Five-Step Drop: Finally, It's Here

FanHouse's college football staff provides you with a personal quarterback. We do the primary and secondary reads for you so you can properly start your day. FanHouse will do a Five-Step Drop most days of the week now that the season is finally here.

1. It's been nearly eight months since we saw a college football game, but the wait is over. When Presbyterian and Wake Forest hook it up at 6:30 p.m. ET, another season will be underway. It's not just an ordinary night of Thursday football either, as there are 18 games involving FBS teams -- including No. 2 Ohio State, No. 13 Miami, No. 14 USC and No. 15 Pitt.

Let's also remember one of the greatest things about the season beginning is that it represents another entire season of tailgating. Between the great food, the camaraderie, the partying, the chants and everything in between, tailgating truly is a great American pastime and makes the spectating more fun. Pictures like the one here (at Mississippi State) can be taken all over the nation every Saturday. Great times.

Oh yeah, no link in here because it was all me. Since Five-Step is predicated on linking, I'll give one with a short take: if you're going to complain about the Big Ten division alignment, please do so without saying you don't like it because Ohio State and Michigan playing each other in the last regular season game "all but" eliminates a rematch the following week. It does nothing of the sort. The teams are in different divisions and when they play has no bearing on the standings -- I don't care what two teams you're talking about.

2. Do Houston and Boise State have the best quarterback play in the nation? Rivals.com says so, in a ranking of all 120 FBS schools' starter/backup duos. Eastern Michigan was last and the lowest duo from a BCS automatic qualifying school was Vanderbilt, checking in at No. 112.

3. Earlier this offseason (soon to be this past offseason ... woo hoo!), Eastern Michigan head coach Ron English came under fire for saying he'd rather recruit players with a father in their background because they didn't have to learn how to be taught by a man. He's now clarifying the comments, and has noted he was raised without a father until he was a teenager. As is becoming more and more prevalent in today's society, this seems like a case where people jumped on words themselves without taking in the entire context and decided to take a hatchet to the guy. You can get roasted for parts of anything you say. I'd say this should be a lesson to the new coach, but I don't think he did anything wrong in the first place.

4. For the first time in Joe Paterno's tenure -- think about that one for a while -- a true freshman will start at quarterback for Penn State. Robert Boldin will be under center for the Nittany Lions on Saturday in State College against Youngstown State, as he's beaten out sophomores Kevin Newsome and Matt McGloin. Boldin will likely be just fine in his debut, but it may be a different story the following week, when the guy who was in high school last season walks in to Tuscaloosa and faces the defending national champion Crimson Tide of Alabama.

5. In May of 2011, Drake will head to Moshi, Tanzania to take on a Mexican all-star team in what is believed to be the first official American football game on the continent of Africa. Not really much more to add to the story. It should be a cool trip for the Drake players and spreading the great game of football to new reaches of the planet is never a bad thing.