Berry Tramel: Regular season is what's wrong with college football

Old pal Tim Cowlishaw, an Oklahoman alumnus and sports voice of the Dallas Morning News, has said it for years.

Old pal Burke Magnus, well, I've actually never met ESPN's senior vice president of college sports programming but a swell guy I'm sure, said it this week.

Protect college football's regular season, they all say. Talk into the night if you must on ways to change the national championship process, but protect the splendor of the regular season.

My old pals have lost their way.

The regular season is what's wrong with college football. Not what's right.

The conference commissioners staged a BCS meeting Tuesday in New Orleans, and all indications are we're moving toward an expanded playoff. Perhaps a four-team model, with the title game matching two bowl-game winners.

Fine. Whatever. Sounds good. But don't lose sight of college football's fundamental problem.

The regular season is losing steam and fast.

First, all the exhibitions that plague the sport, mostly in September. Oklahoma-Ball State. Texas-Rice. LSU-Western Kentucky. OSU-Lafayette.

Alabama played three fresh-meat games: Kent State, North Texas and Georgia Southern. It's an epidemic and it's an abomination.