Ninety-two degrees was the high today in my neighborhood. Ninety-two degrees in early June - it isn’t usually until sometime in August when the mercury reaches those heights.

We’ve got Father’s Day weekend approaching, the winter sports are all about finished, or will be within a week and for most of us here our minds are drifting towards fall already. Why rush away so many days during the hottest time of year some ask?

It is simple… FOOTBALL!

Fortunately for the folks of our fine community we don’t have to wait until September to see how our favorite teams will look. That is because on a midsummer day in July each year a video game is released that will keep us holed up in the recycled and conditioned air, on the couch, in front of the biggest TV our wives/girlfriends/budgets would let us get.

Still the annual gathering to “wait” is once again upon us. That’s right, it’s back: the 7th annual Unofficial Countdown to the release of NCAA Football!

Every year now, for what will be 7 straight installments, people have flocked to the community known as MaddenMania for something that started as innocent as the division of the atom.

Sure some of the faces have changed. And sometimes old names come out of the woodwork like those earwigs you get every summer around the deck when you uncover the pool.

But thing remains true: the passion for a football game and some male bonding is sure to be had, as well as the love for one of the greatest sports ever, College Football.

College Football fans are a different breed. Allegiance is deep to an NCAA fan. School colors are bled and passed down through generations. There are rivalries and trophies for those rivalries, most with a history that stretch taller than Napoleon.

The fall air breathes energy into an otherwise stale life at times, and the crisp Saturday afternoon breeze sparks imagination of what could have been versus what tomorrow will bring.

The countdown to leaps into the endzones and championships has begun!

Hearing the crunch of a fallen leaves under your feet as you hurry home from the market with the largest steak you could get your mitts on and as you hurriedly slip on your alma maters t-shirt and your most comfy jeans before firing up the grill and setting the DVR to the biggest game of the year (which just so happens to be every week your team is playing).

Maybe something coincides with the fact that some of the most passionate years of your life are those four years (or eight like me) you are in college (no - I am not a doctor).

Still something is just different about amateur football when there is just a love of the game by people are just barely legal as adults in the eyes of the law, but still just children when they bring home laundry to mom every month.

It is something special to watch two groups of 11 people at a time on a field who flat out hate each other for four quarters of football for no other reason than the colors they are wearing.

Kids that would give their all for their coaches, teammates and fans every weekend of their lives if they could, but compact that passion into 12 Saturdays a year for four years, to never step on the playing field again after that. That is what makes this game different. And what separates the diehards that follow it from every other sports fan in America and even the World.
These are the people that play college football, and this countdown is for you.

34 days and counting until you can lead the Huskers to glory...again.

So without further ado I present to you the one, the only, and yes the original, often duplicated but never truly replicated … ok that was some more ado … Unofficial Countdown to NCAA Football ’09!

I look forward to leading the way once again, my forum name is BigWill33 and I will be your guide for the next 34 days. Be sure to check in nightly after midnight and when the big date on the top is lowered one by one to show your allegiance.

Also grab a Countdown Crew signature and support your team by flashing some school colors around the MaddenMania Forums. MaddenMania and Operation Sports are proud to be your home for all things NCAA ’09 from coverage and media to leagues to discussion. So let’s pass this time together and have a little fun doing so.

Gentlemen, 34 days and counting until NCAA Football 2009 comes home!

-Patrick Williams (aka BigWill33) is an Operation Sports Staff Writer as well as a forum moderator at MaddenMania.