It’s almost time again for Super Bowl Sunday, an unofficial national holiday and the biggest day on the American sports calendar. To help dazzle friends, family and co-workers with your sudden knowledge about the NFL, Outsports.com offers this handy guide to the Big Game.

WHAT: This will be the 38th Super Bowl played (or, as the haughty NFL labels it, Super Bowl XXXVIII). The Feb. 1 game features the New England Patriots (16-2) vs. the Carolina Panthers (14-5). The Patriots have been in existence since 1960 (when Dwight Eisenhower was president), the Panthers since 1995 (when President Bill first met Intern Monica).

WHERE: The game will be played in Houston at Reliant Stadium (cost: $367 million, mostly public money), named after the Texas energy giant that was among those accused of gouging Californians during the 2002 energy crisis. It’s a fitting symbol, since gouging is the name of the game during Super Bowl Week. Tickets, with $500 to $600 face values are being sold online for up to 10 times that.

This is the second Super Bowl in Houston. The last one, in 1974, was somewhat of a bust. The Wall Street Journal reports that civic leaders are trying to give the city — called “ugly” and a “hell hole” at various times — a makeover, but no word on whether they’ve called in the Fab Five.

FASHION NOTE: The Panthers will wear their away white uniforms, with silver, black and Panther Blue helmets. The Patriots will wear their home uniforms: blue tops, silver pants, with a red, white and blue helmet logo. The Patriots feature a rather stylized, yet boring, logo. The old one was much cooler — it showed a Minuteman, legs spread, with a ball between them and was reminiscent of a Halloween costume seen on Santa Monica Blvd.

THE COACHES: New England is coached by Bill Belichick, a football savant in his fifth Super Bowl, second as the head man. The guy’s a brilliant tactician who always is one step ahead of the opposition. He is a fashion disaster, however. Belichick’s preferred choice of sideline attire in the past month is an oversized gray hooded sweatshirt that makes him look like he sleeps under the Charles River Bridge.

The Panthers are coached by John Fox, a big hit with those who like silver foxes, or in his case, silver bears. He’s the burly, no-nonsense type that players love to play for.

THE QUARTERBACKS: This game is a treat for those who like their QBs of the pretty/cute variety. In an Outsports Discussion Board poll, voters preferred New England’s Tom Brady over Carolina’s Jake Delhomme, 58 percent to 42 percent.

THE OWNERS: The two owners this year (Robert Kraft of New England and Jerry Richardson of Carolina) are a couple of middle-aged rich, white guys, i.e., boring. Richardson’s claim to fame is that he is the second former player to ever own a team and that his company owns Denny’s.

GAME ENTERTAINMENT: The Super Bowl is always dependable for bringing us bizarre entertainment, like the time Michael Jackson was surrounded by hundreds of kids on stage. This year, the league is pushing bad taste by paying a tribute to the astronauts killed in the space shuttle crash a year ago. “Crew members from the next Space Shuttle mission, STS-114, will join international star Josh Groban on the field as part of the NFL’s salute to NASA as Groban sings his hit, ‘You Raise Me Up’ prior to the national anthem,” the league’s PR department gushed. “Groban will be joined by a local choir of 80 Houston high school singers.” Eighty high-schoolers? Someone call Michael Jackson.

Showing their hypocrisy, the league nixed a plan by U2’s Bono to sing a duet with Jennifer Lopez of his new song, “An American Prayer,” which calls attention to the AIDS epidemic in Africa. An NFL spokesman told the New York Daily News that the league didn’t find Bono’s message in keeping with the atmosphere it sought for the Super Bowl. “We simply decided that we were going to deliver, as we do annually, an extremely entertaining halftime show,” the spokesman said. “We don’t believe it’s appropriate to focus on a single issue.” Like honoring dead astronauts is entertaining?

THE COMMERCIALS: Face it, a lot of you tune in simply to watch the ads, which are often more entertaining than the game. CBS is charging $2.25 million for a 30-second slot and has almost sold them all out. There will be spots for cars, beer, colas, fast food, drugs that give you a hard-on, toilet tissue (Charmin’s the “best for your end zone,” one will tout) and other mainstream products. But CBS is taking some heat for ads it is not accepting.

The network is refusing to air a 30-second ad from Moveon.org that bashes President Bush for running up large deficits. And it turned down a pro-vegetarian, anti-meat ad from the animal-rights group PETA.

ON THE FIELD: Between the ads and the nearly five-hour CBS pre-game show, a game will be played. Here is what to look for:

The Patriots are solid seven-point favorites based on having won 14 games in a row, something not accomplished since the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The Panthers are also hot, having won their last six.

Both teams excel on defense. New England led the NFL in fewest points allowed, while Carolina’s defensive line of Mike Rucker, Kris Jenkins, Julius Peppers and Brenston Buckner is considered the game’s best. In the conference championship games, New England defensive back Ty Law and Carolina’s Ricky Manning Jr. each had three interceptions.

Both offenses are efficient but not very spectacular. The Patriots throw the ball better, with QB Brady and a bevy of solid receivers led by Troy Brown, Deion Branch and David Givens. Carolina’s strength is its running game with backs Stephen Davis and DeShaun Foster sharing the load after Davis hurt his leg earlier in the playoffs. The game will come down to which offensive line does its job better.

The Patriots have scored a touchdown on their first possession the past six games, which helps set the tempo for their defense. New England has not trailed at any point in its last seven games. The last time the Pats were behind was in the fourth quarter of their Week 12 game at Houston.

The Panthers have come from behind to win eight games this season, including four in overtime. Brady also knows a bit about overtime, as the Patriots quarterback is 7-0 in such games in his career, an NFL record.

AND THE WINNER WILL BE: New England has not won 14 in a row for nothing, while Carolina looks like the “we’re just glad to be here” type of team. We predict Patriots 23, Panthers 7.