Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. This isn’t the first time I’ve watched 25 football games in one month – and it probably won’t be the last.
What a waste of time, watching football. Entertaining – but a waste, just the same.

I’m reminded of my son’s first dove hunt when he was about 14. Russ got permission to shoot doves on a neighbor’s farm and set up near an old barn. The doves were flying pretty good, and he managed to bag four or five. As the boy was walking home, a local farmer stopped to ask what he was doing.

“Hunting doves,” Russ said.

The farmer looked at Russ’s shotgun and his little bag of two-ounce birds, and said, “What a waste of time.” Most entertainment is a waste of time, I guess, but watching football is probably the worst.

Many readers will recall the days when we had some bowl games on New Year’s Day and that was about it. We didn’t have a Poinsettia Bowl, Music City Bowl, Capital One Bowl, et cetera. Everybody just sat around on New Year’s Day, eating and griping about the referees.

When the games were over, we all shouted, “Just wait ‘til next year!” and went home.

That way we wasted one whole day, but we didn’t waste three weeks. The day after New Year’s, the National Champion was decided by a poll of sports writers and coaches. Those were the days when the most important poll was after the bowls instead of before.

Now, the National Champion is determined by the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). This involves polling sports writers and coaches and studying win-loss records, strength of schedule, computer rankings, bonus points and a large Ouija board.

The BCS filters everything down to one big game. Number One plays Number Two, and we have a “True National Champion.”
Is this any better than the old system? Of course not. Any two of the top 10 teams could beat each other on a given day.

All of this BCS hoopla just takes some of the fun out of the other bowls.

The big game this year is Ohio State versus LSU. I wrote this before the game, so I don’t know who won. Whatever happens, one of those two teams will be National Champion.

If the score winds up 3-2, the team with 3 will be the National Champion. They could fall down coming out of the tunnel, run over the cheerleaders and spill the Gatorade, but the team that wins this game will be the National Champion.

The game could be uglier than Georgia’s mascot, but that doesn’t matter.

Does this mean major college football should have a play-off system? Heavens, no! That’s just five more weeks of football. And a bigger waste of time.

Readers with questions or comments for Roger Pond may write to him in care of this publication.