Well folks, one weekend of college football is in the books, and as Craig Kilborn used to ask at the end of every episode of The Daily Show, “What did we learn today?”

In no particular order, here’s what I learned from Week 1 of the college football season: It’s going to be a fun season in the Big XII…you know, since Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor and Texas A&M can score on anyone; Will Muschamp is the real deal down in Gainesville; Charlie Weis is too. And by the way Charlie, I must say, you’ve never looked tanner; Auburn’s most valuable player last year wasn’t Cam Newton, it was Nick Fairley; If the Dos Equis guy is the “Most Interesting Man In The World,” Luke Fickell is quite possibly the most intimidating (Anyone who can pin Chris Spielman in a wrestling match is a bad dude in my book); Oregon is good, but needs plenty of work; LSU is good, and doesn’t…the more suspended players, the better!; I’m never again doubting Boise State; I’m never again not doubting Mark Richt; and Houston Nutt very well might be the luckiest man on this planet. How he still has a job is beyond me. Maybe he was part of one of those “My Wish,” campaigns on ESPN on or something.

Anyway, let’s get to Week 2.

As always, the picks are against the spread, with the home team in caps. And just like last weekend, I have allowed my readers to chime in with their opinions on what I call “The Fan’s Take,” at the bottom.

Now…let’s get to the picks!

Earlier this summer, a new football side called OnsideKick.com was launched. On it, they cover the sport of football- both at the collegiate and professional levels- about as well as anyone can. OnsideKick has breaking news, injury reports, fantasy stuff, and plenty of original content. Two of my good friends in this business, Barrett Sallee and Michael Felder are both contributors.

As the summer rolled into fall, Onside Kick decided they would put together a weekly college football Top 25 poll, and after scouring the internet for some of the sport’s better writers, for some reason, they decided to askme to join and become a voter. Why, I’m still not entirely sure. Either way, I gladly accepted, joining an impressive group of voters, including the two guys I mentioned above, and a bunch of others from the world of journalism, blogging, radio and beyond. Quite frankly, I’m flattered to be included with this group.

And now, with the first weekend of college football’s season in the books, I’ve gone ahead and submitted my first Top 25 ballot to Onside Kick. Every week from now until bowl season, I’ll post my picks in this space, as well as a sentence or two on why the selection was made. Most weeks these picks will be made Monday, but because of the long weekend, this week, it was obviously pushed back a day.

Before revealing my selections, I should probably start by saying that this particular vote was probably the toughest that I’ll have all season. Simply put, we really don’t know a ton about these teams or their competition, so it’s hard to figure out how impressive what happened this past weekend was. For example, was Florida State beating UL-Monroe more impressive than Georgia playing Boise State close? Is Oregon losing to LSU better than Stanford stomping out San Jose State? I don’t know, but clearly voting this early in the season isn’t easy.

Anyway, what I tried to do in this vote is to take everything I knew about a team coming into the season, plus what I saw Saturday and put it into some type of context. As the season goes on, I’ll obviously use my preseason opinions less, and on the field results more, but until then, I’ve tried to use a combination of both. I also found myself rewarding teams like Georgia, TCU and Oregon for playing tougher opening games (all either on the road, or neutral fields), more so than schools like Missouri and Penn State for beating up on weaker competition.

Regardless, my Top 25 is listed below, along with a sentence or two on why I ranked every team in the order I did.

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So we’re here.

By my count it’s been roughly 39,622 days since Cam Newton held up the crystal ball, Gene Chizik wore that goofy leather jacket, and Auburn was named National Champs. In actuality it might not have been quite that long. It sure seemed that way though.

But after all the off-season drama, we are indeed here. Football is upon us, with Wisconsin’s beautifully methodic beat down of UNLV last night highlighting things, and serving as an appetizer to this weekend’s full slate of games. Like you, I couldn’t be more excited.

As for this weekend preview you’re reading right now, for those of you who are new, it’s pretty straight forward: I make my picks against the spread on the biggest 10 games of the weekend, and do it in the laid-back and goofy way that only I can. College football is supposed to be fun, and I try to let these previews reflect that. At the same time, I certainly hope that along with the fun, I’m dropping opinion and insight as well (Note, I may be upping the ante and picking more games, maybe 15 or so, once conference play begins. We’ll see).

Anyway, we will get to the picks momentarily. But first, a few quick announcements.

