Bulldogs vs. Sun Devils: This is college football 2024 in a nutshell

If you want a good and telling look at the state of college football in 2024, take an in-depth gander at this Saturday night’s game that pits the Mississippi State Bulldogs against the Arizona State Sun Devils at Tempe, Arizona.

The effects of NIL, the transfer portal and conference movement will be fully on display.

The Sun Devils, who have spent the last 45 years playing in the Pacific 12 Conference, now play in the Big 12, which actually has 16 teams, including such natural Arizona State rivals as West Virginia and Central Florida. The Big 12 now spans all four U.S. time zones, which makes as much sense as the new two-minute timeout in college football. (Side note: The NCAA prefers “two-minute timeout” to the NFL’s “two-minute warning.” That’s interesting because two more timeouts of any kind are just what college football did not need. Teams already had three timeouts per half, plus 14 mandated “media timeouts.” So now, we have 28 timeouts total, not counting the stoppages for video replays of close officiating calls. And you wonder why games sometimes last four hours and longer, which means that Saturday night’s game in Tempe could end well after 1 a.m. central time.)