This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.
July. July never changes. It's been the same for a long time now. I used to watch the ‘97 Missouri game (FLEA KICKER!), but the VHS has long since worn out. Now, I just sit around staring at the wall, waiting for August, waiting for the smell in the air. It still smells like two-a-days in August, that time at which you did full practices in pads in 100-plus degree western Nebraska heat and your coaches thought that drinking water made you some kind of weiner boy.
Okay, I lied. A lot has changed. They started thinking that drinking water is a good thing - so much that they invented pure water in plastic bottles. I started a Nebraska football yearbook - it hits shelves in Nebraska in mid-July. Somewhere along the line, they invented game consoles. I got a Xbox 360 last Christmas. I couldn't believe it - my wife actually bought me one. I nearly fell over dead when I opened it. Since then, it's been Fallout 3 and COD, even though I'm not really that good at COD. My kids say it's because I'm old - my reaction time being that of a sloth. Truth is - anyone who's known me for a while could tell you I was never that fast. Where were we?
Oh, yeah. July. EA Sports got smarter than most people and decided that they'd release NCAA Football in July because they knew that right now is when colllege football fans are the hungriest. EA Sports asked to sponsor a week's worth of posts leading up to the release of NCAA Football 2011 next Tuesday, July 13th. They weren't interested in telling us what to say, only in sponsoring a series of posts celebrating the diehard fans of the greatest sport in the world: college football.
I'll admit - I haven't bought NCAA Football since the 2006 version. It's not like Nebraska kicked ass during those years, and I had given up on the PS2. Now that we've got the Xbox 360, though, it's time to get updated. EA Sports will be releasing the game on July 13th. In the meantime, they've asked the SB Nation college sites to take part in a marketing campaign, which is actually kind of cool because it centers around what we're about - being a fan. So, this week we'll have a series of posts about why we're fans of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. It'll go something like this:
Today: How I Came To Be A Husker Fan.
Tuesday: All-Time Favorite Nebraska Team
Wednesday: Tailgating Traditions
Thursday: All-Time Favorite Huskers
Friday: Most Memorable Moments
Monday: Expectations for the 2010 Season
Tuesday: Christmas in July
EA Sports and I invite you to jump in the comment section of each post. I look forward to hearing all your own stories and traditions related to the Big Red.