College Football Returns as Another Absurd Offseason Finally Ends

Real, live college football games will be played this weekend, beginning Thursday with a variety of Championship Subdivision matchups on the docket, and the start of a new season couldn’t come soon enough.

Since the world returned to a facsimile of reality in the five years post-COVID-19 pandemic, every college football offseason seems to dial up the absurdity a few cranks.

The silly-season calendar for 2026 extended all the way to just 48 hours before kick off of the campaign’s first Div. I games. On Tuesday, both the Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences issued statements emphasizing that no, NFL players cannot participate in their college leagues.

Now, that should be a statement so obvious as to hardly warrant publicizing, let alone bringing athletic directors and university presidents together to vote it. Might as well issue a press release that the turf on which games are played is green (apologies, Boise State, Central Arkansas, Coastal Carolina and Eastern Washington).

But the obvious, sometimes referred to as common sense, applies less to college football the more courts dictate rules and the NCAA scrambles to keep up.

And who more fitting to test the boundaries of common sense than Lane Kiffin?

In an effort to curb the increasingly confusing and unenforceable regulations around player eligibility, the NCAA introduced its five-year clock: Athletes can play up to five seasons in five years, beginning from the start of one’s time in college or their on their 19th birthday.

While the intent seems clear, implementation was predictably haphazard. Just as predictably, a court’s injunction was enough to start a temporary free-for-all leading to Cleveland Browns tight end Dae’Quan Wright and waived New Orleans Saints defensive tackle Zxavian Harris to “transfer” to LSU.

“They're either going to play for you or they're going to play for someone else around the country," Kiffin said on Monday. "So we've made the decision to recruit them like probably most people are.”

Invoking the same excuse a 12-year-old caught tipping over port-a-potties whines to his parents – *all the other boys were doing it! *– puts a fittingly Kiffin’ian stamp on this ordeal.

It should be noted Kiffin wasn’t the first college coach to devise a recruiting strategy adhering as aggressively to the letter of the law as it pertains to eligibility, flouting the spirit of the law in the process. Hell, he isn’t the first LSU coach to do so, as Kiffin’s basketball doppelganger Will Wade added former NBA G-Leaguer RJ Luis Jr., pushing similar boundaries that SEC basketball counterpart Nate Oats faced last season with Alabama’s attempted addition of Charles Bediako.

So while Kiffin’s assertation that “probably most people are” attempting to add players who appeared on NFL and NBA rosters to their college football and basketball programs may not be quantifiable, enough have that the Big Ten and SEC had to slap a proverbial “Do Not Eat” label on this particular silica packet.

At least this preposterous chapter ended before games got underway. Week 0 may not feature the blockbuster power-conference matchups that shape the subsequent September Saturdays, but this warm-up weekend doesn’t lack for intrigue.

UNLV-Memphis could have Playoff implications. North Carolina’s performance against TCU marks a critical juncture in a Hall of Fame coach’s swan song. For those uninitiated with the FCS, there are multiple marquee showdowns that include a Top 20 contest between Abilene Christian and Lamar.

Week 0 provides no shortage of excitement on the field, and that beats the hell out of following the ridiculousness emanating from courtrooms.