Well, maybe "confessions" isn't the right word.  But it's a dark tale nonetheless.  Read it and be warned.

     They say you have to hit bottom before you can start the long climb up.  I'm not sure, but I may have found the depth beneath which I can no longer sink.  Maybe my epiphany came from watching the Kotex Panty Liner Why Should I Really Care Bowl between Mississippi State and UCF, a contest that seemed less a football game than a historical re-enactment of a long-forgotten era.  Namely, the time before the forward pass.

Maybe it was during the cavalcade of futility and blandness as the Indianapolis Fighting Sorgis, playing with nothing at stake, nearly held off the playof####esperate Tennessee Titans.  But at some point in this past few days, I had my moment of clarity and realization: I just love watching football - good football, bad football, day games, night games, Central Freaking Michigan against Purdue.  My name is John, and I am an addict.  And I see no need to rise above that.  In fact, I think I'm proud of it.  So I'm going to wallow in the filth of my sporting complacency and enjoy my debased self. 

 Not quite sure how my face got cropped out of this picture, but I was there, and I remain.  And while I'm here, I think it's about time I see a few changes from the rest of you.

     First, let's just end the charade about bowls versus playoffs in college football.  I know all the dumb arguments for bowls, so save it.  The tradition?  Yeah, so is this, but most of us eventually move on from that to this

and eventually, inevitably, to internet porn.  It's the Circle of Life, dammit.  Grow up and get with the program.  The extra burden on our "scholar-athletes" from the couple of extra games involved in a plus-four or plus-eight playoff?  Sorry, but our nation's universities lost their credibility on that one when they allowed a twelfth game, then an exception for a thirteenth for teams playing the Kickoff Classic.  College football players are today's equivalent of Roman gladiators, unpaid endurers of pain for our entertainment.  A select few may earn their freedom in the form of actual paychecks from the NFL one day, but for the rest this is bloodsport and public spectacle, not higher education.  And the argument that it reduces the urgency and meaning of the regular season?  You seriously cannot find me a less meaningful game than Minnesota/Iowa this November.  Ooh, it made the Hawkeyes bowl eligible!  Oops, lost to Western Michigan the next week.  You also cannot tell me that having a playoff at the end of the season is going to make Ohio State hate Michigan or Auburn despise Alabama one iota less.  If the only way to get in is by winning a conference championship, the urgency is still there, with the added bonus of being able to distill all of the tedious my-conference-is-better-than-yours arguments into a couple of games each year.  End the charade.  Playoff.  Now.  TCU and Houston can still play in some erectile-dysfunction-sponsored bowl, while everyone else can figure out who really is the best team.

     Next topic.  We all talk about steroids.  I'm tired of it.  For crying out loud, does Ed Hochuli

get tested?  Don't tell me you don't see some 'roid rage behind some of those penalty calls.  And you have to admit that there is a certain similarity between the near-aneurysmal, veins-bulging, my-chin-can-break-blocks-of-solid-granite photo in the middle and recent Sylvester Stallone.  If you're going to be one-sided about it, why should I care?  And why should I care about steroids in baseball?  I didn't hear a peep out of any of you "purists" when a solid majority of baseball players took advantage of LASIK surgery to improve their vision and, presumably, their batting averages.  I'm sure that since LASIK only involves natural medicinal herbs and Native American healing dances, it doesn't fall into the same category as steroids, right?  Shut up.  Now.  You make all of us dumber and less rational by harping on one while ignoring the other.

     Next: you nerds holding up signs at games with the televising network's name "cleverly" included in some slogan supporting your team.  Not only was it not that clever the first time it was done, not only does it call attention to your undone fly and general lack of a reason for existence ("but I was on TV, dude!"), but it's just plain past its sell-by date.  My own sign:

                              sign-waving crEtins

                                               
                                                    Slurp

                                               
                                              Sal Paolantonio's

                                               
                                                goNads

     We trudge onward.  Excelsior, or something.  How about instant-replay challenges of an "incorrect" ball spot?  How can you pick one arbitrary play to challenge the accuracy of something that is essentially arbitrary on every single play of the game?  Yeah, I'd still be mad if it was my  team that got shafted on an obvious bad spot, but the pretension to micromeasurement is a bit much to take when the aforementioned Hochuli heaves his massive arms into the air to demonstrate, by an inch of space between his muscled fingertips, the exact distance (correct to the nanometer) required for a first down.

