Every August, somebody hands me a depth chart and a glass of something cold and asks who’s going to win it all. And every August I tell them the same thing: the trophy is the easy part. Anybody with a pulse and a preseason poll can guess the champion. The fun is in the undercard — the walk-on who becomes a folk hero, the dead coach walking who saves his own job in November, the mid-major nobody can name in July who you’ll be screaming about by Thanksgiving.

So before a single whistle blows, here’s where I think this season is headed. Some of these will look insane in three weeks — and a few of them, if I’m being honest with myself, will look insane in a different direction by December, because nobody bats a thousand at this and the ones who claim they do are lying. That’s the deal. You make the calls, you live with the ones that blow up in your face, and you save the two big ones — the Heisman and the crystal football — for last. Let’s count it down.

23. A Month of Georgia Tech Flexbone Porn

When the Flexbone hums, there is nothing more enjoyable in the sport. You know exactly what Paul Johnson wants to do, you’ve known for years, and you still can’t stop it. Tech faded in 2010 because they couldn’t stretch the field with Demaryius Thomas gone, and defenses just parked on the line of scrimmage. I think they find it again early — and spectacularly. Pencil in a September where the Jackets are hanging 50 a week and burying bad defenses under 500-plus rushing yards, throwing the ball maybe four times a game and completing all four. It won’t last the whole season; option teams cool off when the schedule stiffens, and the passing game is still a rumor. But for about a month, it’s going to be the most fun, most infuriating offense in the country.

22. Hot, Hot MACtion

Set your Tuesday and Wednesday nights aside in November. The MAC is going to be the best garbage-time television in America — track meets where nobody on either sideline has ever heard of a stop. I’m talking 1,100 combined yards, 60-plus point winners, defensive coordinators visibly aging on camera. Northern Illinois, Toledo, Ohio, Ball State, Western Michigan — they’re all going to take turns hanging half a hundred on each other. The national title may get decided by some historically miserable defense.

The MAC is here to remind you that football is allowed to just be fun.

21. The Sun Belt Is Really, Really Fun

I called the MAC a socialist utopia, and I stand by it — but it’s got company. The Sun Belt has quietly nailed its coaching hires (Hudspeth, Freeze, Malzahn, Taggart, McCarney — that’s a real list), and I think the standings basically flip this year. The old guard tumbles: Middle Tennessee, Florida International, even a Troy program that’s owned this league for half a decade — all of them slide. And the new blood surges, with Arkansas State going from the middle of the pack to champion and Western Kentucky tripling its win total. Parity, chaos, and a different name on the trophy. Best kind of league.

20. The Mid-Majors Surprise You, Because They Always Do

This isn’t a bold call so much as a law of physics: some team you’re sleeping on right now is going to win nine games. I just can’t tell you which names. So I’ll throw a handful at the wall — a Utah State that loses four agonizing one-score games and still wins more than it has in nearly two decades; a Wyoming that has no business winning eight but wins all the close ones anyway; a Marshall sneaking into a bowl; a Louisiana Tech with a defense nobody saw coming. And keep an eye on Louisiana-Lafayette — everybody’s got them dead last in the worst league in the country, which is exactly the profile of a team about to win nine and a bowl game and make the preseason crowd look foolish. Somebody on this list hits. Probably more than one.

19. Virginia and Vanderbilt Have Their Moments

Two of the saddest recent histories in the major conferences are about to get interesting. Mike London’s Virginia takes a real step — I’m talking a winning record against FBS teams after a 2-8 slog, a road win or two, and at least one jarring upset that nobody sees coming (don’t be shocked if it’s in Tallahassee). And James Franklin’s first Vanderbilt team is going to be the best 6-7 you ever saw — a team that loses four or five games by a single score, flips a horrendous point differential into a healthy positive one, and announces that the nerdy little brother of the SEC has finally hired a grown-up. Neither makes a New Year’s Six. Both matter.

