Whither football? Who knows?

It may be July, but college football, while maybe not right around the corner, is certainly approaching the neighborhood.

I watched some of the SEC media days and started getting ready, mentally, for my yearly Saturday marathons, not only of SEC games, but any games that I find interesting. And there are also games here and there on other days.

I began to get that old feeling, telling myself that if I can just make it through the rest of July and then August, I’ll be in football heaven again.

But wait. Seemingly, all is not lollipops and roses in College Football Land.

Along with the talk about this team or that team and their chances, or who’s going to play quarterback for another team, and whether that freshman tight end will make an early impact, there has been other talk. Some of it has been on the gloomy and doomy side. Apparently there are some folks who believe there are things out there which can, and maybe even will, destroy college football.

One of these “destructors,” a term that’s not often heard by me, but which Sigourney Weaver sexily used in “Ghostbusters,” is a creature called Conference Realignment. Seems that the strongest conferences, like huge black holes, are trying to suck up all the football universe. Teams are leaving one conference to join another. Some teams that have long been independent are said to be considering joining a conference.

This is considered a potential calamity in some circles. They predict a time when there will be only two or three, gigantic conferences, with a few, non-elite, left-over orphans floating around with no home.

Will that happen? Or even if it does, will I still get to sit in my recliner and watch college football? Will there still be an Iron Bowl? An Egg Bowl? Will Ohio State and Michigan still hate each other? That’s just naming a few.

Anyway, who knows? The only way we’ll ever find out is by seeing what happens, when it happens. I doubt there’s anything that anyone can do to stop it.

The second “destructor (ah, Sigourney!)” is this idea of allowing a college athlete to make money off his or her name, image or likeness, also known as NIL. There are those who say it will bring greed into the game and spoil its purity.

Well, folks, I love college football, but I’ve never particularly thought it was free of greed, and as for purity – well, there have been enough scandals to make one close one eye when talking about that word.

Will young athletes continue to dream of playing at a particular university, or will they simply go play at schools where they get the best deal? I don’t know the answer to that.

I do know that looking for the best deal is already, exactly, what coaches do, and with little regard for the players they have recruited and who many times have come to a particular school because of the coach. But often it’s “Bye-bye and thanks for being my stepping stone and falling for all the rah-rah I filled you with to get you to come here.” Coaches at the biggest football schools rake in millions, and except for a few who can’t get any higher, will leave for a “better opportunity” in a New York minute. Loyalty? What’s that?

So now the top players stand to make some good money. I feel kinda sorry for the poor ol’ fourth-stringers, though.

What will it mean? Will I still be able to watch college football, or will all pretense be taken away, as college football becomes the minor leagues for the NFL? Will it become so like the NFL that I won’t enjoy it any more?

Only time will tell, and like I said about Conference Realignment, there’s not anything that anyone can do to stop it. Will it be gloom, doom, or boom? For better or worse, the NIL/Realignment Train is barreling down the tracks. The next couple of years will tell.

•••••

I got my most recent issue of “Smithsonian” and saw, as I often do with that magazine, something I had never seen before (that’s one of the reasons I like it).

It was a photo of an animal called a dwarf lemur. I learned two things about it. First, not many of them have been seen. Second, they are too doggone cute to be allowed. Who told them they could be that cute?

Seriously, I’m about to decide that cute critters outnumber the ugly ones on this planet. Sometimes I think we’re the ugliest. Yep, us. The ones with the big brains.

•••••

I’ve always pictured – rightly or wrongly – England as being a bit on the chilly and rainy side. But they’re having a recordbreaking heat wave over there. I’m not about to rub it in. I feel a good bit of sympathy for them. At least I live someplace where heat waves are expected occasionally.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: David Nichol is a freelance writer who retired from the Times-Herald. He can be contacted at nicholdb@cablelynx.com.)