Commentary: Forget all of college football’s doomsdayers. The fun part is about to begin.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The sky is falling. Haven’t you heard? There’s the out-of-control transfer portal. The unsustainable name, image and likeness (NIL). The crazy conference realignment. Surely the chaotic world of college football is on a highway to, well, you know where. Or so they say.

Ah, but starting this Saturday, Week 0, the games begin.

And it’s about the games, stupid.

For all the hand-wringing and doomsdaying predictions concerning the panic-stricken state of the sport, 2024 promises to be one of the most interesting and more entertaining seasons of college football we’ve seen in quite a while.

Why? I’ll tell you why.

All those geography-based complaints about the never-ending dance that is the conference shuffle? My guess is your average Joe College Fan could not care less. He or she wants to see matchups. Great matchups. Exciting matchups. New matchups. And this year has them.

Sure, a Big Ten Conference that includes 18 teams and stretches from coast to coast makes little common travel sense, but look at how we television viewers sitting at home benefit from it.

We get USC at Michigan on Sept. 21, UCLA at Penn State and Michigan at Wisconsin on Oct. 5, Penn State at USC and Ohio State at Oregon on Oct. 12, Oregon at Michigan on Nov. 2 and Washington at Penn State on Nov. 9.

Entertain us!

Look at the SEC, where the addition of traditional powers Texas and Oklahoma will make life considerably rougher for the 14 holdovers. But in the bargain, we get Georgia at Texas on Oct. 19 and Alabama at Oklahoma on Nov. 23. And don’t forget Texas at Texas A&M on Nov. 30.

It just means more and more.

You say it’s hypocritical for a sport that insists it cares about safety to expand its season to a possible 17 games for the winner of the national championship? Ah, but that hypocrisy means a 12-team College Football Playoff that starts with four first-round games on Dec. 20 and Dec. 21, then a round of four quarterfinal games on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 before the national semifinals Jan. 9 and Jan. 10 and the national title game on Jan. 20.

You say that NIL and the transfer portal have ruined loyalty and made players not relatable? Seems Oregon is excited about quarterback Dillon Gabriel, a transfer from Oklahoma. Ohio State is excited about quarterback Will Howard, a transfer from Kansas State. Texas is excited about wide receiver Isaiah Bond, a transfer from Alabama. Miami is excited about Cam Ward, a transfer from Washington State. Notre Dame is excited about Riley Leonard, a transfer from Duke.

The list goes on and on.

Bottom line: There were many college football fans who claimed they would be done with the sport if the players were paid. Fans will stop watching, they said. Guess what, the players began getting paid last season and people kept right on watching.

This from ESPN: “The 2023 college football season will go down in the record books as the most consumed on record across all networks, and ESPN platforms rose to the challenge with multiyear viewership highs and the most-watched season ever for ESPN+. ABC led the way across all networks and media companies with more total minutes watched than any other individual network, as 24% of the sport’s viewers tuned in to ABC.”

And we’ll keep on watching in 2024.

We want to see how new Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer fills the oversize shoes of the famous Nick Saban. We want to see how Michigan does without Jim “Show Cause” Harbaugh. We want to see how Texas and Oklahoma do in the Saturday-after-Saturday meat grinder that is the SEC. We want to see who comes out on top in a wide-open Heisman Trophy race, where Oregon’s Gabriel has the longest odds for a preseason favorite in 16 seasons.

Locally, we want to see how Georgia transfer Brock Vandagriff does as Kentucky’s starting quarterback. We want to see All-America defensive tackle Deone Walker shine. We want to see if Mark Stoops’ 12th season as Wildcats coach leads to a climb up the conference ladder.

Mainly: We just want to see football, to enjoy football, to bask in football. It’s the games that matter.