NCAA football

For millions of Americans, September not only marks the beginning of fall, it marks the beginning of college football season. The fans pack enormous stadiums, watch on TV by the tens of millions, cheer for their favorite teams and boo their traditional rivals. There are very few fans supporting both Ohio State and Michigan, and neither is supporting Notre Dame. It’s the great American sport.  And it is in deep trouble.  The problem stems from the usual suspects: a few far-reaching court decisions affecting the players, the comatose response of the sport’s ruling body, the NCAA, and the looming threat of government action if private actors can’t solve the problem themselves. So far, those private actors have failed.

Sports media can’t stop complaining about Louisiana State University’s new head football coach, Lane Kiffin. A cliché tells us what’s really going on here: they hate him cause they ain’t him.   Kiffin spent the last five years resurrecting Ole Miss’s once-mediocre football program. The Rebels are currently 11-1, ranked sixth in the AP poll and have almost certainly secured a playoff spot. But that didn’t stop Kiffin this morning from getting on a plane bound for the swampy fields of Baton Rouge, home of the most attractive coaching vacancy in a year filled with big openings.“After a lot of prayer and time spent with family, I made the difficult decision to accept the head coaching position at LSU,” Kiffin said in a statement.