College football (mostly) moves out of the courtroom and onto the field

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And on the third day of the ninth month in the year 2026 of our Savant and Savior Curt Cignetti, the college football gods mercifully said, “Let there be footbal.”

Goodbye injunctions and hello interceptions. Out with TROs and in with RPOs. Take a hike, local judges and make room for the line judges.

An exhausting, head-spinning and often downright silly offseason is officially over after college football really kicked off on Thursday (after the always bizarre Week 0 last weekend). The machinations of the long break were replaced with the one thing that no one – despite serious efforts – can screw up: the football. It is undefeated, a reliable constant that rarely fails to deliver. It is a beautifully unscripted four-act drama that plays out over and over and draws us back to the tailgate grill like shot-gunning, beer-starved lemmings.

Last season, Bill Belichick was terrible and Vanderbilt was good. Lane Kiffin ’s chaotic departure from Ole Miss gave way to an epic playoff quarterfinal showdown between the team he jilted and Georgia. The upheaval of NIL overload had no chance against the exuberance of Fernando Mendoza. Indiana, winners of nothing, shellacked Alabama, winners of everything. And at the end of it all, a euphoric fan base, tipsy with its sudden reversal of fortune, belted out a 1976 Abba song in South Florida.

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And now here we are, a blank slate in front of us, with all of the promise it brings. No one is more optimistic than a fan of a yet-to-be-defeated, 0-0 team firing up the grill for the first time in months. It’s part of our very American psyche, this eternal hope of college football. Nowhere in the world do nonprofessionals (strictly speaking) merit the attention that the college football player here does.

Freddy, the delightful World Cup fan from Germany who found his way to the US, was so wowed by the largesse of the college football stadiums and towns he visited on side trips, he’s now mapped out a fall football Saturday tour.

If you think about it, it makes no sense.

Eight of the top 10 largest stadiums in the world sit on college campuses, but college teams are far more regionalized than NFL squads. They draw from fervent alumni bases and students, compared with the endless suburban sprawl of a pro franchise. There are, for example, 800,000 living Penn State alumni and 1.5 million people living in Philly. With the addition of new west side stands that sit one step below the sun, Beaver Stadium now holds 109,000 compared to just 67,000 at the Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field.

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The draw is, in part, the hoopla and traditions. It’s screaming “Go to hell, LSU,” at the end of the national anthem at Ole Miss games, long before Kiffin arrived, and changing the words to “Dixieland Delight” in Tuscaloosa. It’s Virginia Tech’s “Enter Sandman” and Wisconsin’s “Jump Around.” It’s the marching bands and the tailgating and the chance to be 20 again.

Where else, after all, but at one’s alma mater can a 40-year-old do a keg stand to rousing applause?

And despite the alleged game protectors’ attempts to destroy it by shattering geographic boundaries, canceling rivalries, ignoring warning signs and generally existing as ostriches crossed with peacocks, the conference commissioners and college presidents and TV execs can’t kill the feeling college football conjures.

What’s interesting, though, is that the disruptors might be killing their own shot at their very own golden goose. Chaos fatigue isn’t the only side dish being served with the recent rash of court orders; chaos consequences appear to be on a platter as well.

The Big Ten has won the last three national titles via three different teams (Indiana, Michigan and Ohio State). This year two of its schools, Ohio State and Oregon, debut atop the polls, with defending champion Indiana clocking in at No. 6.

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Certainly, that’s a flex of the league’s pocketbook. Backed by its media-rights deal that helped generate some $1.47 billion in revenues last year, rich donors and coast-to-coast conference spread, the Big Ten is swimming in it. But if money alone could buy you a national title, wouldn’t Texas have a few more by now?

No, along with more money, what the Big Ten seemingly has going for it is less mayhem (the regular occurrences in Ann Arbor notwithstanding). The coaches may not be linking arms over a fire and toasting s’mores, but they are not spewing bile when they say each other’s names, either. Kevin Warren did not engender a lot of love before leaving for the NFL, but he left his successor, Tony Petitti, a strong foundation on which to build.

In a college athletics world standing atop a pile of quicksand, the Big Ten has stability.

Consider: On August 25, the league passed a rule banning NFL players from playing for their teams. The next day, the SEC did the same.

The Big Ten has moved along with nary a peep. The SEC went to the lawyers, got dissed by the lawyers and then threatened to exile one of its members (LSU) for its refusal to play by the conference’s rule. On Thursday, the SEC sued LSU over it, with Lane Kiffin as one of the co-defendants. The Tigers will play Clemson this weekend. No one seems to care much about the game.

