College Football Is Back, But Is It Any Better?

Tomorrow should be a national holiday, although the real celebrating isn’t likely to start for another few days. Division I football is back, and although it will be presented in it’s FCS form nearly a week before the main events take place, we’re being treated to a good one between North Dakota State and Montana.

And while to some degree it feels like this could be said every year, we really need the season to just start. We need actual whistles and touchdowns and even flags to take us away from what’s felt like one of the more exhausting offseasons in recent memory.

Never in my life have I split my attention between so many different courtrooms and cases. Never have I seen this many rule changes and exemptions. And never have I seen so many debacles and recoveries.

O’Bannon. Northwestern. UAB. Meal restrictions. Cost of Attendance. Medical observers. Practice limitations. That doesn’t even include the usual stuff like arrests, injuries, and a coach getting a little too tipsy in public.



And now, just as we see the light at the end of the tunnel, we have fines to deal with. Never mind that cost of attendance was meant to supplement the previously missing portion of a scholarship’s financial aid so that athletes who can’t otherwise work a normal job go without basic necessities like laundry money and fuel. When something like a COA stipend is brought about mostly as a result of public outcry, how do you think the public will react when you threaten to take portions of it away for things like having a messy locker?

Football season is here, but despite my deepest wishes, none of these trials and tribulations will really go away. Instead they will be buried beneath game recaps and highlight videos. They will be relegated to the ticker scrolling at the bottom of the screen while ESPN pundits yell at each other about which All-American quarterback for Ohio State played better in a blowout against some poor MAC team.

Despite the feeling that all the work put in in these last few months has come to a screeching halt, in reality, there will still be people working behind the scenes to find resolutions to college athletics’ greatest questions. Or at least the latest ones.

This is the time of year where the real work gets done, but it’s also an opportunity to witness the fruits of all that effort. The game really won’t look much different, if at all, but that is the point. The challenges that college football and college athletics in general face are really just battles fought to change lives outside the lines, and keep things the same inside them.

Take heart in the fact that tomorrow, 22 young men will line up on a field and reach for glory one snap at a time. And when the season is over, if we’ve turned this knob correctly and moved that lever just right, those young men will be better for having taken part.

Feature image via AP