The Eagles sang a song that goes something like, “It’s comin’ on the end of August/Another summer’s promise almost gone/And though I heard some wise man say/that every dog will have his day/He never mentioned that these dog days get so long.”

While those aren’t the Eagles that Donovan McNabb quarterbacks or the ones from Boston that have ripped out the collective heart of Clemson fans three years running, it’s clear that these guys were talking about football.

I guess another rocker, Tom Petty, put it much more bluntly: “The waiting is the hardest part.”

Well, the waiting is finally over – football season is officially here.

There were some things that helped us pass the time in the off-season, like a more-exciting-than-usual NBA Finals, the Beijing Olympics and baseball season, though that last one just made things worse if you’re a fan of the dreadful Atlanta Braves.

Technically, I suppose football season started in this area with Walhalla’s win over Blacksburg last Friday and South Carolina’s opener against N.C. State last night, but this weekend is the first with a full slate of games and I, personally, couldn’t be more excited.

And though the start of football season is always intriguing, it seems like this season has even more drama and storylines than ever for the teams in this part of the country.

On the high school front, two of our local teams, Seneca and West-Oak, are entering new eras under new head coaches – Ron Duncan and Jay Brannon, respectively – and the Warriors are actually making the jump to a new class, moving from AA to AAA ball.

At Daniel, the excitement is as high as it’s been in a decade, with the star-studded Lions being considered by many as legitimate contenders for the state title.

The Walhalla Razorbacks, as mentioned, got their season off on the right foot, showing they can do more than just throw the football as they chalked up more than 200 yards on the ground in their 27-8 win over Blacksburg. And with quarterback Rob Middleton – statistically the best passer in school history – returning for his senior season, the Razors appear poised to make their first playoff appearance in John Boggs’ tenure as head coach.

The final area team, the Pendleton Bulldogs, got some tragic news earlier this week, when freshman Avery Robinson – a member of the junior varsity squad – passed away at Greenville Memorial Hospital. Needless to say, it will be with heavy hearts that the Bulldogs take the field for their opener tonight at Seneca. Still, the Bulldogs are perennially one of the most well coached and disciplined teams in the state under Paul Sutherland, and I’d be surprised if they didn’t challenge for the Skyline AA title and make another run deep into the playoffs this year.

As for the state’s two major college programs, expectations are as high as ever.

For Clemson, perhaps the only thing we’ve heard more leading up to the season than how talented the Tigers are, is how Tommy Bowden’s teams have a history of finding ways to lose at least a couple of games each season that they have no business losing.

Still, the media that covers the ACC has pegged the Tigers as their pre-season favorites, and as even Bowden admitted, that group tends to be far smarter than he and the rest of the coaches give them credit for. The ACC media has pretty much nailed the Tigers’ finish in recent years, and the last time they did pick the Tigers as their pre-season champs (1991) was also the last time Clemson won the conference crown.

And there’s no doubting the Tigers’ talent, with as many as seven or eight players that have a good chance to be drafted on the first day of next April’s NFL Draft.

Still, the question marks linger around the Clemson program – with inexperience on the offensive line and at linebacker and the Tigers’ perennial struggles on special teams. Personally, I believe that Clemson’s offensive line and linebacking corps, while both inexperienced, may be more talented as individual groups that any Bowden has coached at Clemson. To me, it is the special teams issues that are the biggest concern, and while there’s every reason to be optimistic on that front, I’ll believe those issues are resolved when and if I actually see it.

While the Tigers’ bitter rivals in Columbia aren’t ranked nearly as high in the pre-season polls and no one is picking them as the favorites to win the SEC, among the Gamecock fan base, the eternal optimism is higher than ever.

For a program that entered the season two games under .500 all-time, fans of South Carolina always seem to have a wait-‘til-next-year attitude. And this year, it actually looks like “next year” may have arrived. If defense wins championships – as the adage goes – the Gamecocks should be real contenders in the SEC, with a ton of stars on that side of the ball like Jasper Brinkley, Eric Norwood, Captain Munnerlyn and Emanuel Cook.

South Carolina’s biggest question mark entering the season is at quarterback, where Tommy Beecher – who has zero career TD passes against BCS conference opponents – shocked everybody by winning the starting job. But if there’s anybody who can do more with less at quarterback better than the Ol’ Ball Coach, I don’t know who it is. Steve Spurrier definitely knows how to “coach ‘em up,” when it comes to QBs.

As for the two NFL teams in this region of the country, the Panthers and Falcons, there’s once again reason for both fan bases to be excited after horrible years last season.

Carolina demolished the Washington Redskins in its most recent pre-season game, and while it’s only the pre-season, it’s quite clear that having their quarterback, Jake Delhomme, back and healthy makes all the difference.

In Atlanta, there’s one big reason to be excited, and his name is Matt Ryan. I’m told that many Clemson fans actually attended his graduation ceremony at Boston College, just to make certain that he was actually gone.

Even the most-hyped rookie quarterbacks, though, aren’t typically ready to start from Day 1 in the NFL, but Ryan has already been named as the starter and has shined in the pre-season, showing the savvy and intangibles that made him the No. 3 overall pick in the draft.

Still, don’t expect a playoff run out of the Falcons this season – even Peyton Manning was only 3-13 as a rookie starting QB in the NFL – but there’s definitely reason to believe the future is bright in Hot-‘lanta.

Football season always brings plenty of excitement, but this year it seems there is even more reason than ever to be excited for area pigskin fans.

Or, for the sake of ending this thing like it started, I’ll throw another lyric at you: “Are you ready for some football?”

I know I am.