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SEC sues LSU, alleging a coordinated push to recruit ex-pro athletes in defiance of rules

Similarly, at SEC Media Day, commissioner Greg Sankey intimated that frustration might someday lead to a breakaway from the NCAA. His words were, to be fair, taken a bit out of context. He was answering a direct question, not making a threat, but it came off that way, anyway. A week later, Petitti clarified the mess, explaining that, if things didn’t settle down then maybe they’d need a path to conference-based rules.

None of this is exactly new. The SEC’s very identity is based on its audacity. The “It Just Means More” slogan is at once arrogant and entirely accurate. This is the league, remember, where a man (Harvey Updyke) confessed to poisoning the trees at Auburn on a radio show after Alabama lost to the Tigers, and a coach (Jackie Sherrill at Mississippi State) castrated a bull to motivate his squad.

The SEC is not unlike its schools’ sorority rush: A fever-pitched dash of delirious disorder ginned up on hairspray and fake tans, with the lone goal to be voted most popular.

But chaos comes with a price, and while “distractions” are often either easy crutches or a straw man for coaches to lean on, the league’s inability to concentrate on the task at hand seems to be catching up with it. While the SEC flails about amid coaching disruption - six new head coaches this year and nine since 2024 – lawsuits, roster manipulation and court orders, the Big Ten has been comparatively steady and drama-free.

And they have the trophies to show for it.

Way back in the 1930s, the Big Ten won four titles in a row – to tell you how long ago that really was, Minnesota won three of them – but no league has gone four-for-four with four different title-winning teams in the modern era.

Oregon (preseason No. 2), Washington (No. 17), Penn State (No. 18), and Iowa (No. 22) would like to make history. Which, of course sounds outlandish. Except isn’t that what college football is all about in September?

Indiana, after all, started the season ranked 20th last year.

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在我们的博学救世主柯特·西格内蒂 (Curt Cignetti) 所处的 2026 年 9 月 3 日，大学橄榄球之神仁慈地说：“要有橄榄球比赛。”

告别禁令，迎接拦截。淘汰临时限制令，启用区域保护令。地方法官们，请让位给一线法官吧。

漫长而令人疲惫、眼花缭乱、甚至有些荒诞的休赛期终于在周四正式结束，大学橄榄球赛也正式拉开帷幕（上周末是总是充满奇葩的第0周比赛）。漫长休赛期的种种安排被一件无论如何都无法搞砸的事情所取代：那就是橄榄球。它保持不败，始终如一，鲜少让人失望。这是一出精彩绝伦、无需剧本的四幕剧，一遍又一遍地上演，像一群饥肠辘辘、渴望啤酒的旅鼠一样，把我们拉回到赛前烧烤区。

上赛季，比尔·贝利奇克执教糟糕，而范德比尔特大学表现出色。莱恩·基芬混乱地离开密西西比大学，促成了他抛弃的球队与佐治亚大学之间史诗般的季后赛四分之一决赛对决。NIL（姓名、形象和肖像权）政策的混乱局面在费尔南多·门多萨的激情面前不堪一击。印第安纳大学，一支一无所获的球队，却横扫了阿拉巴马大学，一支所向披靡的球队。最终，欣喜若狂的球迷们，沉浸在命运逆转的喜悦中，在南佛罗里达高唱着1976年的ABBA乐队的歌曲。

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现在，我们面前是一张白纸，充满了无限的希望。没有什么比一支至今保持不败、战绩为0胜0负的球队的球迷更乐观的了，他们几个月来第一次点燃烤架，准备迎接胜利。这种对大学橄榄球永不磨灭的希望，深深植根于我们的美国人精神之中。世界上没有任何其他地方的非职业运动员（严格来说）能像这里的大学橄榄球运动员一样，获得如此高的关注度。

来自德国的可爱世界杯球迷弗雷迪来到美国后，被他顺道参观的大学橄榄球场和城镇的宏伟壮丽深深震撼，现在他已经计划好了一个秋季橄榄球周六之旅。

仔细想想，这根本说不通。

全球十大体育场中有八座位于大学校园内，但大学球队的地域性远强于NFL球队。大学球队的球迷主要来自热情洋溢的校友和在校学生，而职业球队的球迷则遍布无边无际的郊区。例如，宾夕法尼亚州立大学有80万在世校友，而费城则有150万居民。随着位于西侧的新看台落成，比弗体育场（Beaver Stadium）的容量增加到10.9万人，而老鹰队的主场林肯金融球场（Lincoln Financial Field）的容量仅为6.7万人。

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吸引力的一部分在于热闹的氛围和传统。比如，在基芬到来之前很久，密西西比大学的比赛中，人们会在国歌结束时高喊“去死吧，路易斯安那州立大学！”；在塔斯卡卢萨，人们还会把国歌改成《迪克西兰之乐》。还有弗吉尼亚理工大学的《睡魔登场》和威斯康星大学的《跳跃吧》。还有行进乐队、赛前聚会，以及重返20岁的机会。

