Who is Kidding Whom

There were two bowl games added to the gaggle (or cluster, or clutch, or whatever the term is for a group of football games) this year and one game expired.  That puts the number at 35 games for the postseason.  This number of games has raised the thought that there may now be a team (or maybe more than one) with a losing record heading off to be the "champion" of some holiday frolic.  This became news, of a sort, this past week, when CBS analyst Aaron Taylor announced his concern with the issue, punctuating his comment with the thought that college football may be "periloulsy close to losing the purity and amateurism" that differentiates college football from pro football.

Tee-hee.  Giggle.  Hah.  Ha-ha. Hahahahahahaha...

Go ahead, you can laugh out loud.  We'll laugh together. 

Aaron need not worry about losing the purity and amateurism.  That would be like the U.S. Government worrying about controlling illegal immigration or fighting the war on drugs.  Show's over, gang.  That water has long since spilled over the proverbial dam, on all of those topics.  Having already digressed, I shall return to the topic at hand.

College football isn't the NFL.  That's about as powerful a statement as saying Saturday isn't Sunday.  They're both days of the week, they're adjacent to each other, and they're both filled with football.  Lots and lots of football, in stadia and on TV networks and pay per view and tape delay. 

There's boatloads of money flowing to keep each game, college and pro, putting on each of their respective shows from August until well past New Year's Day.  The NFL has owners, college football has, um, colleges.  It's all about money, and we all know it.  The NFL'ers get paychecks.  The NCAA'ers get meals, equipment, housing stipends and tuition.  That's a little package that is worth somewhere between $20,000 and $60,000 per scholarshipped player per year.  That would be 20 to 60 thousand after tax dollars, so inflate the number by 25 to 40 percent, or for round numbers, let's make the range 25 to 85 grand if this was a taxable earning.  Not bad for kids who haven't graduated college (insert ha-ha here).

There's a lot of amateur football players out there, the walk-ons, the D2 and D3 players who are paying and playing (or whose parents are paying while their kids are playing).  A big salute goes out to those folks, the kids and the parents, too, for playing and paying for the love of the game.  That's not to say that there's anything wrong with what everyone else in college football is doing, 'cause I love it--and so do you, or you wouldn't be here reading. 

Let's just not go overboard with this purity and amateurism thing.  It makes as much sense as... OOPS, almost went back to the political analogy. 

Tee-hee.  Giggle.