Changes are found amid the tradition
Return of college football welcome, but not all is as it once was
There’s nothing quite like the start of the college football season, especially for those of us who treasure its traditions.
The tailgating, the bands and the pregame procession of players marching to the stadium. The rivalries that feature silly trophies of an ax or a top hat. Students singing along to classics such as “Jump Around” and “Enter Sandman.” Uniforms promoting the team’s colors and logos. ESPN’s Lee Corso donning a mascot’s head on “College GameDay.”
I even enjoy those incessant Dr. Pepper commercials from the fictional “Fansville,” where college football is a way of life and everyone loves sugary soft drinks.
It’s all good stuff, at least until January when the same four or five schools compete for the national championship.
This season actually began
last week when Illinois won the opener of the Bret Bielema era in what was referred to as “Week 0.” But because most teams started playing this weekend, we’re supposed to pretend this is the real start of the season, when Heisman candidates rise and fall and the long slog to conference title games gets underway.
The sport we love for its sameness currently is undergoing a massive amount of change, most of it having to do with the pursuit of even more money.
Some of it will take getting used to, particularly the conference realignment that started with Texas and Oklahoma announcing plans to ditch the Big 12 for the SEC, the Google of college football as the most powerful of the Power Five conferences. That bold move led to an unlikely alliance between the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 so those three can, well, we’re still not sure what they intend to do.
“No poaching” probably is the unwritten rule guiding their