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MORGANTOWN -- On the first night of what has become something of a national holiday known as the National Football League's annual draft, celebrated over three days that across America has become Christmas and St. Patrick's Day all rolled into one, more than 120,000 fans gathered in Kansas City to watch their favorite team open its gifts and down all various sorts of alcoholic spirits.
The scene was mimicked in homes and taverns across America with no fewer than three national televisions, the near religious rites of passage from college football to the NFL, with at least 10 million watching and probably more.
A confession must be made here, for other than an occasional twitch of the remote, I did not check in to the proceedings other than for a brief update as I, like so many West Virginians, don't have a dog -- or for that matter bird or a cat or horse -- in that fight.
Once upon a time the NFL Draft may have offered up some curiosity, for this was a passage from amateur status to professional. But these days, I fear some of the lower draft picks may have to take a pay cut to go from college football to the NFL with the inclusion of NIL pay now far more important than a diploma to so many players.
To be truthful, it is difficult to understand the hypnotic effect the NFL draft has on its fans, it being nothing more than "The Price is Right" without the models handing out the gifts.
There are more mock drafts than mock NCAA basketball tournament pairings over the course of a year and there is far more money involved in the public betting upon tournament pools and game outcomes than is wagered upon the outcome of the draft.
In West Virginia, the only pro team we now worry about plays at WVU -- stop shouting, it's just a joke, although it really isn't all that funny.
That there isn't more interest in the NFL draft in these parts is in direct relation with the results in September, October and November on the football field. Bad football teams usually have bad players and bad players are not involved in the NFL draft.
Whereas at one time WVU was acknowledged as a "football school" in the past decade that has morphed into it being more of a "basketball school", even though the basketball results haven't been anything to write home about either.
But interest in basketball is soaring while, if we might pun for a moment, the interest in football is painfully "soaring."
Whereas in the good years for football, the Rodriguez years or the Nehlen years, WVU might have five or six or seven or eight players drafted, that many going back into the Sam Huff era, too.
Recently, though, WVU potential draftees are relegated to the late rounds, if at all, and that probably is no different this season as defensive tackle Dante Stills and Bryce Ford-Wheaton anxiously await to find their fate, each predicted to go in the fifth or sixth round, if at all.
That is more a statement on the condition of the West Virginia football program and how far respect for it has fallen than it is on the abilities of those two players. It's almost like collecting baseball cards, the ones from the championship teams often go for more than those from lower-level teams.
One might suspect on Thursday night that in West Virginia there was viable interest in the Boston Celtics' series clinching victory over the Atlanta Hawks, even with the NFL draft competing against it on three stations, due to the fact that Mountaineer alum Joe Mazzulla is coaching the Celtics.
For so many years you couldn't find a WVU player on an NFL roster or being chosen on draft day for that league, but that changed when Gale Catlett mercifully retired and John Beilein began turning out competitive, exciting teams and Bob Huggins created his own brand of WVU excitement as he took the team to the Final Four and became a member of the Hall of Fame himself.
The Coliseum now, every bit as much as the tailgating parking lots at Mountaineer Field, is the social capital of Morgantown, attendance reaching top levels even without teams winning 20 games or going deep into the season.
This year's recruiting magic by Huggins, cramming his hand into the transfer portal and pulling out rabbit after rabbit, has created the same kind of buzz there was in the Pittsnogle and Da'Sean Butler eras.
It is crucial for WVU's football program to get up off the floor right now -- this season -- and reclaim its place in the state, and that would require Neal Brown to find a way to beat either Penn State or Pitt before dipping its toe into the new configured Big 12 waters to create the kind of stir the program needs to get the public back involved.