This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

Well, hopefully we've all had some fun with this last week of football-related sponsored posts. Think of it as a brief appetizer to whet your football appetite before everything turns crazy go nuts on this blog in August, brought to you by the great folks over at EA Sports.

EA Sports, of course, is asking us all to help get out the word about the latest version of the awesome NCAA Football series, which is released at all fine video game boutiques today. (Or you can click on any of the EA Sports logos you see here.)

I'll let them tell you all about it, and then we can all use the comment section to talk about the greatest things you've done in past NCAA Football games (like bringing Indiana State to the BCS title in five years of dynasty mode in NCAA 2005. Yeah. That's what's up.):

When you go to a particular school or grow up around college football, you are more than just a fan. It’s who you are. We thought we could leverage this pride in your roots and show that "where you come from" is more than just a statement about geography. By positioning NCAA Football 11 as a game that understands this pride and is authentic to these traditions, the takeaway should be that anything that is in college football is in NCAA Football 11.

And this doesn’t just include game play (though that’s a huge part of it). It’s rivals and mascots; it’s legends and stories. It’s those things that are at the very fabric of the game itself. Of course the game is great this year as well. With authentic entrances, mascots and specific offenses for each team, the term "where I come from" takes on a much larger meaning. While playing NCAA Football 11 is ultimately a great sports sim, it should also give you a sense of the pride and emotion one has for being a fan of a team they will never not be a part of.

Go get it for your PS2, PS3 or XBox 360 right this instant.

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

If there is one overarching theme to next month's Football Preview Monthish (mark your calendars now), it's that UConn football is set to win now.

That might be a bigger deal than I'm making it seem. UConn is known for its lack of sexy recruiting classes and the aw-shucks, business-like approach of Randy Edsall. Perhaps it might begin to be recognized for its football prowess. Personally, I think it's high time people accept that UConn will be running them off the gridiron from now on. After 10 years of preparation, we're at the jumping off point for the coming juggernaut that is UConn football. Hit the jump for at least a partial explanation of why we're so excited.

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

As I looked at the posts in this series, this topic stuck out immediately. UConn football may not have a storied history, but it has had some fantastic high points, three of which stick out immediately. Hit the jump to see what they are.

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

I cannot say that I have a favorite UConn football player, but there have been several who have stood out over the years. In particular, there are three that stand above the rest. Hit the jump to see who they are.

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

Like we have covered here before, in a lot of ways UConn is still growing into having a football program. Likewise, in a lot of ways, I'm still growing into being a UConn football fan. That means my tailgating tradition story isn't so much about a "tradition" as it is about my inability to properly pack for a tailgate while I was in college.

You see, I could never, ever, ever remember to bring tongs or a spatula for grilling. Grill? Check. Gas? Check. Meat? Check. A tool I could use to actually cook the meat? Never. As a result, most of my tailgates were alternately spent cursing myself for making the same dumb mistake I always made and trying to use some cardboard ripped from the side of a case of beer to flip hamburgers. 

Like I said, its not much of a tradition, but I'm working on it. So what do you do? Leave it in the comments.

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

Let's all be honest. There is not exactly a wealth of UConn teams to choose from to pick a favorite squad. Sure, UConn has been playing football for a century, but it has really only mattered for the last decade. In that decade, there are a few teams that you could make an argument for.

The 2003 and 2004 squads both proved that UConn could at least be moderately competitive in Division 1-A, capped off with the 2004 Motor City Bowl win. You could certainly make a strong case for the 2007 team, which was the first UConn group to be ranked, had some of the school's biggest wins, featured the first (and only) rush-the-field moment in Rentschler Field's history and won a share of the Big East title. 

However, at the end of the day, my all-time favorite UConn team is last year's squad. The 2009 Huskies had an absolute roller coaster of a season. In many ways, talking about what the team did on the field feels irrelevant because of the tragic mid-season murder of Jasper Howard that defined the team's season. The squad went 8-5, with the five losses coming by a combined 15 points. Three of them came immediately following Howard's death, but then the Huskies went to South Bend and this happened: 

The Huskies knocked off Notre Dame in double overtime, sparking a four-game winning streak to end the season, which was capped off with a 20-7 whipping of South Carolina, UConn's first win over an SEC team.

This is the first of a week-long series of posts sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

In 2004, I knew exactly two things about UConn: it had some fantastic basketball teams and it was located in Connecticut. I grew up a fan of New York's college sports teams: St. John's basketball and Notre Dame football. But the NCAA for me was not nearly the religious institution it is in the Midwest. I spent my youthful Saturdays watching college football and basketball, but only as long as they didn't conflict with Yankees World Series parades.

Nevertheless, I knew that once I was actually in college, whatever school I attended would have my undying loyalty, and college sports would become a bigger deal to me. After performing the high school senior version of due diligence (idly flipping through US News & World Report), I crossed off the Johnnies and the Irish on my list. Sorry, Lous Carnasecca and Holtz, but I knew what I wanted, both as a student and a sports fan. They were, in order of importance:

-A school with Division I sports, which eliminated Rutgers, my home state's school
-A bigger school somewhere in the Northeast, because everything west of the Delaware Water Gap frightens and confuses me
-A school offering a journalism degree

In short, I wanted to go to UConn, even if I didn't explicitly know it. (Though by this criteria, I also wanted to go to Syracuse.)

I had never visited Storrs, never met anyone who had attended UConn. I knew of Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma, and I absolutely loved watching my Duke-fan friend be tormented by The Comeback in 2004. But my experience with the university was limited to its fancy-shmancy brochure, the paper equivalent of a cold-call.

So I was kind of flying blind on that late December day in 2004 when I, after weeks of procrastination and nagging from family and significant others, finally sent in my application to UConn. It was the second and final school I applied to, and the one I was actually interested in attending. 

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