The primary one is that for the first time, I’m opening up this preview to you, the fans. Yes, I will be posting my picks every Friday morning, but I’m really hoping that you’ll send along your thoughts too, so I can post your picks alongside mine, in a segment that I'm calling "The Fan's Take." The one thing that I’ve noticed through the years, is that when I do these previews, you all hit me with incredibly insightful and intelligent comments and e-mails, and this year, I figured that if anyone wanted to actually share their picks beforehand, why not let them?

It all started with a podcast. One silly, innocent, little podcast.

It was April, and at at the time, I was trying my best to find writers across the country to come on the show, and discuss the biggest spring storylines across college football. And while it wasn’t originally my intention to bring on a Florida State writer, eventually I had no choice. By the end of spring, the Seminoles had become the “it” team in college football, the proverbial program ready to make a jump into our national consciousness.

Of course at the time, I wasn’t buying it. I wasn’t buying a resurgence of a program that seemed indestructible in my youth, but had become all too ordinary in recent years. I wasn’t buying Jimbo Fisher as a savior, and I wasn’t even necessarily buying the Seminoles as the best team in the ACC. Not after one 10 win season in 2010, and certainly not after a total of one ACC Championship since the conference expanded to 12 teams. Even that year Florida State back-doored their way into the ACC title game, and finished the season at a very “meh,” 8-5.

Then the podcast happened.

Reflecting back, the one word I’d use to describe it was “confident.” The writer that I interviewed, Coley Harvey of the Orlando Sentinel was confident in what he’d seen with his own two eyes all spring. And Coley’s opinion was a direct reflection of Jimbo Fisher’s confidence, after being surrounded by his team every day at practice.

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Holy crap…it’s game week. No seriously…. IT’S GAME WEEEEEEEK!

Ok, so maybe I’m getting a little too excited here, but for the most part, I feel like that’s the sentiment of college football fans everywhere right now. Across the country, people are waking up, rubbing their eyes and maybe even electing to put on pants, all with the same thought, “College football games are actually being played this Saturday.” Strike up the band, grill some brats and ignore your wife: It’s game week, bayyyybe!”

Before we talk too much pigskin though, let’s first discuss a few quick announcements around these parts. Let’s begin with this week’s schedule at Aaron Torres Sports, because it’s jam packed. Today, I’ll be sharing my picks to win each individual BCS conference (as seen below), Wednesday I’ll be choosing my National Champion (I doubt it’s who you expect it to be), and on Friday I’ll have my first College Football Weekend Preview column. Not to mention that I’ve got two killer podcasts lined up for this week. The one which I hope will be posted on Tuesday will absolutely blow your mind. Seriously, I’m salivating just thinking about it.

Also, I made one big announcement yesterday, but I want to repeat it: Over the past two years, so many of you have given such great comments on my college football weekend preview columns, that I wanted to open up the floor to you, to share your thoughts, and get them posted here. That’s why, along with my own picks, I’ve created something called, “The Fan’s Take.” As I mentioned yesterday, for anyone who has any opinions, insights or thoughts about the weekend’s games, your more than welcome to send them in, and I will publish them alongside my own picks every Friday. It should be a lot of fun, and I’m excited to see how it turns out. For all the details, please click here.

Anyway, there’s a lot of football to be discussed this week, and quite frankly, not a ton of time to talk about it.

So let’s start today with the conference championship picks!

As I’ve mentioned many times on this website, there aren’t many people who love college football more than I do. Oh, some of you may love it the same. But it’s darn near impossible to love it more. Really, I love everything about the sport: Gameday, tailgates, even that little pain-in-the-butt Lane Kiffin. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing better than a fall football Saturday on the couch, is a fall football Saturday at the stadium.

With that said, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have other interests. After all, I like…wait a second, what do I like? The more I think about it, there isn’t much actually. I don’t shop at all. I don't travel enough. And at this point, I’m barely even watching TV. I mean, when my only choices on a Wednesday night are Basketball Wives, House Hunters and The Big Bang Theory, can you really blame me? Sticking a plastic bag over my head and waiting to pass out seems much more entertaining.

Of the few shows I watch, my favorite is probably Entourage. It’s one those shows that isn’t really that good, but isn’t totally bad, and always does enough to keep me coming back next weekend. Just when I’m ready to give up on it, just when a storyline gets so stupid and farfetched…something happens, and boom, there I am anxiously awaiting next Sunday’s episode.

