Taco Bell, the famous fast food chain (or infamous, depending on whether you like your “meat mixture” to be made with lots of stuff other than meat) is super-popular with the campus crowd. In fact, at least one marketing company has helped exploit the college student/Taco Bell connection for nearly 20 years. But the recent move by Taco Bell to offer its debatably-delicious food-guts inside a Doritos nacho cheese dust–covered shell has the company expecting that college students and other night-owls will descend on their new Locos Tacos like a swarm of seven-year locusts.

The company is so sure that their new Frankensteinian creation will be the iPad of fast food that they’ve created a reserve of 85 million Doritos taco shells to handle the expected onslaught. And they’re probably wise to do so. Because you’ll probably try one.

But how long will that reserve last? Well, if you consider American college students alone, there were more than 20 million students enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities in 2010. That means about four tacos for each student when Taco Bell’s version of opening day hits nationwide on March 8, assuming the factories that produce the shells stop at 85 million. But Taco Bell is a global company, and it goes through about 2 billion tacos a year worldwide. If we do the math and carry the one, the Doritos taco shell reserve comes out to about 4 percent of their annual taco business. If we were Taco Bell, we’d consider making more Doritos shells, stat.

And, if rumors are right, that’s precisely what the company is doing. Only instead of nacho cheese–flavored shells, the company is partnering with the popular chip maker to produce taco shells of the cool ranch variety. In fact, the shells have already been developed, tested, and will be released soon after the nacho cheese version.

If you’re planning on using the Doritos shell release to up your Taco Bell intake, you might want to start hitting the campus gym. After all, after a few of these bad boys, running for the boarder shouldn’t be the only exercise you get.