on Christmas Eve.
Yes, the start of the college football season can be seen in the distance, peaking over the horizon.
The wait, just like the wait for Christmas morning has been painfully slow. We were teased with spring practices and intersquad performances but a Saturday in April just isn’t the same as a Saturday in September.
Then, just as the first snowfall is a sign of winter, we received our first sign that college football was about to return. Schools paraded coaches and student athletes in to ballrooms in regional locations across the country. The spectacle was exciting because it was reminiscent to the scene that occurs weekly in media rooms on college campuses. However, unlike the season, there were no games at the end of this tunnel, just talk of contests months off in the distance.
After months and weeks of waiting the time is almost here as the countdown clock tells us we are just days away. We are just days away from RVs setting up camp in campus parking lots as food vendors begin their preparations to feed the masses in the shadows of these cathedral-like stadiums.
However, on Sunday all will be quiet. There will be no practices. There will be no make shift campgrounds being disassembled, and beer isles and liquor stores will still be well stocked.
Soon the quiet will disappear; we are just in the calm before the college football storm.
