Welcome to college football game week!

After a long summer, college football season is back upon us. In keeping with a tradition as old and tired as people saying "football around here isn't just a game, it's a way of life," the Xavier student body is once again largely ignoring this development.

Nobody is camping out in front of Xavier's football stadium to get tickets to see the season opener, largely because neither of those things exists. Fans aren't ranting about how College GameDay should be on campus this year. Nobody is painting his face and cracking open a case of Natty Light in a parking lot at ten in the morning.

Elsewhere on campus, the athletic department is not abuzz with the advent of America's second or third favorite sport. "It's all about the kids," Xavier's coach isn't saying. "We've got a great group of guys this year, and each one of them has a bright future on and off the field."

A group of young men between 18 and 22 years old isn't devoting 20 hours a week to slowly traumatizing their brains to the point of uselessness by middle age. The inexorable accumulation of concussions and sub-concussive impacts that marks the beginning of autumn on college campuses around the nation is not occurring at Xavier this year, depriving the student body of an outlet for their gladiatorial urges.

So welcome back college football on this the first of how many ever game weeks there are. Xavier doesn't have you, and I don't wish we did.