College Football is dominating the sport scene this fall like it never has before.

Is it because there has been a kind of playoff system put in that will pit the so-called best four teams in a two game semi-final leading to a definitive final National Championship game?

Did anyone think about how the 5th best or the supposed 5th best will be left out just like any other scenario college football has tried to bring forth?  If they did, they made a pact not to talk about it.  This is the year of the unexpected.  There will be a team left on the outside looking in come playoff time and we’ll find a reason to complain about this system just like we did the BCS and the Bowls of old.

I am still dumbfounded that the Ole Miss Rebels and the Miss. State Bulldogs are tied at #3 in the land in the Associated Press Poll.  Do you know how long Mississippi fans waited for this time…can you say forever?

I personally liked the old bowl system we had for eons that led to National Champions voted on by the Associated Press and the United Press International…the AP and UPI Polls.

I still want to see the SEC winner in the Sugar Bowl.  I still want the PAC 12 (10) Champ playing the Big 10 (14) Champ in the Rose Bowl.  I want to see the Big 12 (8) Champ playing in the Orange Bowl.  I want to see the Southwest Conference Champ playing in the Cotton Bowl.  Uh, never-mind…the SWC got absorbed into other conferences years ago.  So much for wishful thinking.

I guess I just miss watching Notre Dame playing Houston in the Cotton Bowl as they were led by Joe Montana.  I miss knowing that it was probably going to be either USC or UCLA playing Ohio State or Michigan in the Rose Bowl.  I miss watching Oklahoma run the triple-option in the Orange Bowl.

Listen to me….I miss this and I miss that.  I sound like some old fart on a park bench.

How can I say this after seeing the best weekend of college football we have seen in maybe forever.  I hear there is still research going on trying to find out if there has ever been a College Football Saturday in which Alabama, Nebraska, Michigan, USC, and some other school all lost on the same weekend.

I guess I am pitiful.

No…I am not.

Baseball is pitiful these days.

I remember when Major League Baseball playoffs were the talk of the land.  We all watched them.  I suppose we all watched them because we didn’t have 40 football games playing on TV  the same Saturday the baseball playoffs were on.

What is the problem?

Baseball takes an actual attention span.  That is the problem.  I see folks looking at phones and mashing buttons and expecting to get the answer here and now and faster than they got it yesterday.

Baseball doesn’t work that way.  It is a slow and meticulous game.  It still is, thank God.  It is a game of subtle nuance, as strategy is played out on every pitch.  It is still a great game…even though it is no longer America’s Pastime.  It is more of America’s past.

Pro Football?  I have never cared less about an NFL season than the one that is going on right now.  The league stinks.  Too many off the field problems.  Too much whooey.  Teams are building leads and getting beat in the last second.  It looks like the USWA Wrestling I grew up watching.  Just when you thought a guy was gonna win, here comes someone off the top rope!  If Eli or Peyton aren’t playing, I might not watch.  I am more inclined to exercising in the basement as I watch Hill Street Blues on DVD.

What I miss are those October nights when my Dad and I were watching playoff baseball and my Dad was telling me what pitch he thought was coming next.  He was always partial to the curve.  Here’s to you George Brett…Reggie Jackson…and all the members of the Big Red Machine.  Oh, and Steve Garvey.  And Jack Morris.  And Jack Buck.  And…

Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson