Let’s just skip College Game Day this year, shall we?

The ESPN College Game Day folks did their best in their preseason show last weekend to turn the enthusiasm of a new football season into dismay and disappointment.

If the goal was to sour us on another season of suffering through Lee Corso’s haphazard picks and Desmond Howard’s negative Nancy dancing, let’s say they win and call it a day.

But the significant reason these ESPN folks struggle to offer redeeming value is that they don’t watch college football for the same reason 99 percent of the fans do. They don’t root for a team. And that disconnect zaps the pleasure out of college football every Saturday morning before the first 11 am kickoff.

An example came during the preseason show. The crew was “debating” (an ad nauseum yearly discussion) about who will get into the playoffs at season’s end.

Their whole premise was whether the college football playoffs should be about the most deserving teams or the “best” teams. Inexplicably, even a smart mind like Kirk Herbstreit stated, as if it was one of the Ten Commandments, that the playoff should only include the “best”, not the most deserving, and then proceeded to explain how this system is so much better than the BCS because it is subjective.

What?

It is worth noting, that at every level of football, the teams performing in a championship game are determined on the field — where the winner of a playoff our tournament or regular season is determined by the final score.

Pee-wee. Middle School. High School. And the NFL. Oh…but….

Except one: college football.

There the playoff teams are determined by a group of old men voting in a back room, kind of like the Chicago mobsters of the 1930s deciding which horses would be in the final race at Pimlico.

If it’s just about a subjective “best”, why play the season at all?

Should not the teams that play to win and become deserving get in the playoffs? If it’s just about a subjective “best”, why play the season at all?

Besides, as OU QB great Steve Davis once prayed, sometimes may the best team “not” win. And quite often that happens.

But the ESPN people only want stories to tell. You know the kind that gives Tom Rinaldi the chance to make us cry.

Or, the kind that gets a manufactured crowd in the background of the Game Day set to wave flags insulting opposing coaches or players with cute double entendres or just plain ol’ painted-on-moustache graffiti. Gee, that’s fun.

But then, if the teams were selected from conference championships, then the same old Alabama and Clemson might not get into the playoffs. And then what would Paul Finebaum do?

Lost in the ESPN world is the value of the game. For Game Day the fact there is a game about to be played in the afternoon is a footnote.

You don’t believe me? Wait until Ohio State plays their first game this Saturday against Oregon State. The over and under for Game Day minutes on the Urban Meyer suspension will be somewhere around 20.

But, afterward, ask yourself if you know how well the Ohio State offense will match up against the Oregon State defense, and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Best approach: Hit the snooze button on Saturday morning. Those extra two hours of sleep will help you enjoy the afternoon game action.