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Ahoy there, dear reader!
It's been a while since I put pen to paper and, while tempted to explain away my lengthy and unexcused absence with the usual "dog ate my homework" excuse, I simply cite my own abject laziness and lack of inspiration as the prime suspects.
That was until last weekend.
It always amazes me to see sports pages go from zero-to-warp-speed overanalyzing college football's first week so I asked myself -- why should my return to semi-satirical sports journalism be any different?
As a proper jumping off point, let's start with the happiness witnessed in Happy Valley this past weekend as Penn State ushered in another new era, this time with Matt Campbell at the helm.
Like most sports enthusiasts who tune into this newsfeed, I watched with cautious optimism hoping the boys in blue were prepared to meet the moment.
To my surprise, I observed a team playing what appeared to be inspired, enthusiastic, disciplined, opportunistic football and one delivering a convincing performance indicative of what a home opener against a school from the Sun Belt conference should look like.
While it's way too early to tell if this edition is now and improved or just more of the same, the initial indicators are promising.
Kudos to Pat Kraft for pulling a near-Houdini in landing Campbell after so many other coaches turned him down last fall. Kudos as well for retaining Terry Smith, whose supreme efforts to keep a rapidly sinking ship afloat despite a frenzy of sharks circling the vessel coupled with Campbell's enthusiastic embrace of the school's rich tradition are two great stories Nittany Nation can feel very good about.
Elsewhere, tenured coaches named Schiano, Dabo and Whittingham are spending their Labor Day doing some serious soul searching reluctantly fielding the always uncomfortable "whutdahellwuzzat?" type questions from influential, deep pocketed alumni and rabid fan bases who demand answers for their teams' woefully abysmal opening-week performances.
And, as if controversy didn't already swarm Lane Kiffin like the bugs dive bombing my front porch lights during a July heatwave, LSU's latest gun-for-hire stirred up even more controversy by welcoming back guys who failed to make NFL rosters back into his fold.
Kiffin's "hey if we didn't sign them then someone else would" is, while inherently flawed, a candidly raw but accurate observation. Legally, the players do have eligibility remaining but ethically there are just too many things wrong with that picture.
This blatant bravado down in the bayou only underscores the present state of college football, which is essentially professional sports being played on college campuses.
Like it or not, it is something where fans must "hold fast" -- a traditional command given to sailors to grip their ship's rigging or ropes tightly during a storm.
Intercollegiate athletics is now a true pay-for-play endeavor where any implication of academic progress towards an undergraduate degree has largely been keel hauled.
It is an environment where the entertainers now hold the upper hand in a system where the elite can roam about the cabin with the seat belt signs turned off once the season concludes.
It is exactly what the current system enables them to do and until someone puts some rails around the lucrative NIL deals and annual player free agency, a storm is on the horizon.
Contz was a starting offensive tackle on Penn State's first national championship team in 1982 and played six NFL seasons with New Orleans and Cleveland. He published a book in 2017, "When the Lions Roared: Joe Paterno and One of College Football's Greatest Teams." He resides in Pittsburgh.