Rivalry Weekend started on Thanksgiving this year with Texas winning a comeback game against Texas A&M. Today has been filled with football games that have national title implications as well as games that mean nothing to anyone but the legions of fans for the participating schools.

Today has seen the Iron Bowl, The Egg Bowl, and the Civil War. Fans won or lost bragging rights for the entire state in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Michigan beat Ohio State in what fans simply call “The Game.”

Wonder what could happen if all the money, all the time, and all the emotional buy-in associated with these sporting contests were turned instead to finding a cure for cancer, or ending hunger in the richest nation in the world, or building houses for the homeless?

How much land could all the money spent on alcohol so frat boys and frat boy fathers could get nice and drunk while making fools of themselves, sometimes on national television, buy around historical landmarks like battlefields of the REAL Civil War and protect those historic places from encroaching development?

How many clothes could all that cash spent on foam fingers and chicken wings buy?

You know what? We’ll never know because — in general — the people of this country will never care as much about helping others or advancing important agendas like education, jobs, and medical care as they will the game of football.