Yes, it starts next Thursday, and yes, I know few football fans on here watch college football.

But I love it and enjoy seeing guys make it to the NFL that the average fan never heard of.

That being said, I hope to hell this news doesn't end up becoming reality!

From CBS Sportsline.com:

Welcome to the first unintended consequence of autonomy.

Hawaii can't afford to keep playing football, so it may drop football.

Those essentially were the words of Hawaii AD Ben Jay on Monday speaking to the school's board of regents. Jay's athletic department is facing a $2.1 million budget deficit. On the horizon are added expenses for cost of attendance in autonomy.

Judging from Jay, it is not an expense Hawaii can afford at the moment.

“There's a very real possibility of football going away,” he said.

How's that for student-athlete welfare? One less football program to benefit from the spoils of autonomy.

Hawaii's plight points out an autonomy Catch-22 mentioned last month by Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby. While the cost-of-attendance stipend is meant to benefit the athlete, the money to fund it has to come from somewhere. At even the highest-resource programs that means fundraising or cutting back on minor sports. Perhaps both.

Schools don't have to offer cost of attendance. What Jay is saying is -- regardless -- Hawaii doesn't have to offer football. Jay is suggesting the only solution may be cutting out the athletic department's biggest money maker (football) to save rest the rest of the sports. That's desperation.

"We're going to have to generate more revenue," Jay told a reporter. "There's no doubt about that.”

The once-proud football program has endured a steady spiral below .500 and into red ink in recent years. As far back as the summer of 2007, quarterback Colt Brennan criticized the football facilities saying they were “galaxies away” from his former school, Colorado.

That was the summer before the Warriors made a stunning run to the Sugar Bowl and Brennan became a Heisman finalist. Since coach June Jones left after that season, Hawaii is 33-45 -- 4-20 the last two seasons under Norm Chow.

Since 2005, Hawaii's athletic operating expenses have increased 75 percent according to the last figures available in 2012. That compares favorably with the FBS median of a 71 percent increase since '05.

The ultimate irony: Jay came from Ohio State, which operates with the No. 2 or No. 3 athletic budget nationally (depending on your metric).

This could go one of two ways: Jay's comments sway boosters into kicking in the needed money or he just absolutely killed recruiting. Perhaps both with Monday's comments.

One wise guy on Twitter remarked: “Have you seen Hawaii play? The recruiting is already dead.”

So many questions about paying college players:

--Will the NCAA cap the amount that a school can give to a player, or is each school free to set their own amount?

--Will the wealthiest schools therefore be able to recruit the best players and / or pay them the highest amount?

--How will the schools come up with the $$? Raise ticket prices? Allow sponsors to throw out cash to individual schools / players?

--Should we do away with college football altogether, get colleges back to the business of education, and let the NFL come up with their own system of minor / training leagues, setting their own ticket prices, etc.?

I'm afraid it's a can of worms that will change the sport forever, not sure it will be for the better.

But I'll be in the stands rooting on my Va Tech Hokies, even as they run into a buzz saw in game 2 against Ohio State, ugh...

UH is a really complex problem. On the one hand, the tuition is pretty low, but Hawaii also has one of the highest costs of living, made even more expensive with the main Manoa campus being located practically right next to Waikiki. Compound all this with trying to recruit layers to come to an island out in the middle of the Pacific, a really long plane ride from anywhere else in the U.S. My daughter considered UH when she was looking at college options and chose not stay (we were getting ready to move out of HI) even though she was eligible for in-state tuition.

As for this year's football, I'm really curious to see what Chris Peterson does with our Huskies this year - especially since the big names (Price, Sankey and Seferian-Jenkins) have all moved on. I'm hoping he can make them competitive again pretty quickly now that that idiot Sarkisian is gone.

The NCAA is a real mess (gee, what a surprise), and these issues will only continue.

Not just for Hawaii, but so many others who have gone the "autonomy" and "cost of attendance" way.

I have little hope for my alma mater Rutgers entering the Big 10 this year, but they will be making loads of money.

I believe Penn State is playing someone (Central Florida?) next week in Ireland.

Glad to see Rutgers win a wild opener on Thursday when they beat Washington State on the road 41-38!

Yeah, it was nice to see the Cougs get beat.

I'll pop in just long enough to brag about my alma mater, the Bison of North Dakota State, knocking off yet another FCS opponent today, Iowa State. Woo hoo!!!

I like Florida State because the coach's name is Jimbo.

Really interesting opening weekend for college football. Did anybody else see the amazing Penn State-CFU game played in Ireland early Saturday, what an amazing finish!

Somewhat underwhelming performances by some very highly-ranked teams such as Alabama, Ohio State, and UCLA. Was it opening-day jitters, or are teams like WVU, Navy and Virginia (2-10 last year) much improved ?? Or perhaps some traditional powers are over-rated. You gotta love the fact that anything can happen.

Oh, and there is a rare Monday night game, Louisville in their ACC debut against the U. of Miami Hurricanes

I missed the Penn State game aside from the first half.

What happened at the end?

There were some frauds exposed like South Carolina.

I'm watching Louisville and Miami now.

Congrats to Steve, whose Boilermakers won a shoot-out this past weekend.

There are some great matchups on the slate today: USC at Stanford, Michigan at Notre Dame (in their final scheduled game), Mich State at Oregon, and Virginia Tech at Ohio State in primetime.

Go Hokies !! This time, they get to play a huge game with no "Musburger Curse" to worry about (since 1999, VT have rarely if ever won a game with Brent Musburger in the booth)

Wow, talk about a shoot out! UW vs Eastern Washington combined for over 1000 yards of offense, with UW scraping out a 59-52 win over the #2 FCS team. Eastern's QB set a school record by scoring 7 TDs on the Huskies.

I don't think the Huskies can compete in the PAC12 this year, but hopefully Chris Petersen gets a few years to rebuild the team in Sarkisian's wake.

Barely beating Hawaii and 1-AA Eastern Washington (and allowing 52 points) is pathetic.

Doesn't look good for the Huskies at this point.

And Rutgers are now 2-0, but beating Howard doesn't exactly thrill me.

College Gameday is coming back to Fargo for the second straight year!

And then promptly lost to Eastern Michigan. Ugh.

Bud Foster deserves a huge raise, his defense stood the test, and then some

It was a rough weekend for the Big 10. Three teams (Michigan State, Michigan, and Ohio State) were involved in marquee inter-conference matchups, and all three lost. Oregon impressed with their explosive offense, and jumped over Alabama to #2 in the AP poll. Meanwhile, Nebraska squeaked by FCS team McNeese State, and subsequently dropped out of the AP Top 25 completely.

The SEC had "Cupcake Saturday", with most teams playing weak non-conference or FCS teams, and as a result several SEC teams dropped in the polls. Looks like strength-of-schedule is being taken seriously this year. South Carolina had the seemingly toughest opponent in East Carolina and trailed early, but eventually prevailed by ten points.

Mmmm...Cupcake Saturday....

LSU moved into the top ten after enjoying their cupcake.

That game was a very pleasant and completely unexpected surprise!!