Taking Back Our Game: Time for the College Football Fans to Fight Back

While I have been writing all offseason both here at Bleacher Report and at The Sports Chat Place, I guess the start of my College Football Preview is at least another day away as in reality, I didn't even start mine until July last year.

While I know a lot of people out there enjoy College Football as much as I do, I know there isn't even one who enjoys it more.

I know a lot of us can say that.

While the Internet and, dare I say it, cable TV have offered a wealth of information and have given us fans more of an inside perspective than ever before, it's tough to say it hasn't hurt the game as well.

I'm 43 years old, will be 44 when Miami kicks off their game against Clemson. Like most College Football fanatics, the first thing I do when I see my birthday falls on a Saturday is see who my team is playing that day.

In any event, the game has changed, is changing, and may be headed to place which isn't good for the majority and progress is to blame.

When I was kid, we didn't have cable TV.

It wasn't invented yet.

We got three games a week on TV, maybe four and one of those at the very least was on a local station.

While books have been written on the subject, it was also a law that only a certain amount of games could be covered, that is until the Universities of Georgia and Oklahoma challenged it and had the law overturned.

While Many people think this happened an eternity ago, it was 1984...25 years ago.

Until the early 80's, most games were just shown regionally.

ESPN was a newbie and their programming was primarily off sports like Rodeos and College Baseball. The NCAA stated what games were going to be on where and when and all of the money was split evenly.

Georgia and Oklahoma took their cases to the Supreme Court and when the Supreme Court ruled in the school's favor, the face of the game was changed forever.

What we have today is all a result of this Supreme Court decision.

Conferences banding together, forming, and getting bigger is all an attempt to show how marketable they are.

Notre Dame's deal with NBC is a result of this.

Preseason Top 25's in May are a result of this.

Because the public now has choices, lots of them, the marketing of the product never stops. While I go back and forth with all different fan bases year round, the saddest thing I hear is team's fans talk about how they deserve to be in a big bowl game because they put fannies in the seats or because they get great TV ratings.

This is everything that is wrong with the game.

Marketing of the game is becoming more important than the game itself and to make matters worse, the fans are brainwashed into actually believing this is a good thing.

Whatever happened to the best teams being ranked the highest or playing each other in the biggest games?

While we've gotten lucky and have seen some real gems over the past 10 years, we've also had more controversy surrounding the participants in games as well. When we see teams like Clemson going to a New Year's Day Bowl game when they have only beaten five Division One teams in a season, something isn't right.

The argument for it being right, of course, Clemson fans travel and buy tickets. Clemson fans rent hotel rooms and eat local food, this obviously trumps that had Clemson not played two non division one teams, they would have had a losing record.

The stories get worse and worse.

I read today that Florida's superlative DB Janoris Jenkins (who made all of my post season top 10 lists last year) was arrested and tased last night; I am sure the Gator followers have a log jam of excuses and stories already so I'm not even going into it.

Let's put it this way, how many times have you or your friends been tased by police?

Exactly.

Arrested players at Florida is nothing new—that's at least 23 since Urban MMeyer has been the head man. Nick Saban had his troubles at Alabama, but it looks like he's at least cleaned things up. Jim Tressel never seems to know of anything going on at his programs as he had incidents he had no knowledge of at both Youngstown State and Ohio State.

These programs are not alone and neither is the message: Win at all costs.

Notre Dame doesn't buy into the win at all costs and has one of the highest graduation rates in the country.

They don't win much either...they don't have to.

In a day and age when TV ratings and putting fannies in the seats are more important than winning, Notre Dame has beaten the system.

Congrats, at least you guys do it with players who can read and write, and who can't respect that?

While many other schools complain about all of the special treatment the Irish get, "what are they supposed to do, turn it down?".

Funny that I have read this recently, because there was a time during the Lou Holtz era where if the Irish weren't going to a New Years Day Bowl, they turned it down.

If you don't believe me just look it up or ask any of the eight zillion ND fans out there, or the few hundred or so of them that actually know a lot about football.

While I read all of the preseason previews, I don't watch any pregame shows. What I find is they are nothing more than hour (or more) long promos for the action slated for that particular network.

Unfortunately, who has the better TV contracts also gets the most hype.

While the TV networks now need to shell out billions of dollars to the conferences to have rights to their games, it is in their best interest for their investment to pay off.

While we fans, journalists, or whatever we claim to be or are talk all about being objective, professional, and the like, the people who primarily bring us our product are nothing of the kind.

We heard ESPN tell us year after year how the BCS wasn't working, now that they have the rights, amazingly I think we'll be hearing a lot more about how the "BCS got it right this year."

And while ESPN also paid up big time for the rights to SEC football, we can be certain there will be a few more Gameday trips to SEC country in the future.

The game has become less about who has done the most on the field and who can get the best TV ratings, at least from the casual fans. When we hear fans talk about ticket sales, we know we are losing the battle.

When we see fans argue about rankings before a game has even been played, you know we are losing.

When people use phrases like "because ESPN said so" as a justification in a disagreement, we are losing.

When Notre Dame gets waxed in a BCS game, we are losing.

When an arrested player for a felony returns to the field, we are no longer just losing, we are losers and have lost sight of what is important today.

It will be interesting to see where our game goes.

While I know some think using the words "us" or "we" when talking about teams we are a fan of is wrong, I think they simply don't get it.

We are the ones footing the bill.

We are the ones supporting the teams long after the current players are gone.

We are the future of the game and we have the numbers to shape the future.

It's time to take back our game.