WHO WINS IT ALL IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL? WATCH YOUR SPEEDING AND GAMBLING

Georgia could go three-peat if its players stop reckless driving after the Jan. 15 double-killing, but who knows in this sport — watch USC and Notre Dame play for massive money in mid-October?

     A sovereign kitty is all we’re lacking in college football, right? Beyond that, the league skeletons and misguided traditions might become something grotesquely professional, until we realize the players already are past that. The new question is whether, oh, Georgia or Alabama or Michigan or Ohio State will win a national championship, which is what the issue was the last decade.

     We’re waiting to see if the Bulldogs, trying to be the first team to three-peat since 1936 Minnesota, can avoid a 15th charge for speeding, racing or reckless driving since the Jan. 15 crash that killed lineman Devin Willock and recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy. That should have been enough to wipe star Jalen Carter off the NFL draft board, which it did not, handing him at No. 9 to the Philadelphia Eagles, who rave about him without sweat when he blows past a 370-pound guard and attacks a quarterback.

     “He looks like a baby rhino,” cornerback Darius Slay said. “You ever seen a baby rhino and you just (think), ‘Man, he's crazy.’ He’s a game-changer.”

     And a double-killer, not that ESPN’s Chris Fowler will admit it. Nor will anyone talk about illegal sports gambling, which continues to take down programs at Iowa State and Iowa and … who knows where else in flyover territory? In the past 12 months, five years after the Supreme Court’s reckless decision, some 40 million U.S. adults have placed a traditional sports bet. The NFL does take action versus aghast players, somewhat, but the college programs are the ones in major trouble because most won’t have career shots on the next level. The schools appeal. You would be a fool to wager anyway.

     Ever hang out in a football dormitory? You’ll get the idea of who gambles, which is anyone who can’t play past college, or almost everyone. In the past, we thought a player who screwed up made a mistake. Now, we wonder if he’s trying to win for someone else. Thanks to X, former known as Twitter, the Big Ten is the one Power 5 conference that makes availability reports mandatory on game days, two hours before kickoffs. “The well-being of our students, coaches, and staff — as well as the integrity of our competitions — are of paramount importance," commissioner Tony Petitti said.

     Yet he’s the one who sold Oregon and Washington for money, making the title of his conference more important than the silly Big 10. Nor will anybody on TV, which is paying the monster money to deliver geographical swings, dawdle about Arizona State destroying itself as the NCAA — does it still exist? — is all but terminating postseason penalties. Four mornings before the season opener, with freshman quarterback Jaden Rashada already spanked of $13 million in NIL bucks at Florida, the Sun Devils and new coach Kenny Dillingham realized Sunday the school won’t let them play a bowl game this season. Why? The previous coach, Herm Edwards, was burned during a mid-60s plight in which a former NFL player, Antonio Pierce, encouraged players to break all the rules possible. It required a mom purchasing tickets to make campus visits to end the ruse.

     “He just kind of ripped the Band-Aid off and told us,” safety Chris Edmonds said.

     “It was upsetting,” Dillingham said. “I knew today would be s—-y.”

     Of course, Edwards could speak of his sin-breaking. He’s back on ESPN, not that anyone will ask him there, either. You can bust every bylaw on campus and they’ll be glad to have you back at the network, which should end all nonsense about Urban Meyer returning to Fox with Rob Stone, Matt Leinart, Brady Quinn and newcomer Mark Ingram. Wait, where’s Reggie Bush? He exited the network after a contract issue, allowing him to pursue a defamation case: He wants his Heisman Trophy returned from, yes, the NCAA, which said it won’t reinstate his 2005 trophy despite rule changes for names, images and likenesses. These days, an athlete can joyfully accept cash, travel expenses and a home in San Diego where his parents lived rent-free. The organization still won’t budge, prompting Bush to say at the Coliseum: “I've got dreams of coming back in this stadium and running out of that tunnel with the football team. I've got dreams of walking back in here and seeing my jersey and my banner right down there next to the rest of the Heisman Trophy winners. But I can’t rightfully do that without my Heisman Trophy.”

     For a place that doesn’t understand it has no place, the NCAA carries on with what it once had and mercifully blew. It will watch from afar as the new leagues — Big (Whatever) and the Southwestern Conference, along with other fill-ins — make this the final season of the old run. Already, Week 0 brought us two stories that could have longstanding meaning. Caleb Williams threw four touchdowns for USC and might be in line for the first back-to-back Heisman since Archie Griffin in 1975, but his defense continued to have uglies in allowing 28 points to San Jose State. Did his coach make a goober in keeping Alex Grinch as coordinator? “Here we go, everybody is gonna write the narrative after the first game,” Lincoln Riley said. “Listen, it’s gonna be a climb. … It’s gonna be a climb.”

     Which means one of the largest games — beyond Georgia-Alabama-LSU in the SEC championship game, and Michigan-Ohio State in the Big Ten title game — becomes the 6-0 Trojans at the (something) Fighting Irish on Oct. 14. Either they lose to Ohio State at home Sept. 23 or they win — and play USC for a spot in the upper reaches. For now, after a 42-3 rout of Navy in Dublin, new quarterback Sam Hartman put his hands on a shillelagh. “It’s kind of our new tradition, we’re going to get a new one each and every game,” he said. “It’s used as a weapon. I’ll be tucking this one away.”

     Hartman is 24, six years older than a traditional freshman. He also ranks No. 14 in the sport’s NIL rankings, with a $1.1 million valuation. Recently, after practice, he called the team together and said, “We’ve got a long flight, need something to help us sleep. So, for the fellas, here’s a company called Beats.”

     He pulled out the white headphones and passed them out to the entire team, which went bonkers. Either that or the New Mexico State quarterback, who threw a pass to a lineman with his helmet on backwards.

     For now, I’m taking the Irish quarterback. We need something encouraging and old in a sport so daffy.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.