This. Is. Michigan.

Yes. It is over four and a half months until official kickoff, but with the spring game this weekend, I cannot help but get a little, and by little I mean extremely excited about the upcoming football season. No other sport quite does it for me like football. If you would have asked the ten year old version of me what my favorite sport was, I most certainly would have responded basketball. But over the years, basketball and I have slowly drifted further apart. Football took advantage of that opening and for the last eight years, has been my sport.

Ever since my father took me to Spartan Stadium (he's an alum) as an eleven year old, I experienced the greatness of football Saturdays in college towns. I lived for those crisp October afternoons with the leaves slowly changing, spent tossing a football with my father on our way to the stadium. As I grew older, my passion for football and its culture intensified. I can think of no place I would rather be on any given Saturday in the fall than in Ann Arbor, preparing to walk to the Big House (I guess any SEC school would probably work just fine too). It honestly is one of my few regrets about attending Hope. I did not feel the connection to the team or the school as I would have at any larger institution. Sure, they did play football games here on Saturdays, but it just wasn't the same. My vain attempts at even tailgaiting here could not recreate the experience of a football Saturday in Ann Arbor. I rarely stayed for more than a quarter, nearly always opting to head home and watch whatever game was on television.

As each new season nears, I always get the same feeling. This is our year. This year is no exception. There is just something special about football. Each and every game matters. One loss wrecks conference and national championship hopes. As the upcoming months move on, football is that much closer. I can almost smell the late summer air on that first day of the season. It's something special.