Lamenting the death of meaningful college football traditions

Watching Penn State host Michigan on a chilly day in State College, an even chillier day in Harrison. State struggling but hanging in there. This makes me think of how in the 1960's, college football had a magical, sentimental element that enraptured me. In many respects, college football is what define "college" for me; a college experience only be as educational, effective and important as the college's football team. That was well before multi-million dollar salaries for coaches and NIL deals for high school seniors, when there were no playoffs, just a handful of prestigious, meaningful bowl games, when people argued over rankings and, especially, the number one team in the country, when Penn State was an independent and the monster of the East, consistently winning the now long-forgotten Lambert trophy.

I probably saw my first Penn State game on television around 1960. Through the 1960's, Ed regularly had tickets and we'd make the drive to State for the game, sometimes down and back on the same Saturday with a 1:00 or noon kickoff, preceded by a dawn departure from Eden for the four-hour drive. I attended a few home games while I was there as a doctoral student, 1975-1978 and attended a few games at Beaver Stadium with dad in later years, as well as away games in Nebraska and Missouri with alums.

I have very positive memories of what I call traditional college football, with Penn State coached by a one-time traditional icon of the game, Joe Paterno. I will reserve my misgivings over the end of his career; suffice it to say that if the grad student who started the entire chain of "who saw what" saw something suspect, he should have gone to the police, not to the head coach. This echoes my disdain with campus policies today where the organization and its leadership is held responsible for the secretive, illegal actions of an individual. The system is designed to encourage lawsuits, to locate deep pockets, and to serve lawyers, activists and politicians, and not the victims.

Today, I am much more casual in my interest in college football. Were I "in charge," I'd want to make a lot of changes, primarily in the packaging, marketing and scheduling of college football, with some specifics offered here:

• The regular season would begin after Labor Day and end with the final Saturday in November (along with no college basketball games until December). Ten games, maybe eleven. Schools could elect to play eight or nine games.

• No overtimes, period. A tie is a tie. Silly overtime rules ruin the game.

• Penn State would be an independent and the 'old' leagues would return as they were in the 1960's: ten teams in the Big Ten, 12 in the Big Twelve, eight in the Pac-8, and the original SEC and SWC teams.

• Eight bowl games, the last four on New Year's Day, and no playoffs.

• National champion decided by a one-time vote of the Division I coaches after the last bowl games, about January 2; no vote by the coaches until that time.

Today there is too much money involved, too much pressure on and hypocrisy about "student" athletes, too many conflicts between academics and athletics, too much travel, too many transfers, redshirts and freshmen players. The concept of paying football players, letting them sell their media rights, or allowing players to form a union strikes me as strikingly absurd from the start. How can a player own his media rights based on his membership on a team without the team/school having some of those media rights? How can you reconcile generous scholarships with salaries for football players? Should either be fully taxed? Do only revenue sports athletes merit salaries?

Meanwhile, Penn State just converted a two-point PAT to tie Michigan, 14-14, late in the fourth quarter. Please not another nine overtimes to determine the final outcome!

Of course this is fuddy duddy, curmudgeonly, old man grossing in the late autumn of his life. That's my choice and that's what I believe.