Interesting discussion today on ESPN Radio with Tony Kornheiser – they were giving a small post-mortem for college football's Blue-Grey Game. For those who missed it, the game's organizers announced yesterday there would be no Blue-Grey game this year, since they couldn't find a corporate sponsor for the game. In past years, Kelly Tires had been the sponsor, but Kelly Tires has been taken over by Goodyear, who decided they have better things to do with their money. The full story is here.

Kornheiser noted two things: one, this was a tradition of sorts on Christmas day. You've opened the presents, you're sitting around with the family, and naturally you flick on the TV. By 11 a.m. or 12 noon Christmas day, you're completely sick of Christmas programming, but that's all that's available. Every place is closed except maybe a couple of theaters and a few odd restaurants. What do you do? You watch the only game available, which for years was the Blue-Grey game, followed by the Aloha Bowl. (The Aloha Bowl and the Hula Bowl have both moved to the mainland, and are now minor bowl games held somewhere on the West Coast.) He referred to the audience as a captive audience, which was true. Second, he noted most of the players came from smaller schools (unspoken: or schools whose teams didn't make bowl games, since no one wants their players to get hurt in an all-star game before a bowl game), and this is a chance for them to show what they've got.

I'll add to the second point. We've gotten to the point in college football where all the attention is focused on the major Division I-A conferences: Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, SEC, and to a lesser extent the ACC and the Big East, plus independent Notre Dame. Maybe Mountain West or Conference USA on a good day. But beyond that, no one cares. The MAAC – which I've resolved to check out this year – rarely gets mentioned for their talented teams, even though they're I-A. And once you get to Divisions I-AA, II, or III, forget it – the college football preview magazines don't even cover those divisions anymore. (I have no idea what to expect out of Cornell, my alma mater, this year for this reason.) Obviously the Blue-Grey people didn't drop the game for this reason, but this is just another domino that favors the big, big schools in college football and ignores the rest.

I'm going to issue a challenge to all you football fans out there. There are over 20 games being played tonight; none of them involve a top 25 team. Check one of them out. At least six of them are being broadcast on RealAudio. As for actual radio, I've got two games being broadcast tonight – Syracuse at BYU on ESPN Radio, and Wake Forest at Northern Illinois on a ton of small stations around here. I'll listen to the Cubs game this afternoon, and then switch to college football. If baseball strikes (although I'm a little optimistic that they may get it done), you'll find me at the Wheaton College home games, and avidly following lots of college and pro football the rest of the time.