Here it is. College football season. The other night the University of Virginia opened at home against Colorado State.

The college football season begins earlier and lasts longer than ever before. For those of you who wonder about the priorities of big-time athletics, there are true freshmen who have been living on campus for more than a month already, just practicing, who may play as many as two games before classes start. They could have a career-ending injury and drop out of school before attending a single class!

Many colleges will play 13-game schedules this season, with their bowl game being No. 14. (Oh, you don’t think a bowl game is so routine? There are 28 sanctioned bowl games, including two fabulous showcase items called the “Continental Tire Bowl,” and the “ConAgra Foods Hawaii Bowl.”

This means 56 of the 117 Division I-A football teams are going to bowls. Eight teams in the Big 12 are guaranteed to go to a bowl. That’s worse than the NHL playoffs. And two of the Big 12 are Kansas and Baylor, so give me a break.

At many schools it’s just a question of which bowl game they play. Florida, Florida State and Miami are to New Year’s Day what Dick Clark is to New Year’s Eve.

Fourteen games may not be enough for Nebraska. (Not to dredge up old news, but 13 was one too many last year. Ooooh, that Miami game was painful; 34-0 at the half. I don’t want to say Nebraska looked slow against the Hurricanes, but you could have timed the guys in red with a sun dial.)

The Cornhuskers have 13 games on their schedule. If they reach the Big 12 championship, that’s 14. And a bowl makes 15. That’s only one game under the NFL’s 16.

How in good conscience can the NCAA continue to stake out the inane position that they can’t allow a college football playoff system because “it’s too many games for college kids to play,” and “it will take away too much study time”?

Too much study time? When are they supposed to study? At least when college football games were only on Saturdays a player might be able to budget some study time for weeknights. This season, there are college games scheduled for Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, too.

Virginia Tech plays five of its 13 games on days (and nights) other than Saturday. The only day of the week I haven’t yet found a college game is Tuesday. I guess Tuesday must the day the NCAA reserves for studying, Hahaha.

Honestly, how can you have teams playing 13, 14 and 15 games and have those games decide absolutely nothing?

You can’t ask players to devote all their energy from August to December to winning every game, and then tell them, “Sorry, you aren’t one of the two teams we picked for the national title game. But we were very impressed with your congeniality, and we have a great package of parting gifts for you. Please enjoy the Cotton Bowl.”

It’s simply not equitable to decide every other college football division with a playoff, and decide the biggest one of all with an Apple iMac.

Nor is it equitable when some teams are rewarded for losing early in the season, and some other teams are punished disproportionately for losing late.

Holding a playoff is the only fair solution.