And really, the more I think about it, the more I realize that my favorite TV show is a lot like my favorite football conference, the SEC. Every team and character have their own storyline, every weekend feels like life and death, and just when you think you’ve seen it all… old Harvey Updyke goes and poisons some trees. Say what you want about Entourage and the SEC though, they are nothing if not compelling, and at the end of every week, you can’t help but think, “Man, next weekend can’t get here soon enough.”

Either way, with all the similarities between the two, I decided to scrap a regular Entourage season review, and switch things up, SEC style. Over the next several hundred words, I’m going to break down this season of Entourage character-for-character, along with the SEC team that most corresponds to them.

All the analogies aren’t perfect, but my guess is you’ll be surprised how fitting most of them are.

Let it begin…

(Aaron's Note: By now, many of you know that in addition to writing for this site, I am also the Managing Editor of a new college football blog named '"Crystal Ball Run."  We launched three weeks ago, and so far, I couldn't be having more fun (Thanks for asking!). If you haven't already been to the site to check things out, I highly encourage it. It's different than what I do here (more short-form, news-type pieces), but I'm working with a lot of great writers, and we're doing a lot of fun things over there. Like I said, I encourage you to swing by and see what's poppin' over there.

Anyway, one important decision that I made when I took over at CBR, was that I wouldn't let it impact what I do here. Over the last two years, Aaron Torres Sports has earned a great following and great support, and I didn't want to let all of you down by letting my work here slip. Therefore, I felt it was important to work twice as hard, double-down, maintain this website, and continue to bring the quality content that you've come to expect. In that regard, I believe I've done that. I'm still posting 2-3 columns a week here, plus some podcasts. With plenty more to come.

Of course with that said, it doesn't mean that there aren't some things that get lost in translation between there and here; honestly, it was inevitable. Which is why today, I decided to bring one of my columns from Crystal Ball Run to Aaron Torres Sports, for those of you who might not yet be regulars over there.

This column ran a few weeks ago on Crystal Ball Run, during what we titled "Favorites Week." Some guys talked about their favorite teams, players and stadiums.

But not me. Instead, I decided to take on my favorite broadcaster, the one and only Vernon Lundquist.

Here's the column, as it ran on Crystal Ball Run a few weeks ago)

When the staff at Crystal Ball Run was tasked with coming up with ideas for “Favorites Week,” I really wasn’t quite sure what angle I’d take. There isn’t a returning player who has captured my heart yet. (I usually don’t fall head over heels for anyone until at least Week Three. What can I say, I’m a prude.) My favorite coach is now in the NFL. (Jim Harbaugh, why don’t you call anymore?) And my favorite team, the UConn Huskies, have fewer familiar faces on their roster than the starting lineup of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

(Although, in defense of my UConn fandom, I did consider writing a Favorites Week piece on Paul Pasqualoni’s eyebrows. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t sure there was enough material there for a full column. Maybe next year.)

Needless to say, for a while, I was in a rut. College football is my favorite sport by far, but entering the 2011 season, I didn’t have a “favorite” anything.

Then I went ahead and closed my eyes. I pictured everything that a college football Saturday should look and feel like, and beyond the smell of food on the grill and the sight of coeds in sundresses, one sound stood out above them all: the smooth baritone voice of one Mr. Merton LaVerne “Verne” Lundquist. I had my Favorites Week column.

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So I definitely woke this morning ready to write about Terrelle Pryor and the Supplemental Draft. I had some notes prepared, a pot of coffee ready, and was ready to mount my high-horse and rip Pryor to shreds (Ok, that last part about “mounting a high-horse,” might’ve sounded a little weird. My apologies. But you get the point, right?).

Then something weird happened. I looked myself and the mirror, looked at everything I’ve written recently, and said “screw it.” Within the past 10 days, I’ve written about changes to the NCAA rulebook, college football realignment with Texas A&M and the mess in Miami. For once, I didn’t want to write about the shady, shoddy, underbelly of college football. Instead, I wanted to write about something fun. It’s Friday, and I deserve to have some fun, don’t I?

So with that said, I decided to recycle a column I ran right around this time last year, about College Football Betting, and over/under win totals in specific (For those not who don’t know, over/under win totals are basically exactly what they sound like. Las Vegas sets a line on the number of wins they think a team will have at the end of the year, and then it’s your job to figure out if they’ll go “over” or “under” that total. So if Alabama’s over/under win total is “10,” for example, that means you’re either betting them to go over 10 wins, or under. Makes sense, right?).

Now I know that some of you who aren’t bettors might be saying, “Aaron, I don’t care about this crap, why are you wasting my time?” To which my first response is, “Wow, what’s with the negativity?” Again, relax. It’s Friday.

