My head is all over the place as I try to grasp the fact that the season starts tomorrow.  Slipping into Dillon from time to time during the pep rally last night to catch the sweet sight of Glen Dorsey eating various Mississippi State Bulldogs or see another Louisville or Rutgers touchdown really brought a smile to my heart, although I must admit, I'm hesitant.

After an offseason where it looked like rebuilding year with hopes of just making a bowl game, suddenly the predictions are coming in fast and furious that we're going to be close to double-digit wins.  I wanted to originally write the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde-type thoughts whirring around in my head, but Pete already sort of did.  I don't want to try and make game-by-game predictions, but if I did, I'm sure they would be a lot more pessimistic than Rob's, most of the folks at BGS or one Observer prediction that had us at 12-1, with the sole loss to UCLA (?).  

I've already looked into Georgia Tech pretty thoroughly and nothing has changed my initial feeling that it's going to be a grind-it-out slugfest, although the possibility of Demetrius Jones starting along with the speedsters hopefully getting plenty of touches lead me to believe that things might escalate very quickly.  If you haven't read OCDomer's look at what the selection of Jones means, please do.  I've been supporting Jones as the quarterback for this season for a while now, if only because the deficiencies in other areas can often be made up for with big plays.  If we're going down to more talented or more experienced teams, I want to go down with an attempt at big plays on offense and ridiculous blitzes on defense.

This will be the slimmest coverage you get for any game, as the internet gods bless us with broadband on Wednesday, although we leave for State College next Thursday evening.  Rob might have his preview and prediction up later today, although I know his parents and brother are in town, so he's a little busy.  They'll be a gameday thread tossed up tomorrow with my prediction and for you to follow the action here in case ND Nation gets too scary or emo.

Go Irish, Beat Jackets.

Update [2007-8-31 12:53:50 by CW]: EDSBS has its viewing guide up, and it points out the various potential conflicts if there are a lot of close games. Unlike the national debt, wars we cannot win and presidential campaigns lasting two and a half years, this is a fantastic problem to have. SMQ has yet to get uber-specific with his predictions for the weekend, but he does have some general feelings up, and he does not feel so hot about our chances: