Figuring out all the changes coming our way in college football this season

These are the times that try an old grad’s tolerance, what with his old school’s alliance with bandits and burglars, not to mention why his Buckeyes are playing Oregon’s Ducks in what could be the biggest game of the college football season.

I take that last notion on advice from others more patient than myself who have delved into the brave new world of conference realignment, transfer portals and, most disturbingly, something called NIL, which allows student/athletes to profit from wearing their school colors.

Because of NIL (name, image, likeness) millionaires are created for taking money that would have made them ineligible and put their schools on probation a few years ago.

The idea that college athletes should be allowed to profit from their image or their likeness (same thing?) must be fraught with risk never mind the unfairness to poor full-tuition paying schlubs who cheer them from the stands.

The example of Caitlin Clark, the basketball wonder, getting paid while in school can be applauded since she seems to have rejuvenated an entire sport. Other examples are less so.

A couple of illustrations of wealth in the millions would be the second string quarterback at Texas named Arch Manning and the Colorado quarterback named Shedeur Sanders, names made familiar by other family members, their likenesses and images entirely coincidental.

I am assuming they still must pass English in order to remain eligible but that has never been a deal breaker at the more enlightened institutions.

Recalling the words of the Oklahoma educator who vowed to build a university his football team could be proud of, cynicism has been replaced by certainty.

This is where we are now, challenged not only to sort out the geographical chaos of college conferences but left to wonder how Duke’s quarterback is now starting for Notre Dame, or how Washington State’s quarterback got all the way to Miami.

This is the transfer portal, the grass is greener provision which allows players to go to another school for reasons that need not be explained.

The biggest challenge of college football for the rest of us is to pay attention, there being little reason to care until it has sorted itself into the Divine Dozen, a name that is not likely to catch on but is numerically accurate.

For reasons rooted in greed and ego college football has decided to abandon tradition and geography to become something unfamiliar, certainly something far from the reason colleges exist in the first place.

So that is why we now find Stanford and Wake Forest sharing showers and why the Big Ten has 18 teams and the Pac-12 only two.

Oh, there will still be traditional big games, I guess, the Iron Bowl in Alabama, Army vs. Navy, Harvard-Yale, those sorts, but they are diversions for the few while college football itself courts strangers. There are more of them and that is where the money is.

The attempts to find a national college champion have fumbled along for generations, a harmless amusement, there being no great complaint even when we sports writers had the vote.

The occasional Colorado or Brigham Young might get a pat on the helmet but usually we got it right and guessing allowed room for disagreement, the bartender’s friend.

When assorted alliances and coalitions attempted to organize a more orderly finish, the results were no more pleasing than before. Something called the Bowl Championship Series stepped in, but it gave way to a College Football Playoff, which is where we are now.

Except … instead of four contenders at the end of what is becoming an aimless regular season, there will be 12 teams, the aforementioned Divine Dozen.

How is it going to work? If only I knew. Byes and brackets and a whole other season are concocted just like in basketball, the long standing example of stretching college seasons for money.

According to the CFP, and I quote, “The 12 participating teams will be the five conference champions ranked highest by the CFP selection committee.

“The four highest ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four and will receive first round byes.”

Huh? Still guessing, I guess. You take reassurance where you can.