     Kill the commercial.  No, I mean it.  I'm all with $8 Beers and the essential evil/unconstitutionality of the touchdown-extra point-commercial-kickoff-commercial sequence, but I think he stops short of the real solution.  Eliminate all commercials not directly related to halftime or timeouts.  Instead, sell advertising space directly on the players' uniforms like soccer teams do.  Oh, the "purists" will squeal.  The sanctity of the uniform, and all that.  Take one look at the Bengals, or any of the various monstrosities sported by the Oregon Ducks.  Tell me you can take those any lower.  No cheating by drinking a lot to get "uniform beer-goggles."  It's time.  Kill the commercial.  You could even stretch the rules elsewhere to accommodate - for instance, Joe Horn's end-zone cell-phone celebration would be allowable if arranged beforehand with Verizon Wireless as an advertising buy.  That, of course, would require Joe getting back into the end zone, but one thing at a time here.

     Can we get some kind of federal oversight over football commentators as well?  Specifically, I'd like to see some kind of system in place to implement proportional penalties for certain mis-uses of the microphone when talking about football.  To wit:

• Using the word "athlete," "athleticism," or any derivative of the terms to describe a defensive/offensive lineman with more than 3 inches' worth of belly clearing his belt
• Any use of the word "genius"
• Trying to coin your own nickname for a player (I'm looking at you, Merrill Hoge)
• Especially if it's a dumb nickname
• Calling any player "underrated"; if you really want to be interesting, insightful, and bold, tell me who's overrated.  And let us see the film footage when the player comes to discuss it with you later.
• Any use of any microphone by Joe Buck will be considered an offense of the highest nature, under penalty of having his mouth surgically sealed, then being stripped naked and tied to a pole while a crowd of steroid-enhanced five-year-olds play testicle pinata with Wiffle-bats (link shamelessly lifted from $8 Beers).

     OK, I think I'm finished.  I think I've made a lot of progress today in accepting my condition, and I hope the rest of you have gained some insight into how you need to re-order your lives and actions to accommodate it.  If you feel compelled to tell me that I need to change anything related to my addiction, I will give any suggestions you offer all attention due them - roughly the same attention I will give anything my wife says about taking out garbage, shoveling snow, cleaning the house, walking the dogs, or anything else during the Tennessee-Wisconsin game.  Thank you, goodnight, and go Volunteers.

and then I thought better of it.  A few random musings from the addled mind of a football junkie in mid-season heaven:

I can't remember a year in college football when so many teams had a legitimate claim to being the number two team in the country - and when all of those teams had such major flaws.  Meanwhile, for all of the doubts about its strength of schedule, Ohio State keeps playing it low-key:

They're not sexy, exciting, or even mildly entertaining.  But they win.  Week in and week out.  The Michigan game will be an interesting test if the Wolverines can get completely healthy, but I'm not sure I see an upset.

Bill Belichick may be the most hated figure in football  

but Bill Callahan isn't far behind.  It's a good thing Nebraska wears red - the blood doesn't show quite as much that way.  Meanwhile, somehow Charlie Weis holds a get-out-of-jail-free card given by Notre Dame fans who have suddenly discovered patience.

Three minutes o####ood college football game is worth three seasons of baseball.  The NBA exchange rate?  Go away, sir, your money is no good here.

Colts-Patriots didn't tell us anything we didn't already know.  Brady and Moss are really, really good.  Marvin Harrison is a difference-maker.  And these are the two best teams in the NFL.

For all the fawning about the Packers and "Good Brett" Favre, he's really the same guy.  Schizo Brett, I mean.  He's had a lot of gift-wrapped picks dropped, and eventually that luck runs out.  Hopefully in the playoffs against my Saints.

The beautiful sound you're hearing from Los Angeles, Chicago and Philly?

Millions of Eagles, Bears and Trojans fans finally, blessedly, shutting up.  Expect the same in Dallas in February.

Are we seriously considering Hawaii and Boise State as real football teams? When your signature wins are over Idaho and Southern Miss, respectively, it begins to look

a bit like you're getting off easy compared to

what the big boys are dealing with.

Les Miles and Pete Carroll look increasingly like two mediocre coaches bailed out by good talent.  Take it from a Tennessee fan: I know this song by heart. 

AFC superiority ain't what it's cracked up to be.  Season record so far: AFC, 20 wins; NFC, 19.

If Oregon runs the table, I don't know how you can argue that LSU is the more deserving championship-game team.  Memo to Tiger fans: when defense is your calling card,

 makes a stronger case than.

Thank God Boston College lost.  I'm not sure my eardrums could have survived the Boston braying that would have ensued had the Red Sox, Eagles and Patriots all won their respective titles.  Remind me never to take BC seriously.  Ever.

Except when they play Notre Dame.

Just for the sake of having maybe one college football post whose responses aren't all variations on "my conference is better than your conference" (the grownup's equivalent to "my dad can beat up your dad")...

