This is normally my favorite time of year. Fall and football has been intertwined in my life, bringing back fond memories of the crisp mornings and sunny afternoons of game days, changing leaves and the beauty in all of the colors, hot cider and donuts, Halloween and just the innocent, wonderful time in my younger years.

Those days actually got better as game day involved season tickets at Michigan Stadium and the cider turned into some tailgating with adult beverages. Even now, when cider is pumpkin-spiced lattes and Michigan doesn’t field a very good football team, nothing takes me back to my childhood days more vividly than a little frost on the ground, chill in the air and steam on your breath on a perfect fall day.

While all the reminiscing is one of the best parts of life, that same life  teaches us that we can’t go back.

Just look at football and how the game is changing. Our professional league has scandal after scandal, whether they’re made up or real, with players beating wives and kids with no punishment to punishing players because the league fails to grasp the fifth grade physics principle that cold reduces air pressure in an inflated object. Our college game has been reduced to television revenues, mega conferences with rivalries and tradition falling by the wayside and violation over violation from the ruling NCAA that challenges Roger Goodell in its hypocrisy on integrity. Not that high school or younger leagues are much better. I recall being yelled at by parents while coaching YMCA football in the 1990s, and I’m sure it hasn’t gotten any better. And this weekend, many of us saw the video of two players intentionally blindsiding an umpire on the field because a team didn’t like a call the refs made earlier in the game.

People also seem to be shocked there are concussions in football. Of course there are. There are concussions in every sport. While football has the highest rate, the players also have enough sense to wear a helmet. Many players, like me, decided the idea of “ringing someone’s bell” was a lot of fun, but it was never nearly as much fun as when we got our own “bell rung” and quit the game after a while. But that’s how we handled it, you got up woozy, you sat out a bit and sometimes you went back in and sometimes you stayed out. Oh, and we were taught how to tackle properly back then as well.

So all of this new stuff ain’t so new. Boys are gonna hit boys and shake hands when it’s all over. It’s a rite of passage. It is something to be celebrated. Like it or not, football and our unique sporting heritage helped shape American boys into American men and has a lot to do with American exceptionalism.

But I have grave concerns for the state of our game today. I didn’t even really get into just how deep and sad the full reality is, and perhaps I’m naive in thinking all of this didn’t happen before. But I simply don’t believe anything occurred to the levels of today. While I might know a little about a lot of things, I know a lot about football.  I love football. I grew up on football. And no, I wasn’t much of a player on the field — and still am not in my fantasy league. But playing and understanding are two different things. And my understanding of the game today doesn’t make my hope for it too great. Too many do-gooder spoons in the pot ruining the recipe.

I find what’s happening in football to be an analogy of what is happening overall in our country. Think about it. Both entities have an out of control, autocratic leader at the top who thinks he can do whatever he likes. The next level (owners or Congress) are pretty much helpless and hapless in fighting against the leader and then take things to the courts in hopes they’ll get a ruling their way. These same folks hope and pray they can put a good enough product in the marketplace to continue to buy votes or put seats in the stands. In other words, keep their jobs.

The college and school level games are simply your state and local governments who do just as much cheating, rule breaking and stretching and politicking inside their programs and against their opponents as all too many football programs and politicians do today in theirs. And while there might be a sanction here or suspension there, it’s never really enough to cost anyone their jobs or programs. I mean, we’ll never see what happened to SMU occur ever again, nor do I fear we’ll see much backlash against the program that had the two kids blindside the official. All of this makes me sad for my favorite sport and, in many ways, our country.

Why did I write this? I don’t know. Maybe I just wish my kids could experience fall and football with the innocence and fond memories of my youth. Because today in our country, the “bell ringing” we get affects our way of life. I just miss and prefer the game I remember growing up.