A Casual Fan's Guide to the 2015 College Football Season

Ohio State running back Ezekiel Elliot is really good.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

College football gets going with the largest FBS kickoff showcase ever tonight. With 19 games on the schedule for this evening, eight more to come on Friday, and then the "true" kickoff on Saturday, the sheer number of teams, conferences, coaching personalities and players can be overwhelming.

Some people dive into every bit of that, and some people prefer a more casual approach. This article is for the latter. So, with that in mind, let's take a look around the country at what you should know about the upcoming college football season.

Championship Weekend Wrap: The Big 12 Gets Snubbed

Coach Art Briles' Baylor Bears shared the Big 12 title with TCU, and beat the Horned Frogs head-to-head. Still, like TCU, Baylor was left out in the cold by the College Football Playoff Committee.

 By Andy Dougherty (@AndyDougherty10)

The nation’s top six teams all had a lot to prove on championship weekend. Unfortunately for the CFP committee, they all proved themselves admirably.

When the dust settled, a pool of six deserving teams remained, from which the committee needed to choose four. Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State qualified, while Baylor and TCU, the Big 12 co-champions, did not.

TCU’s Surprising Fall

The most baffling aspect of the committee’s decision was how it handled TCU. The Horned Frogs, ranked 3rd heading into the weekend, demolished Iowa State 55-3. They couldn’t have played a more complete game, yet they fell from 3rd to 6th in the final CFP rankings.

Week 15 College Football Primer (With Picks): Conference Championships

Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota has the chance to avenge an earlier loss to Arizona, send the Ducks to the College Football Playoff and take another step toward winning the Heisman Trophy this weekend in the Pac 12 Championship Game.

By Andy Dougherty (@AndyDougherty10) with a cameo by Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Championship weekend has arrived, and seven teams still have a realistic chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff. They will all be in action this weekend, and six of them will face off against top-16 teams. Certainly, they will all need to work hard to stay in playoff position.

The Curious Case of the Big 12

The Big 12 is the only power conference in college football not to hold a conference championship game. Unlike the other power conferences, all 10 of the Big 12's teams play each other every year. The conference has “One True Champion” as its slogan, but Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby has backed off from promoting that slogan in recent weeks.

Generally, the Big 12 uses head-to-head as a tiebreaker between conference co-champions to determine who will represent the conference in a bowl game.

But this year, the CFP committee has consistently favored TCU in its rankings, despite a head-to-head loss against Baylor. Conveniently, Bowlsby has stated that, in the event of a tie this year, the conference will simply name co-champions and leave the rest up to the committee.

Now on to picks!

NCAA Football Weekend Primer: The Game of the Century (of the Week)

Just like their classic 1993 clash, Florida State and Notre Dame's game this weekend will have plenty of Heisman and national title implications.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

In the annals of college football, many games have been dubbed "The Game of the Century."

2006's Ohio State-Michigan game in Columbus comes to mind, and the 2011 Alabama-LSU game in Tuscaloosa is another recent example (there are plenty of others from both centuries), but the big one I remember, from when I was too young to fully understand coaches polls and bowl games, was when No. 1 Florida State traveled to South Bend to face No. 2 Notre Dame in 1993.

The Irish were the biggest name in college football, boasting a huge home field advantage, while the Seminoles were the hottest program in the land under Bobby Bowden, but still hadn't won a national title.

The Irish built a 31-17 lead and held on like crazy to defeat eventual Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward and the Noles 31-24. Oddly enough, an upset loss to rival BC caused Notre Dame to lose the top spot in the polls just a week later, and it was Florida State that played new No. 2 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl for a national title, beating the Huskers on a last-second field goal.

After losing the game of the century, Florida State captured it's first national championship and became a national brand.

NCAA Football Weekend Primer: Catch Your Breath This Weekend

Ty Montgomery and Stanford traveling to Washington is one of the week's few fascinating games.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

The college football season has already delivered some big upsets (Indiana over Missouri), shocking finishes (Arizona over Cal) and embarrassing blowouts (everybody over Michigan), but this week you get a bit of a break.

The weekend only features one matchup of ranked teams, Thursday night's Pac 12 tilt between No. 11 UCLA and No. 15 Arizona State, and there are plenty of early-conference season mismatches to choose from.

Next week will bring critical games between Alabama and Ole Miss, Arizona State and USC, Texas A&M and Mississippi State, LSU and Auburn, Stanford and Notre Dame, Baylor and Texas and Nebraska and Michigan State, among others. This week…

Well, let's just  take a breezy look across the college football landscape.

Long and Suite Preview: The College Football Playoff and Heisman Race

Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota will chase a national championship and Heisman Trophy in 2014.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) with a cameo from Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

I've written enough introductions, so let's jump right into things. You can find all of my conference previews, along with my "Group of Five" and Independents preview, below.

Pac-12

Big XII

Big Ten

ACC and Notre Dame

SEC

Group of Five/Independents

Now, let's get to our national outlook.

Long and Suite Preview: The Big 12

Kansas State coach Bill Snyder will look to shock the nation again with an offense rebuilt around returning quarterback Jake Waters (15) and three-time All-Big 12 center B.J. Finney (66).

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) with a cameo from Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

While the Pac 12 challenged the SEC for total conference dominance last season, and Florida State delivered a national title to the ACC, the Big 12  quietly ended the year on a bit of a tear.

Baylor's fun n' gun offense helped it win the conference (though the Bears fell to UCF in the Fiesta Bowl), while Oklahoma earned a spot in the Sugar Bowl, where it blasted Alabama. Texas Tech and new coach Kliff Kingsbury knocked off Pac 12 South champion Arizona State in the Holiday Bowl, and Bill Snyder's Kansas State team rebounded from a rocky start to win six of its final seven, including a whooping of Michigan in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl.

Your College Football Kickoff Primer

Jadeveon Clowney (leaping) and Aaron Murray (holding ball nervously) will each represent the SEC against stiff non-conference competition this weekend.

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

You know, people love to hate on ESPN.

Fans and bloggers just love to beat up on the worldwide leader for its programming (TIM TEBOW HOUR) and its ability to control the sports landscape by acquiring the television rights to pretty much everything.

Well, ESPN is proving to be a benevolent dictator for college football (At least for fans watching at home), as the network is delivering one heck of an opening weekend. While there are certainly a lot of things wrong with college football, ESPN setting up marquee matchups to kick the season off isn't one of them. The network's pairing of Alabama and Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic is just one example of an ESPN ratings move that is beneficial to everyone involved.

Oh, and that night's late game between LSU and TCU in Dallas… Also an ESPN creation.

Anyways, here is what else you should be watching for on college football's opening weekend which, like every good college weekend, begins Thursday night.

Long and Suite Preview: The Big 12

TCU's Devonte Fields made life miserable for Big 12 quarterbacks in 2012.

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

Offense is king in America's heartland, and the Big 12 features some of college football's most explosive attacks.

Seven of the conference's 10 teams (Baylor, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech and West Virginia) ranked in the top-25 nationally for scoring offense, but does anybody play enough defense to win a national championship?

That will certainly be the big question for conference contenders this season, and with quarterback questions at Oklahoma, WVU and Kansas State, several offenses could take steps back as well. The conference may not have a bona-fide national favorite, but only Kansas looks like a lost cause, with nine teams all chasing a bowl game.