The Most Hate-Filled Rivalries in College Football

5. BYU-Utah.  No, neither is a first-tier program at the moment, but that doesn't make the cauldron of revulsion bubble any less merrily.  This one's got everything: private-school pretty boys vs. ordinary public-university types, Mormons vs. everyone else, and the crushing realization afterwards that even when you win, you still live in Utah.

4. Michigan-Ohio State.  When a good three-fourths of your year is spent in god-awful cold weather, you gotta have something to keep you warm at night.  For these guys, that ruddy glow comes from the inner heat of utmost loathing.  I think the Woody Hayes quote said it best - when asked why, already up 34 points, he went for two after a touchdown against the Wolverines: "because I couldn't go for three."

3. Oklahoma-Texas.  While Texas leads the overall series, it's been pretty much even over the last 60 years, which always makes for a good grudge match.  Texas fans hate Oklahoma because it's damn near blasphemy to suggest that anyone or anything is as good as its equivalent in Texas.  And Oklahoma people hate Texas because, well, hating Texas is just plain common sense.

2. Army-Navy.  You'd think that this would be a good-natured rivalry, given that in the end all of these guys are fighting for the same side.  Yeah, right.  The only reason this one isn't numero uno is that there aren't actual killings at the yearly game (of which I am aware).

1. Auburn-Alabama.  No contest.  Not even close.  It's like two trailer park women staging their yearly scheduled catfight.  Just awe-inspiring hatred.  I think if you told an Auburn fan that Jesus rooted for Bama, he might just offer to bring his own hammer and nails and do the job himself.

So there are my top five - tell me who I've slighted, and why I'm wrong.

I found rationalizations after the Cal game.  A couple of bad breaks.  A group of inexperienced wide receivers.  A game against a national championship contender with a handful of truly remarkable playmakers.  Maybe my boys had just rolled snake-eyes with their scheduling this year.  Maybe they could pull it together.

But then, after a brief interlude against Southern Miss, the men in orange volunteered this:

A game against the hated Gators that was less a defeat than a nationally-televised castration.  With Tim Tebow mincing around like some kind of seizure-afflicted kangaroo after his various scores, and with Urban Meyer continuing to fire bullets into the Vols' lifeless corpse, I began to realize that I had overlooked some truly ominous signs in the opening loss.  Like poor tackling.  Timid play-calling.  Mental mistakes.  These are the hallmarks of a poorly-coached team, and they don't bode well for midseason improvement.

Still, I let myself be fooled.  I saw the Volunteers open up a can on Georgia, thought at the time to represent a pretty decent team.  Maybe there was light at the end of the tunnel.  The team just needed time to jell. 

Oh, but that was before the Crimson Tide decided it was time for the Vols to learn a lesson.

Now don't get me wrong, Alabama is a pretty decent football team.  They may have a quarterback with the name of a serial killer, but Terry Grant looks like the real thing, and DJ Hall will eventually make his Sportscenter highlights on Sunday instead of Saturday.  But man for man, the Tide don't yet really stack up with Tennessee talent-wise.  This was a tough road game, but one that a good team wins.  Well, the bad news is that Tennessee is not that good team you're looking for. 

It was an all-too-familiar litany that led to this defeat.  The running game was a near non-factor, despite the fact that Arian Foster was running effectively when he actually got the ball.  For reasons that elude those of us not receiving signals directly from outer space, he accumulated only 13 carries in a game that was close for quite a while longer than the final score indicates.   Then there was the sharp contrast of coaching ####: Saban opening the game with an onside kick, Fulmer opting out of two different fourth-down chances of less than a yard.  And even when Fat Phil tried to throw a wrinkle in, like the attempted reverse in the third quarter, he was undone by the final hallmark of his team: poor preparation.  Botched handoff, fumble, turnover.  You can excuse being out-executed by another team on occasion.  But to routinely display bad tackling technique, poor special-teams coverage, mistakes of inadequate preparation (like the fumble) and mental errors (the first rule of kick return play is to check against the onside kick) suggests a team with severe coaching deficiencies.  The once-ferocious Large Orange One

is starting to look more like the Great Pumpkin.

Unfortunately, Tennessee has the look of a team that has missed its window.  Florida faded a bit under Ron Zook, but UT was unable to assert itself over Georgia and missed its chance.  Now the Gators have found their feet under Meyer and appear poised to dominate the SEC East again.  That might be borderline tolerable, but South Carolina, Kentucky, and even reliable whipping-boy Vanderbilt show the telltale signs of teams on the rise.  On Rocky Top, on the other hand, the compass needle is wandering elsewhere.  The free-fall hasn't begun yet, but it won't be long at this rate.  Unless we find Phil a barstool next to Charlie Weis in the Overrated/Overstuffed Lounge,  future direction is likely to be nothing but southward.

