To endure an offseason as a college football fan is to live within an ecosystem of daily panic, near constant tumult and, on the plus side, the occasional heated debate over what to name a chicken. These are fraught times for the sport, when each day brings the possibility of a star player switching teams or a marquee program swapping leagues. Since Kirby Smart hoisted the national championship trophy nine months ago, we've all been desperate for something solid -- or at least something marginally more stable than Auburn's athletic department.
And so, at long last, we were given actual football, and Week 1 delivered a necessary injection of stability.