School’s almost in for thousands of student-athletes, participating in everything from baseball to wrestling. Here are five defending champions of note on the men’s side:

FBS: Louisiana State
FCS: Appalachian State
Soccer: Wake Forest
Water Polo: California
Cross Country: Oregon

LSU is 20-1 on the futures market to retain the BCS championship. Appalachian State’s football team is in a much stronger position to defend; the Mountaineers have collected three titles in a row, and the FCS (formerly Division I-A) uses a playoff system to determine its champion. There is some turnover, though, on this year’s Appalachian State squad.

Wake Forest is the preseason No. 1 in soccer, boasting nine returnees from the team that went 22-2-2 last year. Cal, the top-ranked preseason water polo program, is looking for a three-peat. The Ducks are Cross Country kings for the first time since the early 1970s; they’ll get a good challenge from Wisconsin. I’ll take the Demon Deacons in this fivesome.

Thanks to the ubiquity of the Internet, you can see thousands of college athletes drinking right from the comfort of your own home. College students drink alcohol? Shocking.

But this is more than just a college thing. Studies show that college athletes drink more heavily than non-athletes. And this relationship extends to sports fans, as well. One speculated cause: advertising.

Despite a push among concerned groups, including prominent athletic directors and coaches, the NCAA will not stop showing advertisements for alcohol. This is despite the fact that the NCAA has already put rules in place that limit the ads to products containing six percent alcohol or less. Conveniently enough, beer is the beverage of choice on campuses across the globe.

Here’s a crazy idea: Lower the legal drinking age. It’s 18 just about everywhere else in the world. To paraphrase Mojo Nixon, if you’re old enough to die for your country, you’re old enough to buy a beer.

College baseball continues to make inroads in the sports gambling scene. If they keep cranking out exciting College World Series like this year’s, it won’t be long before they’re king of the mountain. Fresno State beat Georgia two games to one to win the first national men’s championship in school history – in any sport.

This is the quintessential underdog story. Fresno State went into the 64-team tournament as a No. 4 seed in their region. No previous fourth seed had won the College World Series, or any other NCAA championship. The Bulldogs went 6-0 in elimination games, pulling out two of those victories after losing the opening game of the CWS Finals to Georgia.

Even more impressively, Fresno State right fielder Steve Detwiler went 4-for-4 and drove in all six runs in last week’s title-clincher, all while playing with a completely torn ligament in his left thumb. Detwiler has earned his summer vacation.

Grumbling about college football’s refusal to go to a tournament format to decide its champion? Be thankful we even have college football – Teddy Roosevelt threatened to end the sport in 1906 because it was killing people.

With T.R. in mind, here are the Top 10 changes that have made college sports what they are today:

The NCAA: Roosevelt got the presidents of Harvard, Yale and Princeton together, giving birth to the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, forerunner to the NCAA.

Title IX: There are more women athletes and administrators than ever before.

The BCS: Ten years of tweaks haven’t stemmed the complaints.

March Madness: A major hit since its 1939 debut.

The Death Penalty: The 1951 point-shaving scandal led to the first NCAA rules committee and the cancellation of Kentucky’s 1952-53 basketball season.

The championship: The NCAA’s first national title went to Illinois in 1921, for track and field.

The forward pass: Instituted with the first set of IAAUS football rules in 1906.

Overtime football: This 1996 rule change helped LSU win the 2008 title.

Divisions: D-I, D-II and D-III were created in 1973.

The first game: The inaugural Harvard-Yale Regatta in 1852 (won by Harvard).

What would college sports be without college cheerleaders? This nation was built on young, beautiful women in tight clothing. They’re goddesses. We should name the days of the week after them.

Painstaking research has led me to the conclusion that the USC Song Girls are the hottest cheerleaders in college football. But I’m partial to the dance teams that hit the hardwood. There’s better lighting in the gym, and you can bounce around a lot more on the court than you can on the turf. Bounce figures heavily into the Cheerleader Efficiency Ratings (CER).

Thanks to the magic of drunk teenage girls on MySpace, we’ve gotten more than our fair share of “bonus” cheerleader pics. The fine folks at Busted Coverage are all on a mission to publish as many of them as possible.

But my personal favorite? Award-winning actor and Kentucky Wildcats fan Ashley Judd, of course. The letter Y has never looked so good.

More college athletes die each year playing basketball than any other college sport.

19-year-old Alabama State basketball player Deshean Porchea died Wednesday afternoon following a game of pickup on campus. According to the report issued by the university, the sophomore passed out Wednesday afternoon after walking off the court and never regained consciousness. An autopsy on the sophomore is being performed today to determine the cause of death.

“He was just a good all-around kid,” said ASU coach Lewis Jackson, who heard the news while on a recruiting trip in Florida. “He played with a contagious fire that carried over to his teammates. He was a good person. It is a great loss to our team and our university.”

According to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, 100,000 young athletes die each year from all cardio-vascular disorders, including cardiomyopathy, as a result of participation in sports. This is twice as many as die in auto accidents. Of the 100,000 who die annually, 45,000 of them play basketball, not boxing or football.

Earlier this month, the state of New Jersey passed a bill calling for a public vote on the legalization of professional sports betting in Atlantic City casinos. The bill’s sponsors want to amend the proposed legislation to allow for betting at three horse tracks (including Monmouth Park, home of the 2007 Breeders’ Cup) and for out-of-state college games. The vote would take place during the November elections if the bill passes the state legislature.

The bill’s chances don’t look good. Point shaving by impressionable young players is an ongoing topic in the college ranks, especially in basketball. It’s less of an issue in the pro leagues; these athletes are making at least six figures, while college players are restricted from just about every dollar they could be making beyond their scholarships. Even with college sports taken out of the equation, the NFL is adamantly opposed to turning “human players into roulette chips.” As opposed to human sacrifices.

The goal of the NHL is to eventually land a lucrative US television contract- hell, it doesn’t even have to be lucrative at this point, any US T.V. will do. How about the Cartoon Network?

So why not help the cause at a grass-roots level? In virtually all the new southern US NHL cities, youth hockey has exploded. Kids love the game. They get it. Unlike their parents who may not have had as much exposure to the game, the kids don’t need to have the puck high-lited by a blue circle on television in order to know what’s happening with the play.
By this measure then, if youth hockey is expanding in the South why wouldn’t NCAA get on board and help further the cause of the sport?

Given the immense popularity of college sports in the US, coupled with the fact that many of these fans follow the college stars when they hit the big leagues, wouldn’t it be prudent to get some southern NCAA hockey going?

It’s never too early to look ahead to what 2008 holds for college sports. Think of it like the Distant Early Warning system; those blips on the radar could be weather balloons. Or it could be Red Dawn. These 10 picks are your heads-up for the New Year.

Basketball: New Mexico and Drake. These two teams, from the two best conferences outside the six recognized majors, are a combined 22-3 SU and 18-2 ATS. New Mexico is No. 21 on the efficiency charts; Drake is No. 22. And both clubs were passed over during the preseason predictions.

Football: Florida Atlantic (Rusty Smith), USC (Mark Sanchez), Clemson (Cullen Harper) and Cincinnati (Dustin Grutza) all have quarterbacks who are on the verge of making the big leap in 2008.

Baseball: Arizona State, Michigan, Baylor and Miami. College baseball betting is virgin ground for many bettors; these four top-shelf programs are all on the rise and could dominate a quiet marketplace.