COLUMN: Gone crazy for college football

Sometimes a man gets preoccupied. Oft times it's a result, or perhaps more a casualty, of his job. Let's say, for instance, this man writes about one sport - NASCAR, for instance.

            Devotion to his job costs a man knowledge of everything else. That's appropriate. Study of what pays the bills must take precedence. Pursuing interests outside the job are for spare time.

            Just because this fellow specializes in NASCAR - just a hypothetical example, of course - it doesn't mean he stopped enjoying other sports. Sometimes he enjoys them more because he misses them.

            Once the curtain comes down on NASCAR, this guy's thoughts turn to football. Maybe he played it, once upon a time, back before facemasks had been fully developed. Just when many people are gleefully anticipating, say, basketball, the guy is hungry for football because he hasn't seen that much of it.

            So he just camps out in front of his television set, though not until after he goes to a game about a half hour away. He flips the channel and discovers all kinds of games available. The difference between Yale-Harvard and Texas Tech-Oklahoma is about as far as a guy can go without leaving the bounds of the sport. He's amazed at just what is out there in the distant outposts of the satellite remote, and he's still getting used to a recent adjustment to high-definition TV and "surround sound."

            Life is good.

            He's no snob, this NASCAR guy. He sort of gets tired of the same old teams. He has this burning desire to watch games like Utah-BYU and Boise State-Nevada, not just games like Ole Miss-LSU and N.C. State-North Carolina. The remote gets warm.

            Some games are diamonds, and some are coal. The Sooners' utter destruction of the Red Raiders is an unwelcome surprise. He cares more for an entertaining game than which team wins.

            The best game was before the weekend, a Wednesday-night tilt matching Ball State and Western Michigan. The quarterbacks in that game are better than any quarterback he sees all week except for OU's Sam Bradford. Nate Davis and Dan LeFevour, respectively. Davis's Cardinals beat LeFevour's Chippewas, but not by much.

            He makes all sorts of interesting observations. For instance, when a progression of people appear on commercials for a bank, they look very different in commercials during Oregon State-Arizona than during Ole Miss-LSU. And the public-service commercials for the various schools? Amazing. Did you know that the University of Oklahoma has more National Merit Scholars in its student body than any other school? What? Do they all play football?

            After Harvard's 10-0 conquest of Yale, the triumphant Crimson players conduct voluminous post-game interviews. The NASCAR guy thinks he'd like to talk with both of them about literature.

            A man's got to be crazy to watch all this football. His specialty is NASCAR. Go figure.

            You can reach Monte Dutton at mdutton@gastongazette.com.