THIS IS HOW we know college football has changed in a very profound way. This is no longer the game of Grange and Gipp and Mr. Outside and Archie Griffin. Or even of Irvin and Deion and the Bear and the Boz. Or Hurry Up or Hopalong or Crazylegs or Gino or Ricky or Weinke or Crouch. Herschel and Flutie and Vinnie and Bo.

It’s no longer a restricted club. It’s open to everyone now.

College football is different now.

We know this because Colt Brennan is a Heisman candidate. College football will never be the same.

TRUE, HAWAII HAS pushed people for awards before. But this is no push. This is no plea. This is different. The world is different. UH isn’t pushing so much as just riding the wave.

Tim Chang - I hold great affection for him for how he handled all he went through - when he was a “Heisman candidate” his biggest national cheerleader was Norman Chad.

I got the feeling that not all Hawaii fans realized Norman Chad was a humor columnist.

Brennan is better. But the time is better, too. The world is ready for it. There’s already been a big story in the Washington Post. The New York Times. He’s been interviewed by Sports Illustrated.

I asked former longtime UH sports information director Eddie Inouye how this compares to, say, Jeff Sydner’s Heisman campaign.

Inouye laughed.

And laughed.

OK, let’s pause for a second and wait for Eddie to stop.

SO WHAT’S DIFFERENT now? Everything. But succinctly, two words - TV.

ESPN exploded, and now college football has, too. It’s too big now for the Haves to horde all to themselves. The Have Nots are all jumping into the pool, Lee Corso leading the way.

Oh, there are still differences, as any BCS conspiracy theorist can tell you. There’s money. There’s still a caste system, still advantages to being Notre Dame. But there were 32 bowl games last year, which means that 64 of 119 teams could count themselves among the elite. (UH has been to the most bowl games in its history the past five years? Every mid-major has been to the most bowl games in its history the past five years.)

And national television. Inouye says that was the big breakthrough - how Al Noga became an All-American, everyone could see him beat Michigan’s star tackle (”He was just beating him,” Inouye says). Hawaii used to be lucky in that it was exotic enough to snag one of these TV games at the end of the year.

Now there is national television almost every night of the week, and, well, somebody has to fill those slots. Miami (Ohio) was on some form of ESPN five times last year. An Ohio official confirmed that the Bobcats (yes, that’s Bobcats, not Buck-eyes) were on national television six times in 2005.

Coaches can even make big bucks anywhere now. “College football has changed so much in the last 10 years,” June Jones said in July. “You couldn’t predict it.”

YOU COULDN’T HAVE ever foreseen this. College football is still a sport of kings (Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, USC), but now it seems like anyone could be royalty for a day. Maybe even a day in December in downtown New York.

Wake Up the Echoes. Hail to the Victors. Co-ed.