College football is booming, chaotic and more confusing than ever

America’s second biggest sporting obsession returns this weekend, which means marching bands, 100,000-seat stadiums, ancient rivalries and, increasingly, the operating model of a sport being invented in real timeIs college football healthy? It’s a seductive question, one that now comes up every year around this time. Actually, it never recedes, so it’s just with the sport all the time. It’s also the wrong question, because whoever answers it is free to choose their own adventure. The television ratings are way up there in the galaxy. Money rains down on dozens of programs and thousands of players. Marching bands continue to march. Yet a lot of teams are stranded by realignment or an economic inability to keep up in a transfer arms race. Their fans – actually any team’s fans – may be exhaus