I Have Done the Undone: I Bought Six College Football Magazines. Summer. 2026

    Where did this start? Recently and over time, both. I can explain it. Mostly.

    Recently, this summer, I had some time with my wife. The kids were away. That is what happened to us, more or less, our first summer together as newlyweds, the California Inland Empire summer of 2000. Technically, still the 20th century. Way back then.

    My football teams helped connect me to home. To passion. To nostalgia. To love. What loves do we empower? Who knows. Unrequited silly things.

    I liked, or loved, college football. It has been a thing. I will try to explain.

    I started to really like college football in 1983. Or, maybe a bit in 1979. It was pretty solid by 1984. LaVell Edwards and the Brigham Young Cougars did some of the unthinkable, while guys in Bloomington like Lee Corso and Sam Wyche, and then Bill Mallory started the juices flowing.. closer by.

    IU could be a thing? Like basketball, a world beater? Why not? We beat the Buckeyes two years in a row! Yes. And Michigan at home! We were "too noisy". Hahaha, Schembechler at the Big House. Too much noise from a rain-soaked 30, 000 at Assembly Hall.

    Ha! I loved it.

    BYU won it all. Take that, establishment of the big boy network!

    Ha ha!

    Okay, so as I said, I bought a whopping six magazines. In July. In a normal fall/summer I buy one, maybe two.

    I blame a few things. The Indiana and the BYU football teams. They are good, competitive, really fun to watch. Perhaps more than ever. I will keep this one to Indiana and Cignetti, and then on to Kilani. Sitake. Great names.

    Great games. 

    I have explained enough of the why for now.

    The Sporting News: They had not published since 2009 or something like that. But they did this season (maybe Indiana awakened some ghosts, like mine?), and Dennis Dodd went after Curt Cignetti and Lee Kiffin, the two sexiest stories in all the land. LSU Tigers. Geaux geaux geaux! Gag me, I do not care much for them. Just to lose to my teams when I need them to.

    The Sporting News picked IU to beat Notre Dame. # 1 Indiana would beat # 5 Texas to get there, while the #3 Irish would beat #5 Georgia. They have BYU at #11 losing to number Six Oregon. Okay, more Cougars later. 

    The newly re-printed Sporting News picks the Hoosiers! Like, nobody else. The other Five. I bought them all!

    Eesh.