Team with the best shot of playing for the national football championship? Iowa. So says ESPN.com, anyhow.

No one can accuse Iowa media of being responsible for over-hyping Iowa's football team entering this season. Not when there's a national media out there stoking the fire.

Or rather, pouring kerosene on it.

ESPN.com's Andrea Adelson lists the 20 teams with the best shot at playing for the national title. She notes it isn't a Top 20 list, but the teams she thinks has the clearest paths to the BCS championship game in Glendale, Ariz., next Jan. 10.

Her No. 1 choice, as you may have surmised from the headline of this post, is Iowa. For the complete post, click here. An excerpt:

1. Iowa The nonconference schedule is manageable, with the toughie being a road game at Arizona. The Hawkeyes get Penn State, Wisconsin and Ohio State at home. With 14 starters returning, that is quite a nice trifecta.

Adelson has Ohio State with the third-best chance and Wisconsin at 10th. No. 2 is Oregon.

I post this because a) you Hawkeye fans are going to love this and b) it's still 17 days until the first games of the season.

Jan. 10 will be the latest finishing date in major-college football history. What will you Hawkeye fans do to bide the time from the regular-season finale at Minnesota until your team takes the University of Phoenix Stadium field on Jan. 10?