This is an opinion column.

Sometimes, we need a reset.

Just a reminder of why we’re the way we are — lunatics who have loved this sport of college football from the beginning.

We’ve become jaded over the years, though. We see the doomsday scenarios of a sport in upheaval.

NIL is killing the sport.

Transfers are killing the sport.

Politicians would kill the sport if they had the brains.

The sport’s been killed more times than an indecisive deer living next to an interstate.

That’s why we all need to return to our roots, now more than ever.

It’s time for a cleanse and a reminder.

For me, it was the box my parents brought down from my hometown of Louisville when they visited last weekend. Apparently, it was time to purge the closets of all the old stuff I left behind after growing up.

There was one box in particular that I just stared at for days after offloading it onto the dining room floor.

It was my childhood in four cardboard walls.

It was the seed of all of this.

It’s why I’m here typing to you right now — the box that became my reset.

Opening it took me back to the beginning, a portal nobody can curse. There were stacks of hardcover University of Louisville football and basketball media guides. We had a neighbor who was an assistant coach who knew I was a little sports head in the second or third grade.

I’d read those books like they were novels. Memorizing stats, bios, facts, records, stadium capacities. Just all of it. There was a purity to it all. No job to do, story to write or paycheck to collect.

Just love.

Next to that were rolled-up posters like scrolls of our founding documents. Inside were the team photos a wide-eyed, eternally smiling version of myself would take to spring games or open practice events for autographs. Unrolling those heavy early-90s posters revealed those signatures that were, for years, my most treasured possessions.

These players were gods to me.

The thought of a grown-up version of myself tossing them in the trash was nauseating even to that (allegedly) grown-up self.

So I just sat and looked at them one afternoon.

Just as in awe now as I was then, but for different reasons.

Those Sharpie scribbles and Bic pen scrawls likely meant nothing to those athletes, but even 30 years later, they mean everything to that little kid.

That’s why we’re all here today.

Why I’m writing this incredibly self-indulgent column and why, for some reason, you’re still reading it.

These moments bind us all.

A few weeks ago, I shared a few blurry pictures and videos I took on my work Facebook page to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Alabama’s BCS championship win over Texas in the Rose Bowl. They were memories burned in my memory from my first year as a college football beat writer — a dream come true in so many senses.

But it was the comments that followed that struck me. People began sharing their memories of that night and what it meant in their lives. One reader recalled going to that game with their father, their hero who has since died, but those photos brought those wonderful memories back to life, if only for a moment.

That is what this is all about.

We’re all older now.

Memories fade as posters yellow and autographs smear.

We might not have that parent by our side at games anymore, but those afternoons –once taken for granted — will live in our hearts for as long as the games are played.

Because this sport isn’t dying.

The negativity and cynicism won’t rob our memories, just like they shouldn’t steal those still to be made as our kids grow up.

College football is evolving and that comes with growing pains.

But this is no time to give up on the game that bridges our adult lives with the innocence of youth.

Sometimes, we just need that box of memories to remind us.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.