The college football season is over. The fading light of the NFL will soon flicker and fade, and we will be left to endure months of winter darkness, spring rain and summer heat with only the memories of past seasons to sustain us until Thursday, September 3, when the first college football games of 2009 kickoff with South Carolina at North Carolina State, Troy at Bowling Green, and last and probably least, North Dakota State at Iowa State.

Image Credit: John Martinez Pavliga

If ever there were three contests worth waiting 8 months to witness, those must certainly be them. I suppose that finding an interesting matchup among the 120 or so Division I teams was too much to ask.

Until that time, here is a reminder of what happened in the 2008 season to help you through those dark, football-less days ahead.

ACC

Everyone went 5-3 or 4-4 in the conference. I’m not kidding. Virginia went 3-5, which is close enough, and Duke went 1-7, but they get credit for at least winning a game. Virginia Tech won the league, as usual, and won the Orange Bowl because they played Cincinnati. Everyone else finished with 7-9 wins. No one was very good, and no one was very bad, except Duke (they went 4-8 which is like a 10-2 season for anyone else). Nothing terribly exciting happened in this conference.

Big Ten

Michigan continued their dominance this year by going 9-3 . . . wait, I read that backwards. They went 3-9 with losses to pretty much everybody. Penn State won the conference and received the traditional honor bestowed on all Big Ten Champs: a trip to the Rose Bowl to be demolished by USC. Ohio State jumped over undefeated Boise State to go to the Fiesta Bowl because their helmets say ‘Ohio St’. They shocked the country by only losing to Texas by 3.

Michigan State and Iowa were decent teams with strong running games who both finished 9-4. Iowa accomplished the unthinkable for a Big Ten team by winning their bowl game. Northwestern somehow went 9-4 and could have won their bowl game against Missouri, but decided not to at the last minute. After the game the team presented a very well-crafted paper on why, they wandered around aimlessly at the end of the game and in overtime instead of scoring.

Minnesota and Wisconsin went 7-6 and got smacked by Kansas and Florida State respectively. Everyone else stank.

Big XII

The Big 12 South contained some of the best teams in the country through December. Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech all went 11-1, and Oklahoma State was not far behind at 9-3. Then they played in bowls. OSU lost a humiliating game to Oregon. Texas Tech did not realize that Ole Miss planned to participate in the Cotton Bowl, and lost. Texas barely beat Ohio State, which counts as a loss, and Oklahoma played one of the most miserable offensive games in recent memory in their ugly loss to Florida. Great quarterbacks do not throw 2 interceptions in the Championship Game (that goes for you too, Tebow). Even Baylor showed signs of life at 4-8. Texas A&M took the year off.

The North was beaten with a stick whenever it faced the South. Despite that, all three North teams (Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri) won their bowl games. The honor of being destroyed by a South team in the Big 12 title game went to Missouri again this year, despite the fact that they lost to Kansas on a last second touchdown pass from Todd Reesing to Kerry Meier. Yes, that was my favorite play of the year, and yes, I will mention it every chance I get. In fact, here it is again:

Colorado and Kansas State were mediocre at best, going 5-7. Iowa State would love to be good enough to be mediocre. They went 2-10, which was good enough to get their coach a job at Auburn.

Big East

Is this really still a BCS conference? Didn’t Miami and Virginia Tech used to play here? Anyway, Cincinnati won the league and lost the Orange Bowl. Pittsburgh went 9-4 and lost the year’s ugliest bowl game 3-0 to Oregon State. West Virginia went 9-4 one year after beating OU in the Fiesta Bowl (beating OU in a BCS game should not count; everyone does it). Rutgers, UConn and South Florida went 8-5, Louisville sucked (though they still beat Kansas State) and Syracuse sucked worse.

Conference USA

Wouldn’t it be humiliating if there was more to say about Conference USA than the Big East? Let’s see. East Carolina started hot, then lost a couple, then rebounded to win the league and go 9-5. Tulsa was undefeated for a while and beat Ball State in a monsoon in their bowl game. Rice went 10-3. That’s nice. There were some other teams in there too, but they weren’t very good.

Southern Miss fans, please don’t tell me you’re good because you beat Troy. That was one of the most hideous ballgames I have ever witnessed.

