College football nuggets to pass the time

Three days until the official kickoff, here's a few items to get to the starting line...

Mark Ingram faces a daunting task to start this season: He's a returning Heisman Trophy winner. And returning Heisman winners are held to a higher standard than other contenders. It's human nature to compare a player to his own stats from the previous season. But it also adds an imaginary opponent to a player's competition for the coveted trophy.

Every season, there's a weekend where you might just want to make a dent in the honey-do list, and put the games in the background. What week will it be this year? Oct. 9? Here are some games that day: No. 1 Alabama at South Carolina, Indiana at No. 2 Ohio State, No. 21 LSU at No. 4 Florida, No. 11 Oregon at Washington State, Clemson at No. 18 North Carolina. Several decent games, but nothing that really moves the meter, barring an upset or an unexpected undefeated team.

How are blue bloods Notre Dame and Tennessee rebuilding with weak schedules? Forget all the tradition talk with the Irish and the military schools. They won't be taken seriously until they schedule multiple power conference teams that are ranked. Tennessee's reputation took a major hit when it pulled out of an agreement to play North Carolina. Is this designed to lengthen Derek Dooley's stay in Knoxville?

Speaking of Notre Dame, the Irish could have added an asterisk after word surfaced last week that they're working with NBC to schedule shorter commercial breaks, which would help Notre Dame's up-tempo offense. All this does is add to Notre Dame's elitist nature. If they are to play for a national championship one day, what will happen during the conventional commercial breaks? Of course, this could be much ado about nothing, and it might have little impact. Still, no other school would pull a stunt like this, so it's just another reason to believe the Irish think they're more important than everyone else.