The college football season, as we love it, is now officially beginning.

A predominantly uneventful first three weeks has ended, and the excitement and hype are finally upon us. Three showdowns in the Sunshine State this Saturday will launch the first meaningful basis for comparison between top teams.

Conference games between Tennessee and Florida as well as Georgia Tech and Florida State were inevitable; they just happened to fall on the schedule in mid-September. Washington and Miami, on the other hand, have opted to risk defeat and grace our televisions with an early-season battle.

Conventional wisdom says that, in a national title hunt, losing early is better than losing late. Yet, Miami and Washington both lost in September last year and never caught up to Florida State, which lost in October. The last two national champions with a loss on their record -- Florida in '96 and Florida State in '93 -- both lost their game in November. The truth is that fighting a good fight can be rewarded at any stage of the season.

So, with many rivalries and top-notch conference matchups already coming late in the schedule, what is the motivation to play a powerful opponent in September? Well, the recent addition of bonus points to the BCS formula just might allow the reward to outweigh the risk.

Within the BCS, solid opposition has always benefited a team's strength of schedule both under that column and within the computers. But a loss -- even to a great team -- still costs you a point and a few spots in the polls. Until now, losing a big game has been worse than winning a meaningless one.

Bonus points, however, create an incentive to play top competition. They are somewhat of an insurance policy against a loss, but if you win the game, it becomes a double bonus. This means playing three Top-10 teams and beating two of them is now potentially more beneficial to national title hopes than going 3-0 against a cupcake non-conference schedule.

As athletic directors start to realize this, we might see more and more marquee matchups prior to the start of conference play. Ultimately, this translates to more weekends like the coming one for fans to enjoy.

Stock up: Fresno State
Not only have the Bulldogs apparently survived their toughest challenge in the quest for an undefeated season, but three of their key non-conference opponents also won yesterday. Colorado, Oregon State and Colorado State all were victorious, which helps Fresno's schedule strength in their fight for an automatic BCS berth.

A note to all Fresno State fans and bandwagon supporters: other than winning the rest of its own games, the most important thing for FSU is that the Buffaloes, Beavers, Badgers and Rams all have a successful season. Non-conference wins by WAC foes also help the cause. So far, so good.

The other benefit of these early-season Bulldog upsets is poll position. The hardest part of the championship race for a non-major conference member is earning the respect of the pollsters. Last year, many people thought TCU could make a run at a Top-6 BCS finish because the Horned Frogs started the season ranked. Although Fresno State received only 15 votes in the preseason coaches poll, they now hold the 15th position there along with the No. 11 spot in the AP poll -- an average ranking of 13. At this same time last year, TCU had an average poll ranking of 20.5.

Stock down: Big Ten Conference
All other major conferences have an obvious title contender (or two or three) in this early stage of the season, but the Big Ten does not currently have a team ranked higher than No. 16 (Northwestern in the AP poll). Sure, Oklahoma was 18th in both polls at this time last year, but they also had Texas, Kansas State and Nebraska waiting on the schedule. Those wins were huge for the Sooners in every phase of the BCS formula. With no national-stage matchups apparent on the Big Ten conference schedule, it is looking even less likely that the league's run of consecutive Rose Bowl appearances will continue past this season.

If the season ended today...
Starting next week, this column will offer a projection of what the BCS Rankings would look like if they were being released right now. Sure, it's a long season, but it's never too early to start a friendly debate in the office or at school. But remember, the computers can do some crazy things in September.

Brad Edwards is a college football researcher at ESPN. His Inside the BCS will appear every Sunday.