College Football Draws Near. Hut! Hut! Bring it. Please Bring it.
There are a lot of reasons why I am excited about the start of the college football season. Here are some of them. . .
@ Attention will be diverted from the NBA playoffs. Which will overlap the start of college football for the first—and hopefully, the last—time.
Many of my friends can’t believe the NBA continues to march on, defying calendars, logic and failure to call traveling.
ICYMI, the Milwaukee Bucks are just one more ankle sprain away from their first NBA championship since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971.
Kyrie Irving, Brooklyn Nets. Check.
Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks. Check.
Chris Paul, Phoenix Suns. Be afraid for your ankle. Very afraid. Use lots and lots of tape.
@ Attention will be diverted from the NIL revolution. That’s Name, Image and Likeness, the convoluted new thing that college athletics have devised to avoid the real issue: That college football and basketball are professional sports masquerading as amateur sports.
Theories abound that college stars will rake in big dollars by endorsing, approving of and otherwise caring about things they don’t care about to make money. Which is good practice for when they go on to be outrageously well-paid and unabashed professional athletes.
When the stories start appearing that anonymous linemen are jealous and angry that they are making $3 from NIL while the quarterbacks and running backs who depend on them are making $300,000, that will be. . . more interesting. But also a very sad commentary.
@ Attention will be diverted from the Transfer Portal revolution. Unless the Portal doesn’t close. Wouldn’t it be cool if college players could simply move around all season. That way, if Alabama’s running back, or Ohio State’s top receiver, goes down with an injury, the Crimson Tide and the Buckeyes would be free to add Arkansas’ going-nowhere running back or Purdue’s stuck-in-the-mud wideout.
Just add compensation to the Razorbacks and Boilermakers and. . . you’ll have a true professional operation.
@ Attention will be diverted from the World’s Greatest Spectacle and Superspreader: The Tokyo Olympics.
@ Attention will be diverted from the NFL quarterback quandaries:
Will Aaron Rodgers a) play for the Packers, b) become the host of Jeopardy or c) star in Days of Our Packer Lives?
Will Justin Fields be the Real Deal and break the Bears’ quarterback drought, which goes back to the New Deal?
@ Attention will be diverted from the Cubs’ losing streak, which will have reached 108 games by the time college football begins.
At least one question has been answered. The Cubs are selling.
The question of who is buying is not so easily answered.
@ Attention will be focused on. . . whether Jack Coan, after losing the quarterback job at Wisconsin, can find happiness at —drum-roll!—Notre Dame.
@ There will be endless stories about the hot seats of Scott Frost. And Jim Harbaugh. And (insert your college football coaching name here.)
Hurry, college football season. Please hurry up and get here.