"I'M VERY COMPACTIBLE"

Someone should spend a gameday with the unlucky souls who operate the press box elevators on game day. Now, I don't exactly know why we need an elevator operator, but I do believe that sitting in a cramped space, with no windows, ferrying sportswriters up and down all day is a hell not even Dante conjured.

So I'm riding up the elevator a few minutes earlier and a bowl official began making small talk with our elevator operator, a sweet young woman of college age. He told her that he empathized with her plight. Her good-natured answer: "It's alright. I'm very compactible."

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By the way, I parked my car and just as I opened my door heard the wave of noise that accompanies an opening kickoff. Lucky this is only a game between a pair of 6-6 teams...which brings up an important question, being that I'm in a town with no shortage of casinos. If you're playing blackjack and hit a pair of 6's, should you split 'em? I mean, you'd never do that ordinarily, but with Colorado and Alabama in town, should you do it in their honor?

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Newest pet peeve: The term "Media Timeout". When there is a stoppage in play because of a TV commercial, we in the press box hear the P.A. announcer say that there's time is being called for "a media timeout". Um, no. Don't blame me for the interminable game length. The media isn't calling the timeout. ESPN or Fox or ABC or CBS is. Or, on Saturdays from South Bend, NBC. On those days you can blame me. Otherwise, no.

I do love how it used to be "TV timeout" but how suddenly, and quite diabolically, it's been changed to "media timeout". They hoped we wouldn't notice. We have.