The only thing better than a summer road trip is a college football road trip, hanging out at the preseason camps of some of the most storied and prestigious programs in the land. My odyssey included five campuses in 10 days -- visits with five top-six teams in the Associated Press preseason poll -- and started with a cross-country flight from Tennessee to Los Angeles to check in on USC. After a couple of days on the West Coast, I flew back east to Tallahassee, Florida. On back-to-back days, I watched Florida State then Alabama practice, and all I can say is their Sept. 2 clash in Atlanta can't get here soon enough. The Midwest portion of my junket started two days after returning from scorching Tuscaloosa. The first stop was State College, Pennsylvania, where James Franklin, "a Pennsylvania boy with a Penn State heart," has the Nittany Lions back among college football's elite. The final stop of my tour was Columbus, Ohio, where Ohio State coach Urban Meyer is a staggering...