The mornings are cooler. The sun sets earlier every day. Football is around the corner. And as wonderful as the NFL is, for many of us, nothing beats the pageantry, the tradition, and the excitement of college football.

The sport is far from perfect, and it is going through a bit of a transition phase right now. An “Atlantic Coast Conference” that includes teams from Berkeley, Palo Alto, and Dallas makes no geographic sense. No one wants to watch a noon Eastern time Big Ten conference game featuring the UCLA Bruins versus the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. And it’s tough enough following a sport in which players get just four seasons of eligibility, but now, fans have to track player movement in a system in which every player is functionally a free agent at the end of every year, thanks to name, image, and likeness deals.