Heat On, So It’s Time to Kick Off

College football season is upon us--you can tell, because the temperature outside is about 100 degrees--and it doesn’t take a clairvoyant to know what will happen before this season is over:

--Somebody from Notre Dame will touch the football five times per game and immediately be nominated for the Heisman trophy, the Hall of Fame and either the priesthood or sainthood.

--A quarterback from Brigham Young will pass for 10,000 yards, lead his team to the fabulous Holiday Bowl and then go off to do two years of missionary work in the Himalayas, riding a rented llama.

--Michigan’s record will be 2-2 after four weeks, but the team will be ranked among the nation’s top 10 because any team with that much potential is bound to be 3-2 before long. (And besides, the Northwestern game is coming up shortly.)

--That coach from Auburn who loves ties so much will attempt to become the first coach in NCAA history to have his team go 0-0-11.

--The Oklahoma Sooners will go 9-2 before extremely large crowds, including their probation officers.

--The University of Houston will defeat somebody like, oh, Rice, by something like, oh, 99-3, after which the coach will point out that his quarterback didn’t throw a single pass during the final two minutes.

--Your favorite Sunday sports section will carry a roundup of Saturday’s football results from the Big Sky Conference, using up space that could be otherwise occupied quite nicely by something far more important, like a perfectly good Far Side cartoon.

--Somebody will make a big deal about the Harvard-Yale game, invoking its tradition and charm and neglecting to mention that most of the entire civilized world doesn’t care.

--A quarterback from USC will miss the opening snap because (a) he has missed class; (b) he hasn’t made bail; (c) he has measles, or (d) he prefers to play another position, because if he wanted to be a quarterback he would have gone to Brigham Young.

--Miami will use the big East Carolina game as a tuneup for the big West Carolina game.

--Wisconsin will almost beat somebody. Wisconsin almost always almost beats somebody.

--Another cry for a national playoff will be heard as soon as the Associated Press awards the national championship to Florida State while the United Press International awards the national championship to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, the United Press International having a wacky sense of humor.

--Rose Bowl officials will emphatically deny published reports that they are in need of commercial sponsorship and thinking of becoming the El Pollo Loco Rose Bowl.

--Stanford will defeat Cal in their annual showdown for the right to go nowhere.

--Missouri’s coach will come under fire for electing to punt rather than go for a touchdown on fifth and one.

--Hundreds of thousands of spectators at games throughout America will continue not to cheer along with the cheerleaders, particularly that one kid who keeps annoying you with his bullhorn.

--A newspaper that uses a computer to rank teams will continue to abide by the computer’s ridiculous conclusions, ignoring repeated suggestions coast-to-coast that the computer would be of much better use if used for Super Mario Brothers video games.

--Somebody will find some kid from some college who weighs 495 pounds, and his typical breakfast will be described to us in adorable-slash-nauseating detail.

--A punter kicking from the 40 will punt the ball beyond the end zone rather than inside the 20.

--A referee will call holding on an offensive lineman once every three plays, as stipulated in the Official Officials’ How to Interrupt a Perfectly Good Football Game handbook.

--A sportscaster will say: “Don’t go away, because this one ought to be a dandy.”

--A $1,000 scholarship will be awarded at the end of the telecast in the name of the player from the losing team who screwed up the least.

--A dandy will say: “Don’t go away, because this one ought to be a sportscaster.”

--Every Saturday afternoon, a television set will give us that all-important Colgate halftime score.

--Arizona will play Arizona State in a game enjoyed traditionally by residents of all but 49 of our states.

--UCLA officials will start games on Saturday night, then wonder why nobody’s reading about the game Sunday morning.

--At halftime, a band will perform “a salute to America.”