Top 25, Heisman favorites, and links: Pre-season

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is now officially game week.

And with game week comes the return of the daily grind of In the Nic of Time, starting with the weekly Monday edition with the Top 25, Heisman trophy favorites, and as many links as you have time for.

Something I want to get is the pulse of students on campus or readers of the blog, so if you want to have your say in the weekly Monday Top 25, just send me an email at jngulas@gmail.com and I will send you a reminder every Sunday morning.

Also, want to play college pick'em with me and some of the other readers? Join the ESPN.com College Pick'em group. It's easy. Just search for the group "ITNOT Pick'em" and put in the password ITNOT. Just like that, you are in.

Now, let's get to the substance of the blog.

ITNOT's pre-season Top 25

1. Oklahoma
2. Florida
3. Texas
4. Penn. St.
5. Alabama
6. LSU
7. Ohio State
8. Mississippi
9. Oklahoma St.
10. USC
11. Virginia Tech
12. Georgia
13. Cal
14. TCU
15. Boise St.
16. BYU
17. Illinois
18. Florida State
19. North Carolina
20. Georgia Tech
21. Iowa
22. Pittsburgh
23. Oregon State
24. Nebraska
25. Kansas

Heisman trophy favorites entering the season

• Tim Tebow, QB, Florida
• Sam Bradford, QB, Oklahoma
• Colt McCoy, QB, Texas
• Jahvis Best, RB, Cal
• Jonathan Dwyer, RB, Georgia Tech
• Dez Bryant, WR, Oklahoma State

Links

Once the season gets going, Monday will be the busiest day for links, but this first week, it might seem pretty even every day.

• One of the favorites of some football fans is the vaunted, and in my opinion, overrated, helmet schedule. So for those of you who want one for the SEC, here ya go.
• Since Ian Rapaport left for the Boston Herald, The Birmingham News has now hired Don Kausler, Jr. to replace him. His latest this morning is on Tide punter P.J. Fitzgerald's opinion that Alabama is ready for Beamer Ball. He also reported that Alabama will be in white once again for the Chick-fil-a Kickoff on Saturday. His twitter is @Tide_Source.
• Gentry Estes has been on the Bama Beat for a few years now, and has five questions heading into the final week of practice before Virginia Tech. His twitter is @BamaBeat.
• Stewart Mandel, one of my favorite links during the week, now has a Monday column called College Football Overtime to go along with his Wednesday mailbag. His twitter is @SIMandel.
• Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated has a blueprint on how to stop Tim Tebow, and who knows if anyone can follow it to perfection. His twitter is @andy_staples.
• Ivan Maisel of ESPN.com will be producing his Three-point Stance blog on a more regular basis this year, and his latest talks about Nick Saban's contract extension at Alabama. His twitter is @Ivan_Maisel.
• Chris Low is the official blogger for ESPN.com on the SEC, and he will have regular updates every day and always has lunchtime links that cover the conference. In his latest post, however, deals with his visit to Steve Spurrier and the Gamecocks, who kickoff the college football season on Thursday. His twitter is @ESPN_SEC.
• SECsports.com has debuted a new website today with more stats and information than ever before. Their twitter is @SECSportsUpdate.
• One of the best places for any and all SEC information is the Orlando Sentinel, who have an article covering what would be 10 surprising upsets of this college football season. The sports editor is Tim Stephens, and his twitter is @twstephens.
• Finally, and this goes for any day, if you want to go to one place that has even more links here for the entire conference, hit up dandbradio.com, the official website of the Dunaway and Brown show in Birmingham. Their twitter is @dandbradio.

Of course, if you want to know when the next blog is available, you can follow me on twitter as well, @ng11787. Along with blog updates, I will have re-tweets of pertinent stories, break downs of my Wednesday radio show on 90.7 FM, the Capstone in Tuscaloosa, and any random musings you may find entertaining throughout the day.

Be sure to check back tomorrow as I will go through the first Pass or Fail of the College Football season, covering what happened during the off-season.

It has been a long eight months, but it will be good to get back into the swing of things this week.