Beyond that though, even if you don't like to gamble, over/under win totals are actually a really good way to predict a team’s future success. Like everything else in Vegas (and in life really), if an over/under total looks too good to be true, than quite frankly it probably is.

Let me give you an example.

If you remember back to last year, Iowa entered the season as a near-unanimous Top 10 team. The Hawkeyes had finished the previous season with 11 wins and had big-time starters back on both sides of the ball. Some even listed them as a dark horse to win the BCS title. Yet Vegas only had their over/under win total at 8 ½. From the beginning something seemed fishy, and it was. Iowa went just 7-5 in the regular season, and was widely regarded as maybe the most disappointing team in college football last year.

So with that said, let’s take a look at a few of this year’s over/under win totals. But before we do, just one quick note: Please understand that there’s a pretty reasonable chance that you won’t see your team on this list. It isn’t that I don’t like or have interest in them, more that sometimes Vegas does such a good job in picking the over/under number, that I don’t find it necessary to talk about it. For example, both Oklahoma and Alabama are both listed as 10-win teams. That sounds about right, and really I don’t have any strong opinion about that number either way. If anything, I’d probably just stay away from both.

Anyway, with all that said, let’s get to this year’s picks (For the record, all this year's over/under win totals were provided by BetUS.com)

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(Note: This will not read like a regular Aaron Torres Sports piece. I already gave my initial, gut reaction to all yesterday’s breaking news on the Miami football team over at Crystal Ball Run. While I’ll still be referencing a lot of it here, this is more of a postscript to add onto what I wrote yesterday.

First off, if you haven’t read the Yahoo Report, go ahead and do it now. It’s not just a bombshell. It’s the bombshell to end all bombshells. Really, there’s not a word in the English language to accurately depict the breadth and depth of everything Yahoo accuses Miami of. I had to re-read it twice just to begin to wrap my head around all the layers involved.

But since most of you have already read the story, now it’s about trying to put everything into some kind of context.  Much like the story itself, there are so many angles, so many quirks, so many layers that I didn’t get to the first time around, that I feel like I needed to take a night, and follow-up. Which is what I’m going to try to do here.

Like I said, this is a post-script, with some lingering thoughts from the whole situation.)

- First things first, let’s get to the most important truth here: As I described it to my buddy last night, if every piece of information in the Yahoo report proves to be true, than this is far and away the biggest college sports scandal of the last 20 years. Nothing is even close.

Simply put, there’s no precedent for what we’re seeing here. What you’ve got with Miami and Nevin Shapiro, is a super-booster who was basically bankrolling the Miami football program at both ends of the wick. On one side, he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the university, was dealing with the highest levels of the athletics administration on a near day-to-day basis, and even donated enough money to have a longue in the Athletics Department named after him. He was engrained as engrained can be, without actually being a staff member at the school.

It’s funny how life works out sometimes. You plan everything out, do your best to balance life with work and friends with family. But sometimes things just don’t always end up as expected.

Last summer I planned a vacation for the end of June. On paper, it made perfect sense. It’s the start of the slowest few months in sports, and is right in the middle of a literal college football dead period. Going on a vacation in June, what could I possibly miss out on? A few college commitments from high school kids I’d never heard of? An arrest or two in a summer full of them? As my buddy Zayed used to say, “Ehh whatever dude.” I could catch up on all that when I got home.

Of course, it didn’t turn out nearly that easy. College football as we knew it almost got blown to smithereens, only saved at the last second, when Texas got cold feet about a Longhorn Network-less future in the Pac-16. Still that didn’t stop some dominoes from falling, and by the time I got back from vacation, Colorado, Nebraska, Utah and Boise State had all switched conference affiliations.

Something similar happened again this past Memorial Day. Just as I was getting set to apply a nice fat glob of suntan lotion and hit the beach, that prick Jim Tressel decided to resign his post at Ohio State. Sure I got a column up that day, but still showed up late to the beach, and my tan never reached its full potential. Even when I was there, I almost felt guilty for having any fun, and spent most of the afternoon constantly checking my phone looking for any news to break.

Finally, there was this past week.

Behind the scenes in my personal life, June and July were incredibly busy months, and with football set to kick-off in September, I knew that August would be my only real opportunity to lay low. I had a friend expected to visit last Tuesday, and a bachelor party to travel to this weekend. From experience, all I could do was pray that nothing catastrophic happened.

It almost did.