Let’s be brutally honest, America: the NCAA’s recent recommendation to bump up the college football season by a measly week is an insult to the very essence of the sport. A week? Pathetic. This isn’t a step forward; it’s a hesitant shuffle that completely misses the point. Football, my friends, is not a seasonal sport. It never has been. It is, and always should be, a continuous, year-round, perpetual motion machine of athletic prowess and strategic genius.
Some of you, the faint of heart and the logically challenged, might be scratching your heads. “But Chad,” you’ll whine, “what about the 'off-season'?” Let me disabuse you of this childish notion immediately. The 'off-season' is a myth, a fabrication concocted by those who lack the visceral understanding of what it means to live and breathe pigskin. What do these magnificent gladiators do when they’re not playing official games? They train. They lift. They practice. They strategize. They recruit. They eat, sleep, and dream football. To call this an 'off-season' is like calling a shark’s nap an 'off-feeding-frenzy.' It’s still part of the cycle, merely a different phase of its primal existence.
Consider the sheer economic and emotional investment! Are we to believe that the hundreds of millions poured into athletic programs, the twenty-four-hour news cycle devoted to recruiting updates and transfer portal drama, the countless hours spent by dedicated coaches and analysts, simply evaporate into thin air when the calendar flips to December? Preposterous! Fan engagement doesn’t wane; it merely shifts focus. We’re discussing draft prospects in January, spring practices in March, and recruiting classes in July. The engines of the sport are perpetually humming.
The idea that players need a 'break' is equally preposterous. These aren’t delicate porcelain dolls; they are elite athletes, honed instruments of gridiron destruction. Their bodies are temples of muscle and resilience. Furthermore, the notion of 'burnout' is anathema to the champion’s spirit. True champions don't burn out; they ignite! They crave the competition, the physicality, the roar of the crowd. To deny them this year-round is not protection; it's deprivation.
So, my message to the NCAA is clear: Stop dabbling with trivial 'earlier starts.' Be bold. Be visionary. Acknowledge the truth that every true fan already knows: the football season never truly ends. It merely morphs. It’s time to abolish the 'off-season' altogether and declare college football for what it is—a glorious, uninterrupted, 365-day spectacle. The only 'earlier start' we need is the realization that we should have been playing all along.
