2018 College football season ends

Monday night's national championship game marked the official end of the 2018 college football season. It's over, and, as with every other ending like this one, I am a bit saddened. I can't help it. I love college football. More than any other sport, collegiate or professional, college football is spectacular, filled with surprises, and exciting. It is surrounded by the perfection of an autumn day with glistening skies, beautiful cheerleaders, fanatical followers, student bodies that are caught up in the rapture of the perfect afternoon and the knowledge that you will never be this young or this excited again.

I'm not a season ticket holder. I seldom attend games at my alma mater, relying on the generosity of people who have an extra ticket or two. I watch the games on television, which, thanks to multiple cameras and the astounding detail of modern televisions, gives better views of the games than the most expensive game ticket. Television also allows you to see plays again and again. Astute fans might save time by waiting until there's a lot of cheering, and then looking at the replay showing what all the cheering is about. Smartphone Apps will replay videos of the big plays for the next 24 hours.

Monday's game testifies to the excitement and entertainment college football provides. One Clemson wide receiver caught two passe with just one hand. Twice, he managed to collect the well-thrown ball in one hand and pull it into his body while a defensive back slapped at the ball and his arms. Running backs tore through defensive lines populated by giants. At one point, the Clemson kicker "donked" the football off the goal post upright on a field goal attempt, providing the unexpected element most games have. This "donk" ended up not mattering in the long run, but a "double donk" by the NFL Chicago Bears field goal kicker Sunday afternoon eliminated the surging Bears from the NFL playoffs. You never know which play is going to bring a surprise or a spectacular play.

Football is a far more complicated and safer sport than it was when I played football in high school and diligently followed NFL games each Sunday in my twenties. It remains a violent sport, but better equipment and rule changes designed to protect the players have made it better, not worse.

Even with the changes, though, players know their bodies and especially their brains can be damaged beyond repair in today's game. The danger of dementia caused by repeated hits to the head by very large men has caused many young men and parents to decide football is just too hazardous.

Big-time football (like that played by Clemson and Alabama and other elite schools) is sometimes seen as an extension of the universities the teams represent, to the consternation of critics who say the millions of dollars paid annually to coaches and the multi-millions colleges invest in football scholarships, practice facilities and stadiums could be better invested in academic pursuits.

Health concerns or academic critics could one day put an end to college football's dominance, but until then, I will watch with amazement what top college athletes are able to do and how much excitement a football game can generate, even if you're not there in person. My television will get far less use until the next fall when the blue skies, cool breezes, cheering fans and anticipation announce the return of college football.

So many bowl games (that's not a complaint)

My wife is complaining that I've been watching football every day lately. I'll admit, I've watched so many bowl games that they have all begun to run together. Not only did I watch the one I was actually interested in, the one involving my alma mater, I watched others as well, those involving teams I had not followed through the season and, in many cases, I had not seen play a game all year.

I'm a casual fan, not a fanatic. I don't watch game after game every weekend. I almost never watch Sports Center. I'm even less interested in navel-gazing about sports than I am interested in navel-gazing about politics.

But there are so many bowl games, and so many of them are good games involving excellent teams. Boise State's game (forgive me for not remembering whom they were playing or what was the name of the bowl) was a case in point. Boise has had an innovative and powerful offense. And I had some interest in Notre Dame's bowl game against Hawaii; I was interested in seeing whether Notre Dame would lose yet another bowl game. Last night's game, Alabama vs. Utah in the Sugar Bowl, promised to be a blowout. Alabama had been ranked No. 1 for most of the season. Utah, I thought, would stand little chance. But I turned on the TV soon enough to see Utah score three touchdowns in the first half of the first quarter! I couldn't stay up to see the end of the game, to see whether Alabama's comeback would be successful, but I watched long enough to see some extraordinary football performances. When I got up this morning, I went to the computer to check the score and see that Utah had held on, convincingly, making Utah the only Division I team with a perfect record and, thereby, giving the Utes a claim to a national championship.

The problem is, there is no real national championship for Division I (or Bowl Championship Series) teams. Florida and Oklahoma will play in the National Championship bowl, but disputes will linger, no matter how the game comes out. Both teams have lost games, giving their conquerors a claim to a national championship as well. The only solution is a true playoff system for Division I teams. Commentators on one of the bowl games I watched (forgive me, they all run together) had a good proposal: Play the four big, traditional bowls (Rose, Sugar, Cotton and Orange) on New Year's Day. Then take the two highest-ranked, most convincing victors in those games and pit them against each other a week later in a national championship game. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than the current, much-criticized methodology.

But my wife won't like it. It will still mean a lot of good games on the TV, and I'll find a large number of them interesting enough to watch, at least for a while.