ESPN Bruce Feldman Blog

What an awesome week.

The season will begin Thursday night with a much-anticipated prime-time game between the Oregon Ducks and Boise State Broncos on ESPN.

This blog will be shifting into in-season mode, which means that while much of the same daily content will remain (the Friday mailbag is still, um, on Fridays), you'll notice a few changes. My weekly picks post is returning on Thursdays, and on Sundays I will have an early morning take on the previous day's happenings.

Today, I want to look at the 10 biggest storylines for the upcoming week:

1. Richt's road warriors:

There are a couple of great games on the first Saturday, but the Georgia Bulldogs versus the Oklahoma State Cowboys tops my list; it's got a great subplot in the ongoing conference battle between the SEC and the Big 12. Many are touting Okie State as this season's Texas Tech Red Raiders. SEC fans are probably rolling their eyes about that, ready to shoot back: "Yeah, remember what happened to last year's Texas Tech when it faced an SEC team in the Cotton Bowl?"

The Dawgs -- underdogs by almost a full touchdown -- are 28-1 in nonconference games under coach Mark Richt in the regular season, and they've been very impressive on the road. (Richt is 30-4 in road games.) Oklahoma State has never been ranked this high entering a season. It'll be fun to see whether the UGA defense, which was very mediocre in 2008 and was ripped apart in losses to Alabama, Florida and Georgia Tech, can handle the explosive OSU attack featuring QB Zac Robinson, RB Kendall Hunter and WR Dez Bryant.

"This offense is very highly rated, and they have a veteran bunch," Georgia linebacker Rennie Curran told the AJC. "We've played [teams] that were highly ranked before, like in the Sugar Bowl against [Hawaii's] Colt Brennan. I feel like this is another game where we get the chance to set the tempo and show that we are a defense that is focused and that is disciplined and can make plays."