Football has long been America’s most popular sport.

While baseball is the American pastime and holds a special place in the hearts of sports fans, it has yet to surpass football in terms of either broad appeal or revenues especially now with the 2010 NCAA college football season just around the corner.

Nor is the National Football League the only beneficiary of football’s enduring popularity. Indeed, in parts of the country with unsuccessful NFL teams (or no NFL teams), college football is just as popular – and just as lucrative. Likewise, an accomplished head coach at a prestigious college program can easily command several million dollars per year in salary, and the football teams themselves figure prominently in the entire cost structure of their universities.

So what are these teams you ask?

Let’s start with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Valued at $108 million and boasting profits of $38 million – the Fighting Irish have long been one of the most widely followed teams in NCAA football. Seven Heisman Trophy winners have played for Notre Dame, as well as 95 consensus All-Americans.

Furthermore, Notre Dame Stadium (where the team plays its home games) seats more people than some NFL stadiums do – 80,795 at last count. The team has also won eight national championships, and owes much of its current value to consistently being a contender year in and year out.

Another highly valued NCAA football team with a rich history is…

College football is back baby.

And for the first time in quite a while, the Alabama Crimson Tide will come to the 2010 NCAA college football season as the national champions, looking to defend that title in the BCS title game come January.

The popularity of the Alabama Crimson Tide is hard to exaggerate. According to Forbes, the team’s “waiting list to obtain season tickets for the Crimson Tide is currently 15,210 names long.”

Furthermore, simply being next up on the list is no guarantee of getting tickets. The only thing coming up on the list entitles you to do is “make a donation to the athletic department ranging from $5,000 to $500,000″ depending on the location of seats you wish to buy tickets for.

Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban is the fourth highest paid coach in college football, raking in about $3.9 million per season. No wonder the guy was determined to bring the title to Alabama since bamboozling Dolphins fans into thinking that he’ll stay with them for the long haul.

With everything going for the Tide, just who can challenge these guys heading to the season in terms of being the most valuable commodity on the gridiron? Of course, one team comes to mind and that’s last year’s runners-up, the Texas Longhorns.

The Texas Longhorns is the most valuable college football team right now…

And by ”they” we mean those NFL folks watching Colt McCoy take himself out of the BCS championship game with a broken shoulder.

Suffering an injury in a championship game is a frightening experience for any athlete but things like that do happen and in this year’s BCS national championship game, we saw exactly that as Texas Longhorns quarterback Colt McCoy suffered a shoulder injury during his final game for the ‘Horns against eventual BCS champs, the Alabama Crimson Tide.

In case you missed it, it was just four minutes into the game when the unfortunate injury happened. Texas Longhorns quarterback Colt McCoy ran the ball on a keeper, only to get stuffed.

Before the play was over, Marcell Dareus of Alabama had slammed into McCoy’s shoulder, causing a pinched nerve and knocking McCoy out of the game, the final one of McCoy’s college career.

Many experts see McCoy as a first round pick in the upcoming 2010 NFL Draft but with this injury, McCoy’s stock might go down a bit. McCoy would have to convince the rest of the NFL that his arm would be strong and healthy enough to throw the types of passes that work best at the pro level, both in terms of bullet passes over the middle or deep balls.

Perhaps the worst part about McCoy’s injury, assuming that he recovers fully, is the fact that it denied him a chance to play the bulk of the minutes in college football’s showcase game, a game in which many NFL types were likely watching.

A good performance on the big stage could have boosted…

Oh yes, the former Raiders, former Tennessee Volunteers coach will now take over the helm at USC.

The USC Trojans have a new head coach heading to the 2010 NCAA college football season. In case you didn’t know it yet, Lane Kiffin is now coaching at USC after one season at Tennessee.

Lane Kiffin will replace Pete Caroll, who left the USC Trojans to coach the Seattle Seahawks. Of course, those folks supporting the Tennessee Volunteers did not like Kiffin’s move one bit.

