“And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

College football season kicks off in earnest this weekend, so let me tell you what I can remember about my first college football game.

My father took me to watch Auburn play Georgia Southern – Auburn’s 1991 season opener. Being only 7 years old at the time, I cannot tell you much of anything about the game itself.

Wikipedia tells me the final ended up being a 32-17 Auburn win. I can faintly recall Dad saying at the time the score was closer than it should have been.

What I really remember is parking near the old ROTC hangar amidst a sea of more cars than I had ever seen, looking up at the imposing cement structure that was Jordan-Hare Stadium and hearing Georgia Southern’s band play the same song ad nauseum to keep up their spirits.

I also remember trying to keep up with Dad as he speed walked back to the truck to try and beat the worst of the crush of traffic streaming out of the loveliest village of the plain at game’s end.

The experience was at times overwhelming, at times strange, but it was new, exciting and just plain fun, overall. I have gone to many more Auburn games since that day. Last year I was able to take my daughter, who was also 7 at the time, to her first game along with Dad and my wife.

What never crossed my mind when making a decision about whether or not to attend an Auburn game was the number of national championships Auburn had won. Yet, Auburn’s athletic director, John Cohen, has apparently been stewing over this topic.

Cohen announced last week Auburn will now recognize a whopping seven additional national titles than previously tallied, bringing Auburn’s total to nine.

Auburn is far from the first college athletic program to boost its championship count suddenly.

In fact, many people credit former University of Alabama sports information director Wayne Atcheson for being the first to think of this way back in the mid-1980s when he declared Alabama would recognize 12 national championships rather than the seven it had recognized up until that point.

Doing this is possible because of college football’s lack of a playoff system for most of its history. Sports media members voting in a poll for the number one team became the most accepted national championship selection method, but not the only one, before the recent addition of playoffs.

Often, local bias, favoritism of name brand programs, and a lack of television coverage that would allow poll voters to watch some of the teams under championship consideration clouded the process.

Even the concept of naming a team as national champion did not exist until decades after college football had taken root in American sport, allowing sports historians – some more creditable than others – to declare national champions retroactively for those early years.

So with college football’s historical lack of a clear method to declare a champion, many people – with Cohen now joining their ranks – say why not claim more and let the coaches and players on those teams stick out their chests and say they were national champions?

Part of Cohen’s stated reasoning included, “For too long, Auburn has chosen a humble approach to our program’s storied history …”

That approach was chosen because humbleness along with honesty, truthfulness and practicality are written into the Auburn Creed, the list of values all Auburn people are expected to embrace. Cohen’s decision feels more like an insecure reaction to a run of four losing seasons while Alabama and Georgia have recently experienced unprecedented football success.

Now, given Nick Saban’s recent run of championships, Atcheson’s decision seems unnecessary and, in some ways, has backfired by cheapening Alabama’s more legitimate and universally recognized championships.

Any time Alabama does something moderately good, other fans joke, “Looks like Alabama is going to claim another national championship.” Cohen’s choice similarly takes some luster from Auburn’s 1957 and 2010 titles.

But I suppose I should not be surprised. This is only a reflection of the world in which we now live. Facts are less important than what each individual or each group believes is true or at least should be true in all manner of subjects.

I guess all that’s left to say is bring home that 10^th national championship this year, boys.