Hey, I saw in the paper that the national championship for college football was to be decided by a game Monday evening between Ohio State and Louisiana State.

If you see me on Tuesday, let me know who won.

Other than fans of the Buckeyes and Tigers, does anybody truly care about this game?

When you heap 32 other bowl games before the national championship game and expect the drama and excitement build to that one big game, it's not going to happen.

I'd like to see Ohio State win, just because I'll pull for anyone in the Northeast portion of the country (e.g., Pitt, West Virginia, Boston College) in a game to decide a champion.

Just for the reason that several years ago, teams like Florida State, Florida, Miami and Notre Dame were winning all the time and it was nice to see someone up north win.

But I digress.

The game does not have my interest. New Year's Day is the best day to wrap all these bowl games up. It's still the holiday and draws a clean break for the fall season and everyone can then focus on college basketball, the NFL playoffs, hockey or pro basketball.

The viewing public is probably at its best, whereas playing for the national title on Monday, Jan. 7 sounds dull.

These teams have not played a game in more than a month and to expect them to play a strong game is expecting a lot. Those who are prepared will account for themselves well, but there are too many everyday distractions now that the holidays are over.

Having used up your final vacation days, plus time off for the holidays, that's one thing. Asking you boss for time off after the holidays so you can fly down to watch the game is another.

I think it was several years ago when some of the bowl games where moved to Jan. 2 or Jan. 3 they fell on a Sunday, which was an NFL playoff weekend. To keep an audience, the game was moved to after New Year's, but it never reverted back.

Now we're stuck watching a meaningful game on a meaningless date.

On New Year's Day, you had six bowl games, which included several teams (Florida, Southern Cal, Georgia, Hawaii) that could lay claim to a Bowl Championship Series title game bid, as well as Jan. 2 (West Virginia) and Jan. 3 (Kansas, Virginia Tech), but the International Bowl on Jan. 5 (Rutgers and Ball State) and the GMACBowl Jan. 6 (Bowling Green and Tulsa) were duds.

I assume the college presidents against a championship game format thought the latter two games were like cleansing your palette before the big championship game.

Or maybe you could use those two nights to rest up for the big game, which seems a bit of a disappointment.

Hopefully, those who watched at least got to see a good game. I know that when I catch the highlights, people will already be looking ahead to next year's potential title game.

I'll try to just sleep through that one too.