The 34-year old Lane Kiffin was the offensive coordinator in USC before his brief stints with the Oakland Raiders and the Volunteers. For Kiffin, this was not an easy decision to make knowing the support he got from the organization. ”I really believe the only place I would have left here to go was, Southern California,” he said.

His father, respected defensive coach Monte Kiffin, and longtime USC assistant Ed Orgeron, will also leave the Tennessee Volunteers to join him.

Carroll left USC after winning 97 games, seven Pac-10 championships and two national titles over the past nine seasons. Kiffin is one of Carroll’s top followers. Kiffin, a former Fresno State quarterback, worked his way up to offensive coordinator in 2005 while also showing impressive skills as the Trojans’ recruiting coordinator after Orgeron’s departure from Los Angeles.

For two seasons, Kiffin shared responsibility for the Trojans’ offense with fellow longtime Carroll assistant Steve Sarkisian, who left USC to take over at Washington after the 2008 season.

Kiffin went 7-6 at Tennessee last season as the youngest…

Good luck.

Because the Texas Longhorns will definitely have their hands full against the Alabama Crimson Tide when they play for the 2010 BCS national championship. Oh yeah, the title game is this Thursday, marking the culmination of yet another thrilling college football season.

The Texas Longhorns are seeking their second BCS national championship in five years. You see, it was five years ago when Texas shocked the USC Trojans to win the national title 41-38 behind Vince Young’s heroics. On Thursday, they can win it on that same field when they take on Alabama in Pasadena, California.

Just like in 2005, the Texas Longhorns will be the underdogs as they try to upset the Alabama Crimson Tide from winning their first ever BCS national title. Alabama is so well put together this season that beating them is such a daunting task. After all, this was THE team that booted out the defending national champions Florida Gators out of the national championship picture and if these…

We do too.

And that’s despite the fact that Alabama is coming to the 2010 BCS national championship game without any experience whatsoever playing in a game this big with the freaking national title at stake.

Yep, the Alabama Crimson Tide is coming to their first ever BCS national championship game facing the Texas Longhorns who have already won it five years ago on the same field that they’ll be in this Thursday night. We still like the Tide though, here’s why.

Third year head coach Nick Saban has engineered a quick turnaround in Tuscaloosa as he led the Alabama Crimson Tide to two undefeated seasons in the last two years. This season, the Crimson Tide dominated the defending national champions Florida Gators to win the SEC title, earning a bid for the Crystal Trophy for the first time.

Alabama enjoyed a significantly improved season on offense. Behind the rushing of Mark Ingram and the steady play of quarterback Greg McElroy, the Tide scored an average of 31.7 points per game, finishing 27th nationally.

Their running game was dominant, finishing 8th in the country and earning starting tailback Mark Ingram an invite to the Heisman Trophy ceremony. Their passing offense was efficient but it only finished 67th nationally, showing their commitment to running the football. With the way Ingram has been running with the football, nobody is complaining.

As good as their offense already is, the Crimson Tide’s…

Water coolers and sports talk radio hosts can rejoice once again this year, as the BCS system has people bemoaning the lack of a true playoff system in college ball.

In case you didn’t know it yet, the Alabama Crimson Tide pulled off a tidy upset of the No.1 Florida Gators last Saturday, moving into the 2010 BCS national championship game. Listed anywhere from as 5.5-point underdogs up to +7, ‘Bama was getting only about 30 percent of all the betting action by kick-off, according to online sportsbook SPORTSBETTING.com.

Bettors took a hit when the Tide defense did a number on Gator QB Tim Tebow en route to a 32-13 win.

Now Nick Saban and the rest of the Alabama Crimson Tide will prepare to play the Texas Longhorns, who were much less convincing in their BCS title berth showcase.

Coming into last week ranked No.3 by the BCS, the Texas Longhorns were set for one of the national championship spots, facing the No.22 Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Big 12 title game. Texas was in a ”win and you’re in” scenario, kicking off as 14-point favorites.