Is this really what it's come to?  Does college football really have to follow the sordid example set by our politicians?  If we continue on the trajectory of recent years, that appears to be the logical conclusion - that before long, we can expect the Heisman handicapping to start a full two years before the year it is awarded?  I suppose by that point the actual award ceremony will be an afterthought, as we will already have known the current year's winner since before the season started.  I'm just looking at the inevitable endpoint of a process that has people lining up Colt Brennan as the front-runner after his team barely squeaked by one of the bottom-feeders of the NCAA's football bowl division.  I give up - no more purple nurples!

I saw one prognosticator listing Tim Tebow as one of the possible dark-horse candidates.  Tim Tebow!  This is the same guy who has all of two college starts, against...wait for it...Western Kentucky and Troy!  He has put up positively Heismanesque numbers against those two, so it stands to reason that he will have a good chance of the same success against SEC defenses.  Don't underestimate the quality of those two early-season opponents - I hear that throwing against Western Kentucky's clubfooted left cornerback actually presents unique challenges to a quarterback trying to recognize pass coverages.  And the fact that Florida receivers' combined 40-yard times probably fit comfortably under that of Troy's free safety doesn't automatically mean that Tebow has been looking at wide-open guys on every play; on the running plays, pretty much all of the receivers are covered.  Oh, yeah, I mean blocking.

Just to throw out one potential wrench in the gears: what if, against the odds, the deadly Tebow jump-pass loses its magic against Tennessee this weekend in the Swamp?  What if Erik Ainge (who has put up nice, if unspectacular, numbers in his two games) absolutely lights up the Gator defense and the Vols come home with a win?  Unlikely, yes.  But if it happens, then all of a sudden Tebow is dead in the water and a guy who wasn't even in the discussion ten minutes ago is among the contenders.  So just what the hell is the point of even talking about it two games into the season?

The larger question, of course, is why anyone should even care.  The award has deviated so far from its original stated purpose as to be virtually meaningless.  What was once intended to honor the most outstanding collegiate football player has now been narrowed to a more exclusive definition: the most attention-grabbing player on a team that wins all or nearly all of its games.  That means that a player like Mike Hart can forget about it for this year.  Before you complain, Michigan fans, I didn't say that I don't think he's deserving - he plays with guts and emotion, and he seems to be doing about all a player can do to single-handedly keep his team in games.  But if you're going to argue that a team's losses shouldn't disqualify a player from consideration, then go back in time and take away Charles Woodson's statue (Peyton Manning lost almost solely on the basis of a loss to Florida, after an extensive campaign against him by the ESPN guys) - then we can talk.  The Heisman has already gone down the road to darkness; you know that of which I speak, the path that leads to Weinke and Crouch, Ward and Torretta.  Best to let those beyond hope continue on that path, without notice and without pulling down the innocent along with the damned.

I think Philip Fulmer's seat finally has to be getting a bit warm.  He's been riding the goodwill from 1998 for quite some time, and recent seasons have not been as successful as the Tennessee faithful have come to expect.

You could make a lot of arguments about why he should be nervous - difficulties winning the big games, lack of recent SEC championships, the poor overall record against archrival Florida just to name a few.  But the biggest argument for me is just to take a glance at his team.

The game against Cal was by no means a true blowout; take away the first touchdown (as it should have been, since the fumble was caused by as clear an example of spearing as you could find), and it was a one-touchdown game.  Add in the question of whether the dynamics of the game would have been affected by taking that touchdown away (and the possibility of Tennessee actually scoring first), and you have what might really be quite an even contest.  For the most part, the personnel on both sides seemed pretty evenly matched (although with Coker out, Tennessee didn't seem to have any playmakers with quite the electricity that Jackson and Best bring to the table).  But look at how they played, specifically on defense and special teams.  Consistently out of position on ST, consistently missing tackles on defense - is there any more damning indictment of a coaching staff than poor performance of things as fundamental as tackling?

I'm not even touching on the issue of play-calling (also pretty atrocious), which is probably handled more by the offensive coordinator and is also affected by which of his reads Ainge chose to target.  But for me the specific complaint is that the things a head coach can do the most to eliminate - poor fundamentals, dumb penalties and mistakes, poor positioning - are exactly the things that have been consistently wrong at Tennessee for the last few years.  And the decision to kick to Jackson is hard to figure as anything but spectacular hubris or unforgivable cluelessness.

Beating Florida is a salve for any UT coach's woes, and winning the SEC title after an opening hiccup would erase all bad feelings, but I don't see either happening.  Without these gold stars on his report card, I think Fulmer's going to be feeling the heat.  With a couple of pretty tough games in the next two weeks (Southern Miss is a trap game if I ever saw one, sandwiched between a tough loss and a game against the Gators), Fat Phil could be looking at a much tougher situation than just having used up all of his Weight Watchers points for the week.