Do you realize how many college football games were telecast on a given Saturday this past fall? Did you stop to count them like I did one Saturday? <br />
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The particular Saturday I did count them there were 23 of them. <br />
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A body could start watching at noon and not finish until the wee hours of the morning. And, that doesn't count the pre-game shows and post-game shows... just the games themselves. Nor does it include the games that are played/telecast throughout the week. It seems that now we have a college football game each night of the week, except Sunday.<br />
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It took me back to the time when one game, two at most, was televised a week, and just on Saturdays and, as I recall, just on ABC. Chris Schenkel and Keith Jackson were the top play-by-play men. If we got three games, a triple-header, that was a really big deal. Two games in the afternoon (back-to-back) and one at night. Did they really telecast one at night on Saturdays and preempt the Lawrence "Ah-one, ah-two" Welk Show? Surely not! <br />
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And, remember when beer was off-limits as a sponsor on college football? I can't remember if cigarette ads were banned as well.<br />
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Then there was the time, as I recall, that Chevrolet - a major sponsor on ABC's telecasts of college football - banned the announcers from referring to SMU's nickname, the Mustangs, which SMU was one of the teams on the telecast. The reason? Ford had just introduced the Mustang automobile. I've not been able to document that that actually happened. Maybe it's just an "urban legend" but it makes for a good story. <br />
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Twenty-three games on a given Saturday in the fall of 2009 and the last game of was not played until January 7, the date of BCS Championship. Whatever happened to ending things on New Year's Day, as the good Lord intended college football to to. <br />
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But, too much college football? Nope. Not really. Not from where I sit.
