This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

As I type, Spaniards in Madrid, Barcelona and across the world are going bonkers over the country’s first World Cup title. Just three days ago, the "Summer of LeBron" came to a boisterous crescendo, as one of the most anticipated NBA free agency periods all but ended with a new title favorite.

In short, the dog days of summer are here. Yeah, the MLB All-Star game is just a few days away, and drama is sure to ensue next weekend at the British Open from St. Andrews, but there’s really no excuse between now and Labor Day not to catch up on some summer reading... and of course warm up the thumbs for NCAA Football 2011.

Here are the 10 best ways college basketball fans (who also love and enjoy college football) can pass the time leading up to next season:

• 10) Buy NCAA Football 2011. College football legend TIM TEBOW!!! graces the cover.
  
• 9) Read Rush The Court’s Zach Hayes (@zhayes9) on-going "20 at the Top Series." He loves to make lists (who doesn’t?) and will be coming at you for the next six Fridays with the top 20 players in each of the six major conferences. I'll be doing my best to match wits with him.
  
• 8) Avoid that damn Entourage show. Because no self-respecting twentysomething really wants to be Turtle, and the new season of Mad Men kicks off on July 25th.
  
• 7) Suck it up and throw down $20 for BasketballState.com. Statistical analysis and historical data aplenty, BasketballState is StatSheet.com on steroids, and it's entirely street legal. The summer is a perfect time to explore all its features and breadth of information for junkies.
  
• 6) Stay up to date with the latest 2010-2011 scheduling news and notes over at BloggingtheBracket.com. Chris Dobbertean (@chrisdobbertean) is on top of his stuff when it comes to the who/what/where/when of scheduling, including all those fun early season tournaments. Did you know Cincinnati, South Florida and West Virginia are the three lucky Big East teams slated to play lousy DePaul twice next season?
  
• 5) Buy NCAA Football 2011. The all new Locomotion System gives gamers the ability to stop momentum on a dime, rebalance after an over-pursue and truly feel what it’s like to play between the sidelines.
  
• 4) Track the ongoing story of the NCAA’s investigation of Eric Bledsoe. At this time it’s been reported that one of Bledsoe’s relatives and a family friend told the Birmingham News that they, and not Bledsoe’s high school coach, helped pay rent for Bledsoe and his mother during the former UK guard’s senior year of high school. There’s certainly more layers yet to be peeled back, but it’s a potential saga in the making.
  
• 3) Foolishly spend office hours perusing the NCAA Vault.  It was launched in March, giving fans access to highlights and start-to-finish video of every Sweet 16 through National Championship game played since 2000. Did you know that in 2003, #10 seed Auburn played in a regional semi-final game, nearly knocking off eventual national champion Syracuse? It’s this type of relevant information I crave in mid-July.
  
• 2) Help me secure an interview with Billy Edeiln. I’m looking at you Onondaga County. Billy is apparently working your in the records department by day, and dominating the King of Kings Summer League by night. This is my second summer writing SFBE, and it’s about time I score some face time with the former Orange guard.
  
• 1) Buy, and play, NCAA Football 2011. Because gahd dangit EA Sports is using me as an intermediary to interact with fans, and their investment needs to yield a healthy ROI.

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

Each season, following the violent unwrapping of the polyethylene and delicate placement of the CD-rom into the gaming system, it’s customary to browse the attributes of all 120+ Division-I football teams included in the NCAA Football series.

Whose offense is top-notch? What defense has received an "A+" grade? Sometimes I even like to know who is repping an iron-leg kicker.

Each year’s game has their top teams, and you learn which ones have the most talented skill-position, but since 2001 I haven’t seen a team as stacked as the 2001 Miami Hurricanes. The 2004 USC Trojans, 2005 Texas Longhorns, and 2009 Alabama Crimson Tide are nice, but nobody had a scary amount of depth and NFL talent (23 players drafted; 16 in the first round) than Larry Coker’s boys.

Consider:

• 10 defensive regulars were first round draft picks
• Of those 10, only Jerome McDougle and Mike Rumph played themselves out of the league
• A redshirt freshman, Willis McGahee was handed the ball just 67 times
• Kellen Winslow – he’s pretty good – caught only two passes backing up Jeremy Shockey

As high school sophomores, the Hurricanes renaissance put my friends in complete awe. A program that was mediocre by Jimmy Johnson’s standards through the 90s, we were picking noses and hurling plastic Ninja Turtles at one another the last time The U was so powerful. But as unruly teenagers without an ounce of maturity to our names, we sacrificed many a Friday and Saturday nights to socialize with coeds and stay out late just to "be" Ken Dorsey and drop back with umpteen talented players flanking him. Clearly, our priorities were in order.

The real life squad affirmed what many gamers already knew before the season kicked off. After throttling Nebraska in the Rose Bowl for the National Championship, the Hurricanes stood undefeated, with a record-breaking 33-point scoring margin, outscored ranked teams 124-7, and six first-team All-Americans. Absolute immortals to the 18-25 demographic, and best collection of college football players of my generation.

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

To celebrate the July 13 release of NCAA Football 2011, EA Sports asked the dozens of SB Nation college bloggers to help promote and preview the latest installment of the highly successful series. Luckily for EA Sports, I along with many of my high school and college friends are some of the more ardent fans of the series, so you don’t need a lot of arm twisting from this guy to gush about a personal favorite past time. As I enter adulthood, I’m still not sure if it’s proper or embarrassing that NCAA Football remains part of my life, but I must admit that it's the true catalyst for what hypes me up and gets me thinking about the upcoming college football season.

My first memory of NCAA Football was back in 2001. Play Station 2 was the console of choice, and it was then when it became customary to pick up the new game just before the start of school. Because who actually comes home from a hard day of high school and golf practice, and decides to study before bed? For those that remember the 2001 college football season, the Miami Hurricanes were king, both in real life and as 64-bit football players on NCAA Football 2002.  Still one of the most awesome collections of interscholastic athletes, the "U" had enough NFL talent to fill an entire pro team’s draft board and it was a blast to pit their stout defense against the option-centric Nebraska Cornhuskers, led by the dynamic Eric Crouch.

Two years later, laid up from the removal of his wisdom teeth, I spent hours recovering with NCAA Football 2004 (and pain killers of course). The Auburn Tigers were the trendy team that season, and I took it upon myself to groom Jason Campbell into a #1 NFL pick, uploading his draft class onto the premier EA Sports Madden series.  The Tigers went undefeated and played for the national title... if only it were a case of art imitating life.

Recently, my friends and I all agree that EA Sports has done an incredible job keeping NCAA Football series fresh by constantly tweaking the gameplay. Users are challenged to actually know that the heck they’re doing when their team steps to the line of scrimmage. No longer can you just drop back on 4th-and-26 to keep your drive moving, run an HB toss with your big, burly running-back and expect a 20-yard gain, or always feel peachy as you try and punch it in late in the game against a rival opponent. Heck, the game even manages to trick us into thinking Lee Corso is still the spry and witty analyst he once was.

I hail from New England - Maine to be exact - so I don't hold claim to a story that opens with "how I became a fan of [STUPENDOUS COLLEGE FOOTBALL TEAM]." But I am a huge fan of the game and everything that surrounds it, especially the NCAA Football series.