Get your shiny SEC helmet schedule here. It's handy for getting a good froth on, and a nice way to visualize the SEC schedule both in terms of its nastiness in-conference, and all those unrecognizable strange helmets out-of-conference indicating a rich marbling of easy 1-AA fat throughout the slate.
Why just in week one: Alabama and Virginia Tech have their Skoal-off in the Georgia Dome again, meaning tasty free chicken sandwiches for your correspondent, and perhaps a misleading win for Virginia Tech early. This will prime the Hokie bandwagon for a hefty pile-on until everyone remembers Brian Stinespring can't call plays, Tyrod Taylor can't pass, and that Alabama will improve three thousand times from game one to game six after breaking in a new qb, and will likely look at their worst in game one.
Also see: NC State/South Carolina, where one team may actually play a competent quarterback in this game this year (Russell Wilson,) and the other will have Steven Garcia, who's just gonna wing it, man; LSU at Washington, which will be both ugly and weird, and Georgia at Oklahoma State, where Mark Richt's biggest challenge will be hiring goons to fend off T. Boone's army of strength-sapping turbohookers piped in from Dallas to distract the Bulldogs.
Last time, this not well go so for State Oklahoma:
This will be Joe Cox's first start, and the second part of a home-and-home that started with the Cowboys' disastrous 35-14 '07 loss in Athens. Oklahoma State entered that game with high expectations, and left to go on to get annihilated by Troy in a thoroughly disappointing campaign. Now, two years later, people as knowledgeable as Bruce Feldman have them as a dark horse national title contender. If history was a farce the first time instead of the second, what will it be this time? Meta-comedy? Youtube clip set to Yakety Sax? LOLfutball in motion?