Up for kickoff

Everyone is itching to get started, especially over at USC, so let's adjust our under armor and dig into the 2008 season survival kit:

Calamine lotion for the Trojans' locker room?

Check.

Pacific 10 Conference pocket schedule?

Check.

Conference opener, Oregon State at Stanford, slated for Aug. 28?

Aug. 28!?

Lee Corso bull . . . dog detector?

Ruff!

Frommer's Travel Guide: "Tuscaloosa on $10 . . . a month."

Check.

Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis' play-decoder ring?

Toss it, he's not calling plays this year.

South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier's play-decoder ring?

Chuck it, he's not calling plays either.

GPS device for UCLA quarterbacks?

Set to locate end zone, but there have been glitches in training camp.

Rose Bowl contingency plans for possible Arizona State-Rutgers matchup?

Remember the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.

There are some new rules this year, some new coaches, but it's basically the same old schools and the same old BCS.

* Eight things you need to know:

8: Georgia, 11-2 last year, enters the season ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press and USA Today coaches' polls but, at last month's Southeastern Conference media day, was picked to finish second behind Florida in the SEC East.

Wow, tough conference.

7: Instead of the play clock being set to 25 seconds on the official's signal this year, college football will adopt the pro-style, 40-second clock that starts when the ball is dead. The game clock will continue to stop on out-of-bounds plays but will now be restarted on the official's signal, except in the last two minutes of each half, when it will restart on the snap.

6: The SEC, without question, is the toughest league without a commissioner named Goodell. The SEC has won three Bowl Championship Series titles since 2003 and starts this season with four schools ranked in the top 10 of the first AP poll.

5: The Atlantic Coast Conference needs to get off its ACC. Five years ago, after it raided the Big East of Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College, the ACC was supposed to become the next great conference. Let the record reflect the league is 1-9 in BCS bowl games since 1998 and winless in the 21st century.

4: The Pac-10 is not the best quarterback conference. That honor belongs to the Big 12, which boasts Chase Daniel (Missouri), Sam Bradford (Oklahoma), Todd Reesing (Kansas), Graham Harrell (Texas Tech), Zac Robinson (Oklahoma State) and Colt McCoy (Texas).