Good Morning, College Football! Enough With Conference Realignment, NIL And The Portal - Let The Games Begin At Last
College football season is here at last. So, cooler temperatures of fall can't be far behind, right?
While the forecast is for temperatures over 100 degrees throughout the United States today, it will be in the 60s and 50s in Dublin, Ireland, where No. 13 Notre Dame kicks off the 2023 season against Navy in 51,711-seat Aviva Stadium (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, 7:30 p.m. Dublin time).
A rugby and soccer stadium, Aviva is just four miles from where Mount Temple Comprehensive School, where the genesis of U2 took place in 1976, and just three miles from St. James Gate Brewery, where Guinness was first brewed in 1759.
Guinness, cold weather, U2 and football. What else is there? I felt cooler just writing the sentence at the beginning of this paragraph.
Notre Dame And Navy Kick It Off
Forget the fact that Notre Dame (9-4 last year) is a three-touchdown favorite over Navy (4-8 last year). It's football.
And it's not more conference realignment talk. The earthquake that toppled the Pacific-12 Conference to just four teams was cataclysmic news early this month, yes.
But this Atlantic Coast Conference story line is dead. Do you really care if SMU ends up in the Atlantic Coast Conference? Does anyone outside of Dallas, or better yet, a small part of Dallas really care?
SMU has switched conferences twice since only 2005. It went to Conference USA that year from the Western Athletic Conference, where it lost big from 1996-2004. The Mustangs mostly lost in C-USA as well. It has been in the American Athletic Conference since 2013. SMU has garnered more attention in the realignment craze than it ever does during the season. The same is true for Pac-12 leftovers Stanford, Washington State, California and Oregon State.
Stanford last had a non-COVID winning season in 2018. Washington State has not won more than seven games since the late Mike Leach was coach in 2018. Cal and Oregon State have each had nine losing seasons out of the last 13.
SMU's next league, by the way, will be its fifth since 1995, which was its last in the Southwest Conference. The SWC's last year in football was also 1995. Yes, conference realignment was huge this summer, but it's not new.
So take a breath. College football will survive, no matter how many conferences die a slow death.
And while geography and college football is a cool connection and breeds rivalries, it is not always needed.
No. 6 USC Opens Vs. San Jose State
USC and Notre Dame are 2,093 miles apart, but their rivalry is one of the grandest in all the land. The No. 6 Trojans and Heisman Trophy quarterback Caleb Williams, by the way, open the season against San Jose State tonight (7 p.m., Pac-12 Network). Remember, the Pac-12?
College football is here, so smile, like USC quarterback Caleb Williams. (Getty Images)
And remember, whoever divided the NFL into divisions in the 1970s failed geography. The Dallas Cowboys - you know guys with hats - have played in the NFC East with the New York Giants and Philadelphia since 1970. One of the greatest NFL rivalries was the Cowboys and the Washington Redskins (now Commanders) in the East despite 1,300 miles between them.
Wouldn't it have made sense to put Dallas in the West? Duh. No, the NFL put New Orleans and Atlanta in the NFC West from 1970 through 2001. But New Orleans and San Francisco had the best West rivalry in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
So, calm down about realignment. It can be stupid and greedy, yes. But it is also capitalism. And that's America. And that's football.
So, let's get on with it. And leave realignment to next summer. No one can enter the NCAA Transfer Portal for the time being, too, thank God. Beware of the portal. Don't enter it unless you know you have a suitor. Don't make the same mistake Florida State did. Enjoy the ACC again, Seminoles.
It's time to lock Name, Image & Likeness out of our minds, too.
"Ole Miss is kind of like the Green Bay Packers of college football, especially in the SEC," said Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, who can't stop whining about his school's NIL deficiencies. "Not the biggest town, not the most alumni."
Kiffin is trying to make a comparison between Ole Miss and a small market pro team. He's right, except for one big thing. Green Bay has a history of championships - long ago and recently. Ole Miss doesn't.
At last, it's time for the games.