The black sky emptied as about 50,000 rain-soaked University of Colorado football fans exhaled in improbable joy at Folsom Field. This was after the Hail Mary pass caught as time expired, after the game-clinching fumble that squirted out of the end zone in overtime.

Students poured onto the field. In the dry cocoon of the press box, cynicism washed away. I laughed. That’s when I came closest to answering the question that I had come to ask:

What is the point of college football these days?

For more than a year, from a distance, I had watched Colorado absorb the “Prime Effect” of Coach Deion Sanders, the famous former football player nicknamed Prime Time. He has injected the place with enthusiasm and brought it fresh attention. Friends and family have been so gaga that I worry for their senses.

Colorado is my alma mater. I have attended games in Boulder since I was a kid in the 1970s. But it’s 2024. I am a reporter. I have questions.

Mainly, what does college football have to do with college?

This is not about Sanders, but about the rest of us. Even if we dismiss the debate over playing brain-breaking games at institutions tasked with making people smarter (which we collectively do, it seems), does a multibillion-dollar sports enterprise, attached to American universities, make any sense?

These questions, asked of friends before Colorado’s homecoming game, were met with quizzical looks that said, “You OK?”