It wasn't that long ago, in a land far, far away, before the Internet was available to the masses, that prep football news came from just a few sources. It was a place called metro Detroit in the year 1994 AD. Way back then, in the days of land lines and shopping malls, the only prep football fodder came from the Detroit dailies, the local paper, or the barber shops and diners where the coaches, boosters or parents mingled.

We've come a long way. Today there's sources beyond the wildest imagination to get your motor running for the upcoming prep football season. Fans sites, blogs, team sites and independent rankings.

One of the best prep football sites on the Internet among many is Searn's Football Site, home of Searn's Super 32 Rankings. The metro area is well-represented in the preseason-season poll, with 16 of the 32 slots occupied by schools from the metro area. Additionally, of the 26 schools listed in the site's Honorable Mention, eight hail from the metro. That's 24 of the 48 schools worthy of note in the preseason are from the Tri-county Detroit area. If you're a football fan, how could you not be ready for football season to start?

Counting the honorable mentions, the breakdown by conference is impressive. The Oakland Activities Association (OAA) leads the way with six schools ranked within Searn's site. The Kensington Lakes Activities Association (KLAA), Catholic High School League (CHSL) and MEGA each earned four rankings, followed by the Macomb Area Conference (MAC) with three and the Detroit Public School League with two. Detroit Country Day, an independent, earned an honorable mention nod to round out the 24 ranked schools. The county breakdown is as follows: Oakland County schools received 12 nominations, Wayne County took eight slots and Macomb county schools earned four rankings.

Of course, there's the occasional dissenter who will bend your ear to tell you that you can't trust everything you read (thanks, Dad), that it's just prep football (OK, Mom) and there are other pressing, important things to follow. True, true and true, but who cares? Following prep football is fun, and this season football comes at a most convenient time. The Detroit Tigers have been toothless since April, easily the worst team $138 million has ever purchased in the history of professional sports. The Detroit Lions? If you have faith, you're not familiar with the last 53 seasons. For the first time in 22 seasons, the University of Michigan Wolverines weren't found in the Associated Press preseason Top 25 college football poll.

Above all else, in this downtrodden Michigan economy, is there a better sporting value that $5 to watch a high school football game?

There's always room for prep football in metro Detroit, long regarded one of America's smallest big towns. On both the Michigan and Michigan State radio pregame broadcasts, prep football gets a more than a passing mention, with scores and stories from the Friday night that preceded Saturday's major college football games.

It's important to keep things in perspective, and yes, there's other important things to keep a focused eye on, but there's no shame is getting geared up for another prep football season, either.