When I was a kid, New Year’s Day was one of my favorite days of the year. I wasn’t hung over or hurt up in the way that ruins January 1st for many folks; I just wanted to watch college football. When I was a kid New Year’s Day meant college football.

Over the past couple of decades, with the vast shifting sands of bowl games and championship series, New Year’s Day re: college football hasn’t been the New Year’s Day of my youth. This year, though, sort of by happenstance or some such thing, New Year’s Day is once again a beautiful day, to mix a U2 metaphor.

Highlighting it all for me is, of course, Notre Dame versus Georgia, the game that will finally show that Notre Dame belongs in the top tier that has eluded it most of this century. I’ll admit the Georgias and Alabamas of the world have been a notch above the Irish most of my life. But that ends today.

Let’s call it a New Year’s resolution.

[Editor’s note: Shortly after this column was posted tragedy struck New Orleans resulting in loss of life and postponement of football. I suppose January 2 can be a good day as well.]