Unless Kim Jong Un launches some nervous uncle he doesn’t like to bronco buck a nuke-fitted ICBM into Mercedes-Benz Stadium like Slim Pickens’ Major “King” Kong did to the delight of General Jack Ripper and the suddenly ambulatory Dr. Strangelove, college pigskin is just over the horizon.

None too soon if you ask me. Now that I’ve watched that wacko ending to last year’s Georgia/Tennessee game in replay on the World Wide Leader too many times. (Sayonara Verne Lundquist, just in time.)

That SEC finish reminds me to mention from the get go how much I adore Big 12 football, where every game is like that. So what that there’s no D. 58-54 on the telly from Lubbock as the sun sets and the Impellizzeri’s pizza has been ordered on an almost crisp late September Saturday afternoon is more than fine with me. Those games from out on the prairie remind me of the early days of the AFL. Bambi frolicking across the middle for the Chargers against the Raiders from Balboa Stadium with Charlie Jones on the call.

Back and forth. Forth and back.

OK, so where was I? Oh yeah, now that I’ve looked back — too many times frankly — to relive when James Quick should have zagged but zigged late against Clemson, cementing the Cards demise in Death Valley a season ago, I know it’s long past time to move on.

The heat, humidity and congestion of yellow school buses morning and afternoon these days means late August and Fall Practice. It’s been confirmed the Junction Boys are a thing of the past. It’s not an earthquake emanating from Birmingham’s Elmwood Cemetery, just Bear Bryant tossing and turning in his grave since the NCAA — a coven of would be tyrants (to use an apropos designation I’ve coopted from an angry neighbor) — banned August two a days.

We know it’s time to stock up on brats and those tasteless cheezy curly puffs that somehow seem like a delicacy tailgating on an asphalt parking lot in November.

Yes practice has started — in July actually — so it’s legitimate to look ahead toward the nation’s gridirons, to look forward to the upcoming college pigskin campaign.

And I am more than ready, as is Glorious Editor, and you are too, I suppose, if you’ve read this far.

Just don’t be expecting any prognostications amid this verbosity. Rest assured they shall soon enough come on a weekly basis when the oughta be award-winning Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications returns before season opening kickoffs.

This is just a little time waster, yours truly musing about some of this and a little of that after reading too much pre-season punditry.

My first question about the upcoming campaign, albeit a pissy one, is where Matt Elam would be playing now, if anywhere, had the one time vaunted prepster actually chosen to become a Sabanista and thus surely have been washed away by now in the Crimson Tide? Instead, as he has done, of gaining infamy as the most disappointing recruit in the history of UK football.

And why no more pub for his successor, the all name team worthy Naquez Pringle?

I was also in a daze of wonderWTF after reading that The Cardinal of Stanford and the Owls of Rice shall be sojourning halfway round the globe to battle in Sydney.

I’ve flown to Australia. It is not a fun trip, especially eleven across back in coach where the air is stale and room tight. It’s a journey that takes 48-72 hours to recover from. And these young student athletes are supposed to be at their best to show footy fans how Americans play the game, and visit the majestic Sydney Opera House too?

That game kicks off on August 26 in America, but if my memory of Phileas Fogg’s 80 day journey around the globe is correct, it will actually be August 27 already in Sydney.

Anyway, it’s the same day more or less for the kickoff of the Charlie Strong Era at South Florida. The Bulls, visions of an unblemished campaign dancing between their horns, venture to San Jose to “battle” an unimposing Spartan squad, coming off three consecutive losing seasons, with a new coach. That’s a long trip for the BullStrong squad, but hardly trans-Pacific or taxing.

And those are just the hors d’oeuvres a week before the real Week I, when knowing Louisville fans are wondering how many Shapiro’s pastrami and latke interludes they can fit in around the Cardinals’ opener against Jeff Brohm’s Boilermakers at Lucas Oil?

Plus some other morsels almost as tasty. Coach Khaki’s Wolverines visit Gainesville, to face a Gator squad now 7 players short. Josh Rosen will set his text books aside to QB his Bruins, when Texas Aggies come a callin’, 12th men in tow. Everybody’s favorite dark horse, no longer under the radar N.C. State visits South Carolina. The Mountaineers visit the Hokies.

Of course, Kentucky’s Wildcats hope to avenge last season’s opening weekend defeat in Hattiesburg.

And, yes, Alabama, everybody’s #1 — yet again — and 5-0 with a 25 ppg advantage in recent neutral site openers (Thank you, Phil Steele), battles consensus #2 Florida State in the Mother of All Opening Weekend Battles.

After that we can settle in, and find out if Lamar Jackson gets in touch with his inner Archie Griffin, whether Brian Kelly’s new OC and DC can help him roll down the echoes, if the Big 12 can find a spot in the Final Four, whether the Oregon Quack can regain their mojo under the ever upwardly mobile Willie Taggart, and many many more questions that will pose themselves as the season unfolds?

Bring it.

— Seedy K