Astros fans don’t worry, football season is here

It happens every year about this time in Texas: as the oppressive summer heat begins to subside, a fresh new smell arrives, one you can’t really describe. It’s kind of like the aroma of fresh brewed coffee and donuts on a Saturday morning. Once you get a whiff, you’ll never forget. So take a deep breath for yourself……Ahhh football season is finally here! It has been a long eight months since the Super Bowl, but a new season is upon us and that bad taste of a summer filled with baseball and poker will be washed away this week.

First off, the Texans play tonight on national tv against Bret Favre and the Vikings (for those of you who slept through August, yes Brett Farve is now on the Vikings). I know it’s just a pre-season game, but this is the week that the starters play a majority of the minutes and we’ll have a better feel as to the Texans’ chances to make a playoff run this year. I expect Reliant Stadium to be buzzing tonight with raucous fans and a large presence of national media talking heads hyping up the Brett Farve saga. It’s a great chance for the Texans to show they’re for real this year.

And that’s just the beginning; Thursday night is first night of the College Football season. ESPN has a double header starting at 6 pm cdt with South Carolina at NC State, followed by Oregon at Boise State at 9:15 pm cdt. It’s always fun to catch Oregon’s first game every year, just to see how ugly their uniforms will be. Anyways, if those games don’t get your blood flowing just wait until Friday night. For those of you in the Houston area, check out The Woodlands at Katy. It should be a great test for both schools. For those of you in the Austin area, Westlake is at Lake Travis on Friday night. Both teams put up impressive wins in Week 0 and for now have set aside any doubts that these two teams had going into the season with a new coach and new QB respectively.

Then comes Saturday, the day we’ve all been waiting for since bowl season ended. Waking up to Lee, Kirk and Chris on College Gameday, followed by the endless scroll of games on tv. A&M, Oklahoma and Texas all play at 6 pm Saturday night, so catching all three games will be impossible. Especially since the A&M game isn’t on tv and Texas is on PPV. Nonetheless, I assume most of the people who are reading this will be at one of the games or at least watching one of the games. For A&M, I believe it is one-step at a time. A win over New Mexico is a must. The players and coaches should be treating this game like they’re playing Texas. To avoid another embarrassment of a season and risk alienating the Aggie faithful even more, a win over lowly New Mexico is crucial. As for Texas and Oklahoma, this is the first step towards the ultimate goal; the BCS national championship game. Look crisp, play smart, and stay injury free before the ultimate showdown on Oct 17^th at the Cotton Bowl. Both teams should be undefeated and the winner will obviously have the upper hand to make it to Pasadena in January.

Let the games begin!