18. Tino Sunseri Keeps Getting Up

I don’t quite know how to prepare you for the Pittsburgh pass protection. It’s going to be historically, almost comically bad — we’re talking 60-plus sacks, a number you basically never see anymore. And yet Tino Sunseri is going to start every game and keep climbing off the turf and slinging it. Credit the toughness; it’s real. But somebody get this man a stopwatch, because the cure for some of those sacks is in his own hands and his own internal clock.

17. Better Late Than Never, Terrance Ganaway

Baylor’s going to have the flashy quarterback (more on him much later), but if the Bears are going to win the games that turn a good year into a great one, somebody has to carry the rock in the fourth quarter. I think it’s Terrance Ganaway, and I think it comes out of nowhere. This is a kid with a couple years of nothing on his résumé and a long run against an FCS team as his highlight. Watch him flip the switch down the stretch — back-to-back-to-back 150-to-200-yard nights, an 80-yarder here, a bowl-game eruption there. He’ll gain more in the final month than in his entire career to date and put Baylor over the top in games they had no business closing out.

16. Texas’ Cornerbacks Get Good Fast

Everybody’s worried about the Texas secondary, and I get it — they’re young. I’m not worried. In Manny Diaz’s first year running that defense, I think the corners are the story, not the soft spot. A true freshman and a sophomore, both turning into ballhawks who live in receivers’ hip pockets — combine for a pile of interceptions and a frightening number of pass breakups apiece. The blue-chip front seven was always going to be nasty. The kids on the back end are what take this defense from good to genuinely scary.

15. Devon Still and Whitney Mercilus Go from Interesting to Ridiculous

Two breakout big men. Whitney Mercilus — and yes, the name is too perfect — has shown flashes off the Illinois bench, a handful of tackles for loss, nothing that screams stardom. I think he leads every major-conference defender in havoc: north of 20 tackles for loss, a mountain of sacks, a one-man wrecking crew even as the Illini offense falls apart around him. And Devon Still, a Penn State tackle — tackles aren’t supposed to be this disruptive — is going to nearly match him, anchoring a defense that wins a bunch of low-scoring grinders almost by itself. Two guys going from “interesting” to “oh no” in a single autumn.

14. Henry Josey and Dom Whaley Come Out of Nowhere

Every year the injury gods turn a depth chart into a story. At Missouri, watch the running back room fall apart — I think they lose backs in consecutive weeks until a third-stringer named Henry Josey is the last man standing, and then he goes off: a 200-yard half in his first start, a string of 130-plus nights, a pace that flirts with the school record. (I’ll also warn you the same gods who giveth tend to taketh; backs running this hot rarely make it to January unscathed.) And at Oklahoma, the supposed weak spot becomes a strength when a walk-on out of Langston — Dom Whaley, a name I promise will be in zero preseason magazines — turns into a difference-maker.

Out-of-nowhere stars are the most reliable surprise in the sport.

13. Boise State Finally Runs the Table and Crashes the Party

Here’s one I’ll plant a flag on. Kellen Moore is the best quarterback nobody east of the Mountain time zone takes seriously, and this is the year the stars line up. I think Boise State goes undefeated, busts the BCS yet again, and dares the cartel to keep an unbeaten out of the big-money games one more time. That blue field hasn’t lost a game it was supposed to win in ages, and I don’t see the upset on the schedule. Petersen’s crew finishes perfect and forces the conversation nobody in a power league wants to have. Book it.

12. A Free-Falling Georgia Wins 10 Straight

Mark Richt is on the hottest seat in the country right now, and I understand why — 6-7 will do that, and Athens has been grumbling since the 2008 preseason No. 1 went sideways. So here’s my call, and it’s a weird one: Georgia starts 0-2, everybody buries Richt, and then the Dawgs rip off ten in a row. Look at the schedule, not the panic. The defense is going to click, the offense will do just enough, and the SEC East is soft enough to steal. Lose the opener, lose a heartbreaker, and then watch them hold nearly everyone under 21 the rest of the way and win the division. The hot seat cools faster than the talk-radio crowd will want to admit.