It was hardly a convincing win, as Texas struggled throughout, but they did manage to eke out a 13-12 win to claim the conference championship. Texas bettors were never really in a spot to cover the two touchdowns all game and moneyline bettors were fortunate to get even the straight up win.

The near-loss to the Cornhuskers didn’t matter to…

Bowl Mania is here and SPORTSBETTING.com is right on top of it.

Along with the holiday season comes the NCAA bowl season, which kicks off this week and runs through to January 7th, when the 2010 BCS national championship game will crown a champion for the 2009 season.

But before we get there, we still have other huge BCS bowl games for you as the New Mexico Bowl gets the first taste of the Bowl spotlight with its date this Saturday night. It features a matchup of the Fresno State Bulldogs taking on the Wyoming Cowboys. Online sportsbooks have installed the Bulldogs as 12.5-point favorites, with an Over/Under of 55.

Here are just some betting trends to take note of if you’re betting on this game.

Fresno State has not thrived when favored by more than 8-points, going 3-8-1 ATS in their last 12 games with that situation.

Wyoming has been solid in their last eight games when listed as an underdog in general, the Cowboys are 6-2 ATS in such situations.

SPORTSBETTING.com is reporting 70 percent of all the betting action on this bowl game so far has come in on the favored Bulldogs.

Also on Saturday, we have a bowl game that harkens back to the middle ages with the University of Central Florida Knights and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights meeting in the St. Petersburg Bowl.

The line in this one is much tighter with Rutgers favored by 2.5-points and the Total at 44.5.

The Scarlet Knights are -140 on the moneyline and…

As expected, Alabama and Texas will play for the BCS national title.

So much for Tim Tebow’s last hurrah this 2009 NCAA college football season eh? In case you missed it, Tebow’s Gators lost to the Alabama Crimson Tide last weekend, 32-13, while the Texas Longhorns BARELY edged the Cornhuskers, 13-12, as the Tide and the Longhorns earned the invite to play for the BCS title.

It was a fitting end to what has been another awesome season. And after 14 weeks of college football, it’s going to be the Alabama Crimson Tide playing the Texas Longhorns on January 7 for the 2010 BCS national championship in a game between two Heisman trophy hopefuls, Alabama’s Mark Ingram and Longhorns quarterback Colt McCoy.

Of course, like every other year the BCS selects its two championship teams, we have quite a few snubs again with each of ‘em worthy of playing for the title game as well.

This year, we have the No.3 TCU Horned Frogs, the No.4 Cincinnati Bearcats and the No.6 Boise State Broncos (again…) who have all finished the season undefeated just like Alabama and Texas. And the debate about college football’s way of choosing the two best teams to play for the title once again rears its ugly head and just like every other year, those folks from the BCS are standing by their decision.

”It’s a fair question,” said BCS executive director Bill Hancock…

What, you thought you won’t have some Thanksgiving action on the college gridiron?

The second-ranked and unbeaten Texas Longhorns are just two steps away from playing for the national title this 2009 NCAA college football season. Of course, they need to take care of business on Thanksgiving night first against Texas A&M and then win the Big 12 title game next week against Nebraska.

You read it, the Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&M Aggies will play each other on Thanksgiving. The college football odds favor Texas on Thursday against A&M in this game that can be seen on ESPN, but the Aggies have been no pushover this season, especially at home.

The Texas Longhorns are 21-point favorites at SBG Global.

The Texas A&M Aggies rolled to a 38-3 victory last week against Baylor that made them bowl eligible. They have the offensive firepower to at least give Texas cause for concern and the Aggies are playing at home.

”It’s going to be fast and crazy,” said A&M defensive back Jordan Pugh. ”You’ve got to savor the moment. You have no choice. All of us as seniors have to savor this moment and get this win.”

The Aggies defeated Texas in 2006 and in 2007 but they were blown out last year in Austin.

The Texas Longhorns have been focused all season as only…