USC is among stories to follow this fall

They seem to arrive earlier each year, now showing up long before the Atlanta Hawks can waste their high draft pick and even sooner than the Kansas City Royals are mathematically eliminated.

Without fanfare, they have begun to take over their corner of a mega-chain bookstore or the specialty niche on a drugstore rack.

With the hot breath of the Internet creeping up behind them, the fast publishing of college football magazines eventually may start during BCS getaway week. But despite what could be misconstrued as a rush job, their appearance still registers as an annual rite of sporting passage.

Even if its status as an information warehouse has become a bit clipped by technology, the college football magazine continues to serve as a reminder that the season is just around the corner ... an extremely wide corner.

Anyway, with most of the inky precincts recorded, we can chew on the revelation that the USC Troja