11. Louisville Grows Up Early

This is the one where I’m going against my own instincts, so let me flag it. Everything in the manual says Louisville regresses — Charlie Strong’s leap-year roster got gutted, the schedule’s a gauntlet, and second-year drop-offs are the most predictable thing in this sport. I had them written down for a step backward. I’m crossing it out. I think a true freshman quarterback takes the keys, Louisville starts shaky, and then a defense full of freshmen and sophomores grows up in real time and damn near wins the Big East.

Remember the name when it happens: this kid Bridgewater.

The schedule says regression. The eyeballs say something else, and I’m trusting the eyeballs.

10. N.C. State Saves Tom O’Brien’s Job

This one’s almost hard to type with a straight face. Tom O’Brien is going to be on the chopping block by November — a middling start, a nationally televised beatdown, and a fan base that has not forgiven him for the Russell Wilson situation and won’t let it go on air. And then the Wolfpack save him. I think they steal a game they have no business winning (an upset of a top-ten team), claw back from a three-touchdown hole in another one with a rain of unanswered points, and ride into a bowl win looking like a sleeper Top 25 outfit for next year. The Notorious T.O.B. lives to coach another season. Don’t ask me to explain it; just watch.

9. Michigan’s and Oklahoma State’s Defenses Are … Good?

Stay with me. Oklahoma State cracks the code for thriving in the advanced numbers while surrendering a country mile of yardage — bend-don’t-break as performance art, helped enormously by sharing a field with the best offenses in America every week. And Michigan, of all teams, wins because of defense. Brady Hoke and Greg Mattison inherit one of the worst units in the sport and drag it, in one year, into the national top fifteen. Ten-plus wins, a BCS bowl, and a defense young enough to be even better next fall. If you’d told me a year ago I’d be typing the words “Michigan’s defense carried them,” I’d have checked your temperature. Typing it anyway.

8. Texas A&M Crashes the Top Ten on Its Way Out the Door

The Aggies are leaving for the SEC, and I think they leave a calling card. Mike Sherman has quietly stacked the most complete roster in College Station in years — a big-armed quarterback in Ryan Tannehill, a downhill run game, weapons everywhere. I’m calling A&M for a double-digit-win season, a top-ten finish, and a quarterback who plays his way into the first round of the draft. This is the year the slow-build pays off and the Aggies announce themselves before they even get to the big-boy league. Write it down.

7. LSU’s Defensive Line Grows Up

I’m on record being calm about the LSU secondary even without Patrick Peterson — the depth is absurd and there’s a kid named Mathieu back there who plays like his hair’s on fire. What I was actually nervous about was the front four, which was young at tackle and uneven a year ago. I think that worry evaporates. The tackles dominate the interior, the ends tee off on passing downs for a frightening sack and TFL haul, and the whole thing makes that celebrated secondary’s job easy — you don’t have to cover long when the quarterback is on his back. If this line arrives, LSU is a monster, and the SEC race runs through Baton Rouge.

6. Oklahoma Owns the Big 12 and Lives at No. 1

The Sooners are my preseason favorite to win that league going away, and I don’t think it’s especially close. Landry Jones to Ryan Broyles is the best pitch-and-catch in the country, the defense has playmakers, and Bob Stoops doesn’t lose the games in front of him. I think Oklahoma spends most of the fall sitting at or near the top of the polls, takes the Big 12 outright, and is squarely in the national-title conversation deep into November. If there’s a team built to go wire-to-wire as the class of its conference, it’s this one. The road to the league title runs through Norman, and I don’t see anybody on that schedule knocking them off it.

5. USC Surges, and Then Keeps Surging

With the scholarship sanctions, USC’s margin for error is razor thin, and for half the season they’re going to look the part — winning ugly, squeaking past teams they should bury, getting rocked somewhere they shouldn’t. Don’t bail. I think the young Trojans figure it out in a hurry down the stretch. A defense that ends the year starting three freshman linebackers tightens into a wall, and a one-note passing game explodes into something else entirely when a blue-chip freshman receiver named Marqise Lee flips the switch.

