I like college football. I also like the NFL (this may make me unwelcome in some places, but there it is), but there's something about the semi-pro nature of college football, and the sheer number of programs, and the rivalries, and the radio announcers, and the terribly flawed bowl system(s, past and present)... it is messy, but sometimes out of the mess comes something as wonderful and fun as the 2007 season was for us, here at the University of Kansas.

It started with a creampuff non-conference schedule that was delightful to watch, as we piled up points and yards and spectacular plays on unsuspecting teams. Nobody thought much of it, but it was fun for us. But when KU started winning conference games (albeit without meeting any high caliber teams like Texas, Oklahoma, or Missouri), it got even more fun. We never got much national media attention until this last week before the Missouri game, but that was fine. We did spawn a nickname, the Fighting Manginos, as well as some unmentionable t-shirt slogans, and the Governor of Kansas was the guest of honor in our Homecoming Parade (that didn't happen at Iowa). The whole town had fun with it.

We were lucky enough to be in Iowa in 2002, when they had their excellent season that ended 11-2. And now we've been lucky enough to enjoy this season at KU. A season which will hopefully end 12-1, not 11-2. No offense to the Iowa team (which had players the likes of Dallas Clark, Bob Sanders, and Nate Kaeding), but the bowl game in 2002 was disastrous. I hope for better from KU this year. At least Iowa lost the game to Carson Palmer and USC (my mother's always-root-for team).

The game in Kansas City this past weekend was difficult to watch, though we are glad we stuck with it, as the team did account for itself well in the last twenty minutes of regulation. We switched to the radio announcers at halftime, even with the HD video being about twenty seconds behind the radio (it was like always-on instant replay!), and we had a much better time, despite the losing part. But now it is over.

Everyone here in Lawrence is very happy for the football team, and very congratulatory on their season (despite sending impostors out for the first half against Missouri... really, we could have won that game). And everyone is, en masse, turning to basketball.

There's another undefeated team in town.

So that sucked. A lot. If KU had only played like they did in the fourth quarter throughout the whole game. Or, the second half. Or something.

Third quarter. This is awful. KU is playing like the team they were last year. Missouri is playing as advertised. I have offered a couple of times to stop watching and put on this week's Survivor instead. A Mizzou fan holds up the best sign of the game, "Kansas Football, a Tradition since September." I can laugh at it because it's funny. The KU radio guys are saying that KU has to be perfect from here on out to win. The score is 28-7 Missouri, and my wife adds, "And what, Missouri is going to have to go home?"

I haven't been so excited and nervous about a football game since... a long time... maybe since John Elway won his first Superbowl in 1997 (you can't blame me, my wife's family is Bronco fan-atic, and really, he deserved it). If KU wins, it'll be because of their defense. None of the pre-game discussion of Missouri has talked about their defense, so I'm assuming they have one, but it isn't much to go on about (at least not to a bewildered national audience still trying to figure out if Kansas City is in Missouri or Kansas). Oy, it's Brent Musburger.

KU is on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. There's a jinx, you know.

This has been a great year to be me, sportswise. Of course, I'm going to curse it all now, but it may be that everyone needs a little humbling, right? (Nevertheless, I'm knocking on all the wood I can find.)

I'm not what you would call a sports fan. I like the competition, I like rooting for a team and seeing them win. I grew up overseas, and I remember a Mundial between Argentina and Germany. As it became increasingly clear that the Germans were handing it to the Argentines, I got so upset I took my bike out and rode around the neighborhood. It was crushing, and I was... twelve, probably. [And on doing research, I can't find a game I would have watched between Argentina and Germany that Argentina lost... so, so much for memory. Ed.] I used to watch some soccer, some basketball, but I was never a stats-tracking, game-going, fan.

Then i came to the US, and went to college in Rhode Island (a state that calls Boston teams home), and was steeped in New England sports. So I have been (and most certainly am today) a Boston sports fan. Watching the Patriots play undefeated football has been fun all season. Not that I get many of the games here, but some make it through. It is doubly fun because we were in Minnesota for the year of Randy Moss' breakout, and it is good to see him back. Watching the Red Sox last night was lots of fun, too, especially when it looked like the Rockies were going to spoil it. I used to watch a lot of baseball (and even attended some Pawsox game during college), and I have enjoyed the playoffs this year.

But I live in Kansas now, and watching the undefeated Kansas Jayhawks (KU's college football team) play football has been a blast. They played a powder-puff non-conference schedule, but in the last three weeks have played tough road games and still won. Last year, our first college football season in Kansas, the team lost a large number of games in the last quarter. This year, they are putting those games away. It actually reminds me a lot of the years we spent in Iowa, when Kirk Ferentz was just getting the Iowa football program back on its feet. Watching this little team that could was great. The wife and I have fond memories of weekends spent working on the house, or in the yard, with the game on the radio. And we're building that here, too.

[A note of condolence for the Iowa football fans this year... sorry about your season.]

And, of course, we have college basketball to look forward to, starting this next week! Would it be greedy to hope for their success, too?