If you're like us and have seen "Rudy" 29 times on AMC since the National Championship game, then you're likely jonesing for college football and very familiar with Notre Dame's pre-game prayer/touch-the-signs tradition performed before every match up in South Bend. Of course, the Irish aren't the only team to invoke help from the superstition gods. Check out what their brethren do to prepare for the big game. Don't see your school? Probably wasn't good enough to warrant a mention. That's right, I said it.

10. Lord knows what the hell you people do out there in Nebraska (please, tell me), so I find the big action war-themed short leading up to the football team's entrance onto the field entirely appropriate for those with too much time on their hands. Just saying, you don't see Harvard producing any pre-game films....

9. Whether or not "Howard's Rock" -- a pedestal-mounted rock that sits in Clemson's stadium -- actually contains mystical winning powers is questionable, but it doesn't stop the Tigers from rubbing it before they descend the "hill" into the stadium.



8. To continue in the great forms of corral running before a game, the Tennessee Vols run through a man-made "T" before taking the field.



7. At Texas A&M, fans, cheerleaders, cowboys, random homeless get together to yell the Aggies fight songs at midnight before the game. Then they have a massive orgy while voodoo drums play in the background and the offensive starting line stick pins into sculpted longhorns made of Colt McCoy's hair.



6. Okay Colorado... yes, parading your mascot around the field before the game is cool. Naming an enormous potentially man-eating buffalo "Ralphie" is not.



5. Considering Florida's proud claim as the home of red necks, gays, and the return-to-our-roots-environmentally-conscious (Nascar, Key West, Everglades...), Florida State's game time tradition when "Chief Osceola" rides onto the field and plants a "flaming spear" into the center of the field manages to capture the state's diversity in one exceedingly ass-backward gesture. Well done.



4-3. No seriously, marching bands are cool. If you're in Ohio State's, that is. Every year one "lucky" horn player is awarded the coveted spot of "dotting the 'i'" when the band takes the field and spells out O-H-i-O.



For other (read: better) marching band traditions, University of Wisconsin's stays after every home-game for up to an hour to play for the 40,000-some fans who stay along with them during what is known as the fifth quarter.



2. For those of you who aren't aware, cadets at any of the military schools are required to attend athletic events. From someone who played Army every year in soccer, this is slightly intimidating, considering they have a FULL stadium at EVERY GAME. (Though, despite their exceptional fitness, the poor things could shoot but couldn't aim to save their lives... bless their hearts.) If you haven't been to any Army/Navy football game, you've missed the pomp that comes pre-game when cadets from both schools march onto the field.



While the sight is pretty impressive -- though slightly Lord of the Rings-esque -- if you ask me, this is so much better....



1. Props to the Eagle at Auburn who, before every game, is released at the top of the stadium, flies around the crowd and lands in center field, all to the sounds of the (dare we say drunken) fans who cheer him on. Even I'll admit, the feat is fairly amazing.



Note: Auburn fans -- some 40,000 -- also "walk" their team to the stadium, cheering them along the way.