Barkley to Woods, Barkley to Woods, and for variety, Barkley to Woods.

They’ll go from stagnant to scary in about three weeks, finish the season looking like the best team in the conference, and have people whispering preseason No. 1 for next year. The whispers will be right.

4. Freshman Receivers Take Over the Sport

Here’s a rule I believe in: we wildly overrate incoming freshmen, because the leap from high school to Saturdays is enormous and most kids need a year to find their feet. And here’s the rule I think breaks in 2011: freshman wide receivers. Watch a whole class of them arrive ready. Clemson has a freshman who becomes the No. 1 target on a conference champion and a weapon on kick returns. USC’s Lee, as mentioned, turns a good team into a great one. Oregon has a do-everything freshman — receiver, runner, returner — who is flat-out unfair in space. Florida State leans on a freshman to carry a banged-up receiving corps. By December, the bar for the next blue-chip class will be set somewhere unreasonable. Best position group of the year, and most of them can’t legally rent a car.

3. Kansas State Wins 10 Games and I Cannot Fully Explain It

The one that’ll get me laughed at in August and quoted in December. Every number I trust says Kansas State should hover around .500. The roster isn’t loaded with elite athletes, the schedule’s tricky, and a team like this usually splits its close games and goes home. I think they win basically all of them anyway. I think Bill Snyder, who is some kind of wizard, coaxes this group into a one-score-game win streak that defies arithmetic — survive an FCS scare, steal one on a goal-line stand, smother a Heisman contender late, hold off charge after charge — and somehow they’re sitting there at 7-0 and ranked in the top ten with everybody waiting for the bottom to fall out. It’ll fall out once, in some lopsided beating that has everyone declaring the magic over. And then they’ll go right back to winning the close ones. Ten wins. Maybe more. Their only losses to teams that finish ranked in the top sixteen.

The stats hate this pick, which is exactly why I love it.

2. The Heisman: Robert Griffin III — Yes, a Baylor Bear

Everybody’s handing the stiff-arm to Andrew Luck right now, and I understand the reflex. He’s the No. 1 pick in waiting, the safe pick, the August pick. I’m not doing it. Go look at the last decade-plus of winners — Alabama, USC, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio State, blue bloods nearly to a man. You have to go back to the Ware and Detmer years to find a true outsider. So here’s my flag in the ground: Robert Griffin III wins it, in a Baylor uniform. He’s got the arm, the legs, the highlight reel, and — if Baylor knocks off both Oklahoma and Texas, which I think it can — the scalps that make a narrative. A win for RG3 would be proof the voters actually watch the games instead of just the team of the week. I think they do. I think he’s their guy. Sorry, Luck.

1. The Big One: Alabama over Oregon

I saved the crystal football for last, so let me say it plainly. Alabama wins the national title.

The logic isn’t complicated. Defense wins these things, and Alabama is building the kind of defense that doesn’t just stop you — it depresses you. Nick Saban has stacked that two-deep with future Sundays, and when you can rush four and drop seven and still live in the backfield, January belongs to you.

For the team standing across from them in the final game, I’ll take Oregon — the chaos-engine counterweight, Chip Kelly’s blur offense putting up video-game numbers and running somebody clean off the field on the way to Glendale.

Tempo versus teeth. I’ll take the teeth.

Full disclosure, because I’d rather be honest than clever: the matchup is the part I’m least sure of. Oregon has to survive a brutal opener and its own conference, and the SEC is a snake pit where the team that ends up in that final game might not be the one anybody’s circling today — don’t be stunned if it’s a rematch nobody asked for. So if you want to hammer me in five months, hammer me on the dance partner. The crimson part I’ll go to the wall for.

That’s the board. Some of it’s going to look prophetic and some of it’s going to look like I wrote it during a long night with that cold glass — and I won’t be able to tell you in August which is which. That’s the whole point. Now somebody refill it. Kickoff can’t come soon enough.