Independents

Navy was ok at 8-5. Notre Dame ruined my Christmas Eve by not losing to Hawaii. They still stink at 7-6. Army still fields a team just so CBS can televise the Army-Navy game, and Western Kentucky went 2-10. They should probably join a conference.

Mid-America Conference (MAC)

Ball State went undefeated for the regular season, lost the championship game to Buffalo and then lost to Tulsa underwater in the GMAC Bowl. Buffalo somehow managed to keep Coach Turner Gill from going to Auburn. Other teams played, sort of, but I just don’t care that Northern Illinois went 6-7, and I don’t think you do either (unless you’re a Huskies fan).

Mountain West

The Mountain West actually had a big year in 2008. Utah went undefeated and beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. They are the only 13-0 team in college football this year. If their uniforms said ‘USC’ instead of ‘Utah’, they’d be national champions right now. The second place team was TCU, who played OU tough early in the year, went 11-2 and beat Boise St in a great bowl game. BYU was pretty good at 10-3, but they tarnished things at the end by losing to Arizona. Even Air Force and Colorado State were solid at 8-5 and 7-6. Having two very good teams and three solid ones puts the Mountain West ahead of some conferences in terms of quality teams (I’m looking at you, Big East).

The other four teams (UNLV, New Mexico, Wyoming and San Diego St) were not very good.

PAC 10

USC and the 9 dwarfs strike again. USC did the same thing it does every year. They crushed everyone in big games but let a conference team sneak up on them and ruin their title bid. Then they took out their anger in the Rose Bowl by crushing Penn St. Oregon did have a good win by beating Oklahoma St, but that’s about it. The PAC 10 was 5-0 in bowls, but Oregon State beating Pitt 3-0 is not something to brag about, Cal over Miami is not that impressive because Miami was bad, and Arizona beating the third place Mountain West team (BYU) is not exactly a monumental upset. The main reason the PAC 10 was undefeated is because they only sent a few teams, and they sent them to crappy enough bowl games that they didn’t have to play anybody (except USC- they got a Big 10 team, which is only partial credit).

Arizona State, Stanford and UCLA were bad (5-7, 5-7. 4-8) and the state of Washington housed two of the most inept teams in the history of college football. Washington St went 2-11, with a win over Portland St and a 16-13 win in overtime over Washington, who went 0-12. This game was probably the biggest pillow fight in college football since KU and KState played to a 17-17 tie in 1987 (KU was 1-7, KSU was 0-8).

Sun Belt

Troy won. Even I can’t name all 8 teams in the Sun Belt.

SEC

It looked like the SEC was in for a down year. Georgia finished 10-3, but got smoked by Alabama and Florida in a year they had title hopes. Alabama had an early resurgence before losing the SEC title game to Florida and being stunned in the Sugar Bowl by Utah. LSU also had a down year, but they have enough national titles to last for the next 25 years or so. Ole Miss was surprisingly good, going 9-4 with wins over Florida, LSU and Texas Tech. South Carolina and Vanderbilt made bowls, which is nice.

The SEC’s reputation was saved last Thursday night by the Florida Gators. They defeated the Oklahoma Sooners 24-14 in a sloppy game for the National Championship. Tim Tebow, who the football pundits have anointed the Greatest Human Being Of All Time Ever, threw two interceptions and was saved by Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford, who out-dueled Tebow by throwing his 2 picks at a more crucial time. I’ll say it again: if you throw two interceptions in the championship game, you did not have a good game (maybe with 6 TD passes- maybe). Both QB’s had a bad night throwing. Fortunately for UF, Tebow (and Percy Harvin) can run and Bradford can’t.

WAC

Boise State carried the torch this year, going 12-0 in the regular season and losing in a great game against TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl, 17-16. Everyone else in the conference was mediocre at best, and at worst they were Idaho, who went 2-10. I think we know where the talent in that state goes.

And that’s it. That’s the year in college football with 234 days left until the next game. There are ways to cope with not having college football. You could buy a college football video game for your PS3, XBox or Wii. You could freeze yourself until June, provided you live far enough north that you wouldn’t thaw before then. I’ve heard good things about hibernation. You could follow recruiting during the offseason.

Or, if nothing else works, you could try leaving the house on Saturdays. I’ve never tried it myself, but I know someone who knows someone who claims to have done it . . . and survived.