A month from today, football stuff gets real

I say it year after year at this time. Namely, I'd like another three months of summer, please.

That comes from one too many February mornings of fruitlessly wishing away winter. Some people love winter, and that's great. Some people love kale, and that's great, too. It doesn't mean I'll ever be sold on either.

This comes to mind because of the calendar, which says it's Aug. 3, which means it's exactly one month from the start of the college football season.

On Thursday night, Sept. 3, stuff gets real. I could have used another word instead of 'stuff,” but that would probably be the one time my editor read my blog.

I get worn out by the month of August as a sportswriter who is near college football. Every day of the month is a preview of one thing or another. Previews. Yecch. I want to see the show.

The show starts one month from today. Right out of the chute, there are two games involving Big Ten teams that are significant as compared to so much of the opening-week pablum the league has served up in the past.

The trick will be knowing when to flip to which game, since they start a mere half-hour apart. On Fox Sports 1, we'll have Michigan playing at Utah. On ESPN, it will be TCU at Minnesota.

For Minnesota, it's an opportunity for that program to get famous fast. TCU is ranked No. 2 behind Ohio State. But for a 61-58 midseason loss at Baylor, it would have been in the College Football Playoff. In fact, it would have been in the playoff rather than Ohio State.

TCU has all sorts of offense back from its offensive machine of 2014, starting with quarterback Trevone Boykin, who passed for 3,910 yards and 33 touchdowns. Then there's tailback Aaron Green, who averaged 109 rushing yards over his last five games. The Horned Frogs are loaded.

Minnesota, at home on ESPN, can identify itself as a new face in the college football spotlight if it can spring an opening-night upset. It must play a lot better than it did last September in Fort Worth when it trailed TCU 30-0 going into the fourth quarter and lost, 30-7.

Michigan-Utah will be the national game of the night because it's Jim Harbaugh's debut as Michigan's coach. Will the expected turnaround of Wolverines football start on Opening Night, or it will it become apparent it's going to take some time?

This isn't the opening game Harbaugh would have scheduled for himself, but it's a pretty good measuring stick. Utah went 9-4 last season, beating USC, UCLA and Stanford along the way.

And, the Utes whipped Michigan in Ann Arbor, 26-10, never once letting the Wolverines enter the red zone. Michigan's TD came on an interception return.

Harbaugh, meanwhile, continues to get attention that 12 or so other Big Ten teams can't hope to get. Today, the Wall Street Journal's website had this piece on Harbaugh meeting with five members of the Supreme Court in April.

Also today: Rolling Stone, of all publications, put out a piece about Harbaugh and Ohio State's Urban Meyer. I think it's safe to say Rolling Stone has never written a story about a football coach or player from Iowa or Illinois or Wisconsin or Michigan State in the history of its existence.

When I first knew Rolling Stone, it was strictly Jerry Garcia and Hunter S. Thompson and John Lennon and Abbie Hoffman. Rock n' roll, and counterculture stuff. That was a long time ago, and I'm not sure rock still is alive. But nonetheless, Rolling Stone is writing about Harbaugh and Meyer?

I caught grief by a few people for asking Harbaugh about his summer vacation to Paris during Harbaugh's time at the podium at the Big Ten's football media days last week.

My reaction is 'Are you kidding me?” The football-mad football coach slips off to Paris a few weeks before his first season at Michigan starts, and that isn't interesting? What does a Jim Harbaugh do, or think, or learn in Paris? Or is he just there to appease his wife? He did say it was the first time in eight years he and his wife had ever traveled anywhere together, just the two of them, for more than a day.

Was he bored to tears in Paris? He posted pictures on social media of himself in a McDonald's there. Was that a comic portrayal of himself as an American longing for American things?

He didn't say anything about his trip, unfortunately, other than to claim he enjoyed it.

If Kirk Ferentz ever goes to Paris in July while he's Iowa's coach, I won't be able to ask enough questions to him about it. It's not a beach cottage or golf vacation. It's Paris, for crying out loud.

It's one month till Opening Night. I think the Big Ten will be 0-2 once it's over.

Oh, about the accompanying photo. I shot it at those Big Ten media days. Maryland's players didn't get much attention. The photo is of some dude interviewing senior offensive guard Andrew Zeller.

Zeller is from Pennsylvania, and is from Red Lion, Pa. How great is that, a town called Red Lion?

Zeller interned with the United States Marshals Service before the 2014 season, and is majoring in criminology and criminal justice. This summer he has taken master's courses in supply chain management. He had never been on a commercial flight until the one that took him to Chicago last week for the media days.

I should have interviewed him.