So tonight it actually happens...

Let's be honest - the rivalry at Marquette between Chicago and Wisconsin students is fairly intense.

When it comes to baseball, the Cubs fans have single-handedly been able to turn Miller Park into Wrigley North, despite the Brewers' fans better efforts since I started my collegiate career.

Nothing tops the Bears/Packers feud for pure intensity - literally half this campus walked around with their heads down after Week 1 and Aaron Rodgers hit a wide open Greg Jennings in stride to put the Packers on top.

But suddenly, the Chicago/Wisconsin rivalry takes a firm backseat to the Wisconsin/Brett Favre divide. Tonight, the game I've been waiting for with baited breath since unretirement number 2 (6 or 7 unofficially), finally commences. It's the Pack and Vikes with a completely different twist - Brett Favre in PURPLE. Man that looks weird.

A friend of mine who's a sports columnist for The Marquette Tribune told me last week that while he wants the Packers to pummel the living crap out of old #4 tonight, that Brett Favre is now "like an old man who forgot what he was thinking and doing."

He made the point that as Packers fans, we shouldn't completely admonish the man who for 16 years put the franchise back on the map and had the organization single-handedly bend over backwards to bow to his each and every demand. If there was ever a player who earned unofficial "player/GM" status, it was Favre during the Mike Sherman era. No question.

And as much as I've hated the drawn out sagas of vascillating and ESPN sending either Rachel Nichols or Wendi Nix to their unofficial Hattiesburg bureau in front of the Favre residence, it still is compelling. Obnoxious and covered to the point of exhaustion, yes, but still something I couldn't take my eyes off of.

Now, had ESPN assigned Erin Andrews to the coverage, I think fewer people would have been as annoyed with ESPN turning to Favre-central. I digress.

Anyway as Packer fan it is always my wish to see the Pack to smash the Vikes. Always. To be honest, though, I'm more afraid for Aaron Rodgers.

Lost in the magnitude of what is the most obvious storyline any professional game has ever had in decades, is that Rodgers might not make it out of the first half in one piece. He's already been sacked a league-high 12 times in three games, and the Pack o-line is in shambles with already having to change three positions since opening week.

Add that in to the fact the Vikes' d-line has the Williams wall and the man of 1000 dead animal hats, as well as just a general freak of nature, Jared Allen, Rodgers is the man I fear will be tasting turf more often than Favre.

And what does Favre have to do? The claim he isn't out for revenge is preposterous. There was always going to be some small element of it. So my thinking is, although he made the game-winning throw last week versus San Fran (and Greg Lewis, by the way, MADE that play, otherwise we're talking about a 3-0 '9ers team and the Vikes losing their home opener), he is just going to go off tonight.

The Packers secondary isn't entirely healthy either. Granted Charles Woodson and Al Harris are probably the best duo in the league, but still Favre can either dink-and-dunk his way around the 3-4 or bomb it to where our safeties our, hook up with speedsters Percy Harvin or Bernard Berrian (if I'm being selfish, please Brett hit Visanthe Shiancoe for a TD because I need it in fantasy), and go on his merry way.

I'm excited but nervous. It's probably going to be all-hype and fall flatter than Dolphins tackle Jake Long did earlier this year against the Falcons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1k_1GukEwo.

My final prediction: Vikes 27, Pack 23. I hope I'm wrong. Out for now, cheers.