This summer, I drove to Athens, Ga. to cover the Super Regional matchup between Georgia and South Carolina. I ran into a group of Bulldog fans and we got to talking. When they found out I lived in Arkansas, the response was immediate. “That (Darren) McFadden is amazing. What year is he?” The next morning, while eating breakfast at my hotel, I launched into a good conversation with a diehard Gamecocks fan. After about two baseball questions, the subject jumped to Steve Spurrier and the hopes of Gamecock football, and it stayed there the rest of the meal.

Despite having lived in the South my whole life, I was still somewhat surprised. Here were two schools, innings away from a trip to Omaha and a chance to win a national title in baseball, and football still was the top issue at hand.

There is simply nothing like SEC football. It’s where intensity and passion reach all-time highs. It transcends the boundaries of young and old, male and female and liberal or conservative, and unites a whole region in a show of pageantry that is second to none in sports.

Here in the SEC, football is a year round sport. It’s where tens of thousands of fans show up just to watch a spring practice, and fans plan vacations around Media Days in the summer. It’s where signing a top recruiting class in February calls for massive celebrations across a state, and of course, in the fall, it’s where stadiums become the third…or sometimes even the second largest city in the state.

It’s where rivalries are like nowhere else in college sports. The World’s Largest Cocktail Party brings the two border states of Georgia and Florida into a furious frenzy. The Egg Bowl will shut down Mississippi in anticipation for the showdown. As for the Iron Bowl, let’s just say that no matter where you go in this great country, you will never find a more intense rivalry anywhere than the feud between Alabama and Auburn. When two schools hate each other so much to where they refuse to play for decades and the state legislature had to force the rivalry back into the college football scene, that is intensity.

That spirit, that pageantry, which is found so deep in the SEC, is what takes us on the road this fall. We’ll go from "The Swamp" at Florida to the Kentucky bluegrass, from the hills of Arkansas to the plains of Auburn, and from the Louisiana bayou to Tennessee’s “Rocky Top”. We’ll go between the hedges in Athens, and visit the home of the Bear at Alabama. We’re going to catch as much of this glorious culture as we can, and share the excitement it brings with everyone who visits. There are lots of stories about the significance of SEC football, and we plan to discover these stories that make football seasons in the South so unique.

From small towns to the big cities, we’re out to find the greatest atmosphere in all of college sports.

In my eyes, this is the ultimate college sports adventure, and I’m not only extremely thankful to be taking part in this, I can’t wait to get started.

The trip starts August 29th, so I hope those of you who read this continue to visit the site for daily updates, new features, and to get a good taste of SEC football. It’s 17 games, 15 cities, 14 weeks, 12 campuses, and only one site…CSTV.com will have coverage like this!