毕竟，除了自己的母校，还有哪里能让一个 40 岁的人表演倒立喝啤酒，并赢得热烈的掌声呢？

尽管所谓的比赛保护者试图通过打破地理边界、取消竞争、无视警告信号以及表现得像鸵鸟和孔雀的混合体来摧毁它，但联盟专员、大学校长和电视高管们却无法扼杀大学橄榄球所唤起的那种感觉。

然而，有趣的是，这些破坏者或许正在亲手扼杀他们自己创造的“金鹅”。最近一系列的法院命令带来的不仅仅是混乱疲劳；混乱的后果似乎也摆在眼前。

过去三年，十大联盟的三支不同球队（印第安纳大学、密歇根大学和俄亥俄州立大学）包揽了全国冠军。今年，该联盟的两所学校——俄亥俄州立大学和俄勒冈大学——首次登上排名榜首，而卫冕冠军印第安纳大学则位列第六。

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当然，这充分展现了联盟雄厚的财力。凭借去年高达14.7亿美元的媒体版权收入、慷慨的捐赠者以及横跨全美的联盟版图，十大联盟可谓财力雄厚。但如果金钱真的能买到全国冠军，德克萨斯大学现在岂不是已经拿了更多冠军头衔了？

不，除了资金更充裕之外，十大联盟似乎最大的优势在于更少的混乱（尽管安娜堡经常发生一些混乱事件）。教练们或许不会围坐在篝火旁烤棉花糖，但他们也不会在提到彼此的名字时恶语相向。凯文·沃伦在离开前往NFL之前并没有赢得多少人爱戴，但他为继任者托尼·佩蒂蒂留下了一个坚实的基础。

在如履薄冰的大学体育界，十大联盟却保持着稳定。

想想看：8月25日，联盟通过一项规则，禁止NFL球员为他们的球队效力。第二天，SEC也采取了同样的措施。

十大联盟悄无声息地继续进行着。东南联盟（SEC）找了律师，结果被律师驳回，然后威胁要将旗下成员之一（路易斯安那州立大学，LSU）​​逐出联盟，因为该校拒绝遵守联盟规则。周四，东南联盟就此事起诉了路易斯安那州立大学，主教练莱恩·基芬（Lane Kiffin）是共同被告之一。老虎队（LSU的昵称）本周末将对阵克莱姆森大学。似乎没人太在意这场比赛。

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美国证券交易委员会（SEC）起诉路易斯安那州立大学（LSU），指控其违反规定，有组织地招募前职业运动员。

同样，在SEC媒体日上，主席格雷格·桑基暗示，这种不满情绪或许有一天会导致SEC脱离NCAA。平心而论，他的话被断章取义了。他当时是在回答一个直接的问题，并非发出威胁，但听起来却像是在威胁。一周后，佩蒂蒂澄清了此事，解释说，如果情况没有好转，他们或许需要制定一套基于联盟内部规则的方案。

这一切其实并不新鲜。SEC的特色就在于它的胆大妄为。“意义非凡”的口号既傲慢又完全贴切。别忘了，在这个联盟里，哈维·厄普代克（Harvey Updyke）曾在阿拉巴马输给奥本老虎队后，在电台节目中坦白自己毒害了奥本的树木；密西西比州立大学的杰基·谢里尔（Jackie Sherrill）教练为了激励球队，甚至阉割了一头公牛。

SEC 与各大学女生联谊会的招新活动颇为相似：一场狂热的混乱，充斥着发胶和人造美黑，唯一的目标就是被评为最受欢迎的人。

但混乱是有代价的，虽然“干扰因素”通常只是教练们用来逃避责任的借口或幌子，但联盟无法专注于眼前的任务似乎正在付出代价。当SEC联盟在教练更迭的混乱中苦苦挣扎——今年更换了6位主教练，自2024年以来更换了9位——以及诉讼、阵容操纵和法院命令等问题时，十大联盟则相对稳定，鲜有纷争。

他们也用奖杯证明了这一点。

早在 20 世纪 30 年代，十大联盟就曾连续四次夺得冠军——要知道那已经是多久以前的事了，其中三次都是明尼苏达大学夺得的——但在现代，没有任何一个联盟能够连续四年由四支不同的球队赢得冠军。

俄勒冈大学（季前赛排名第二）、华盛顿大学（排名第十七）、宾夕法尼亚州立大学（排名第十八）和爱荷华大学（排名第二十二）都渴望创造历史。这听起来当然有些异想天开。但这不正是九月份大学橄榄球比赛的意义所在吗？

毕竟，印第安纳州上赛季开始时排名第20位。