Every football fan knows the BCS rankings calculate which teams will play in the BCS Bowl for the national championship, but how many of those fans know how their BCS rankings are determined?

The BCS rankings are devised by using three different pools of data. This includes the Harris Interactive College Football Poll, the Coaches Poll, and a computer average which is calculated using six computer ranking systems. Each of the three different pools of data counts as 1/3 of the final BCS rankings. This way each of the different data pools holds the same weight when selecting BCS rankings.

Both the Harris poll and the Coaches poll contribute to the BCS rankings through the points awarded to the ranked teams. Obviously the more points awarded to a team in either of those polls, the better they will do in the BCS rankings. The computer rankings toss out the highest and lowest ranks from the six rankings systems and use the remaining four to calculate the BCS rankings.

Taking the points from all three data sources builds the BCS rankings and decides who plays for the national championship. If you’re a Gators fan you probably love the BCS way. If you’re a Wolverines fan, you probably don’t.

Ah, jocktocracy. It’s a hell of a way to run a non-Ivy League university, but look at the USNews rankings of the best colleges in the nation, and you’ll find some of the best college football programs. Their coaches aren’t getting paid millions of dollars just for winning football games, after all.

Check out these Top 50 teams and coaches: Notre Dame (20; Charlie Weis), Michigan (T24; Lloyd Carr), USC (T27; Pete Carroll), Texas (T47; Mack Brown) and the national champions from Florida (T47, Urban Meyer). Wouldn’t you like to have those guys in your “five”?

Then you have coaches like Navy’s Paul Johnson. He doesn’t have nearly the same talent pool to work with, yet Johnson’s triple option “flexbone” scheme narrowly lost to Boston College at last year’s Meineke Bowl. For that, and for going 31-14 ATS the past four seasons, Johnson deserves even more praise than the aforementioned five.

Get ready to add another college football poll to the already endless list. Starting this season, the new FCS Coaches Poll that will determine who plays who in the Football Championship Series.

The new poll will be voted on by a panel of coaches from the FCS divisions beginning on August 20, when the first preseason poll will be released. The voting panel will be comprised of 28 head coaches from 14 FCS conferences. Apparently giving coaches the ability to vote on their own team and teams within their own division did not seem strange to whoever came up with this new poll.

The final FCS poll of the season will be published on November 19 and will determine the schools that will play in the FCS Championship playoff on November 24.

No running back will command more attention than Heisman runner-up Darren McFadden this season. McFadden boasts great speed, but he can also run over anyone who gets in his way thanks to his size and raw power. If this truly is McFadden’s last year in Arkansas, he’ll likely want to go out with a bang to cement his status as a top draft pick.

The only back in the country potentially capable of stealing McFadden’s thunder is West Virginia running back Steve Slaton. Slaton is coming off a tremendous season in which he rushed for 1,744 yards, while recording seven yards per carry. Slaton is a burner who fights for every yard and if he can continue to rack up the yards he could help lead West Virginia to the top of the Big East.

Michigan running back Mike Hart may not have the high-end stats that McFadden and Slaton do, but he’s one of the most entertaining running backs to watch in college football. Hart has a second gear and seems to get better later in games.

If you want to see a ton of touchdown passes this season, the QB to watch is Hawaii pivot Colt Brennan. Last season Brennan threw for an astounding 5,549 yards and 58 touchdowns while leading the high-scoring Warriors’ offense. Brennan could possibly top those numbers this year if the Warriors rule the WAC.

If it’s consistency and wins you’re looking for, keep an eye on USC quarterback John David Booty. In his first full season as a starter last year, Booty threw 29 touchdowns and only nine interceptions. His four-TD performance in the Rose Bowl was a real coming-out party for Booty, and shows what we should expect from him this year.

The most dangerous QB in the nation may be West Virginia’s Pat White, who can beat you through the air and on the ground. Last season White threw 18 touchdown passes and only seven interceptions, while rushing for 1,219 yards and 18 touchdowns last season. And he did that while battling some nagging injuries late in the season.

A year after the Beijing Olympics, China may play host to another sporting event for the first time. Reports began to surface last week that officials from the University of Oregon were looking at the Ducks possibly playing a regular-season game in China, in 2009. The game the Oregon officials are looking at is between Oregon and Boise State, scheduled for Sept. 5, 2009.

Taking a college football team to China isn’t as easy as hopping on a plane though. To pull this off Oregon will likely have to dig up a corporate sponsor or raise money through sale of the game’s television rights. They also have to convince the Boise State officials it’s worth it to travel to another continent where football has little to no following. Talk about a cultural exchange.