One final late night for college football

OK. The college football season is over, and I'll have to go into withdrawal for the next eight months. Last night's BCS championship was a good game, in doubt until the last few minutes and with plenty of spectacular plays. It was a game I stayed up to watch (why TV's dictatorial influence puts these games on until midnight on a Thursday night is another issue), and I wasn't disappointed.

Neither team was my choice for the championship, and I have an abiding distaste for both head coaches, but since someone had to win, I relished seeing Mack Brown lose more than seeing Nick Saban win. Roll Tide! (Too bad Auburn didn't succeed in knocking you off and Nebraska failed by one second knocking Texas off.) If I had a vote in the final polls, it would go to undefeated Boise State, the team that still gets no respect, despite one of the winningest records in college football over the past three or four years.

I've watched a lot of bowl games over the past couple of weeks, and I'm the first to admit there are too many of these games over too long a stretch of time and at kickoff times that make no sense to anyone but television executives. Most of the bowls are nothing but profit-making transactions for the teams and host cities and excuses for partying by fans (thus, Memphis was an ideal bowl city for ECU, with its party school reputation). I watched these games not because they were meaningful or because I wanted to see how area teams stacked up against other opponents (though I did), but because college football is a terrific spectator sport that is ideally suited to television. Instant replay and multiple camera locations have turned watching football on TV into a viewer-friendly fascination. The team loyalties and passions of college football make it the most exciting of major sports. I still watch NFL games occasionally, but the loyalties and passions are not the same when grown men are playing for million of dollars per game.

There's much wrong with college football (and college sports in general) — the overwhelming control of television, the monstrous budgets, the non-playoff, non-decisive BCS bowl system, the odiously extravagant coaches' salaries (Mack Brown — $5 million a year, plus bonuses; Nick Saban — $3.5 million or something like that) — but it achieves its purpose of being grand entertainment.

I'll miss it over the next eight months.