There have been a few books written in the past twenty years or so that wonder if sport is secretly a kind of religion.
I don’t buy that argument.
But I will tell you that one place where college football is undeniably very much like a religion is in moments like this—moments where some change occurs (the California bill giving players the ability to benefit from the use of their name, image, and likeness in this case) and people immediately launch into prophecies of the doom for the entire enterprise.
If there is sin in the camp, then the whole righteous endeavor will be corrupted.