Good news. I get ESPN America over here, and I actually can see some college football live for the first time in two years.

So it was, tonight, that I remembered that it was Saturday afternoon back home, and I knew the colleges were playing lots of game on the last non-NFL weekend, and the next thing I knew …

I was watching the final minutes of Northwestern at Boston College.

Had no idea of this new rule about taking 10 seconds off the clock if the offense commits a deadball penalty in the final minute. BC might have been able to chuck the ball into the end zone at least twice, in a 24-17 game and 14 seconds left, but their tackle jumped, they lost 5 yards and 10 seconds, and now it was :04 to play with the clock set to wind as soon as the official made the sign … and BC’s quarterback was sacked. Interesting end.

Then ESPN America went to a less-interesting game, one of the several dozen “big school vs. mid-major school (do they still call them I-AA schools?)” matchups, this one involving Florida State and Louisiana Monroe, which was never competitive.

Florida State was good but not dominant, but Monroe never really got anything going, and the game was so wretched it put me to sleep. Literally.

I didn’t stay up long enough to see Oregon lose at LSU, as I thought they would. Oregon is pretty good, but the Ducks don’t seem to have the steel to win big games in tough environments. Not yet.

So, yes, this is good. On Saturday nights here, when I get off from work I can see parts of some early college games, and I won’t feel quite so exiled from American sports. College football was one of my favorite pastimes, but I hadn’t seen a regular-season game since October of 2009.

I look forward to something really random, like Fresno State and San Jose State or Akron and Marshall, later this year.