On a cold January evening in 1984 in Omaha, I slammed my bedroom door shut and began bawling my eyes out. All because a guy dropped an oblong ball on a field in Miami, Florida, and the scoreboard showed “Miami 31, Nebraska 30″ with no time left in the game.

I was in grade school then, but I can remember it like it was last night.  That’s the raw emotional power of college football.  Like other sports fanatics, some of my life’s vivid memories involve a team I have followed thru my entire conscious memory.

When you’re from Nebraska, you really have no option.  When my wife and I decided on a Fall wedding, the first thing I did was cross off all the home games as possible dates; we might have as well gone off and eloped otherwise.  To be fair, we’re not alone.  There are many other teams around the country that hold such power over their fans.

If you have no interest in college football, then you’ve most likely ignored the tectonic plate shifts happening this week.  Not surprisingly, I have found myself completely engrossed in the palace intrigue that has unfolded.   Here’s a quick primer if you’re not like me:

• Television contracts create multimillion dollar revenue streams for universities
• Most university teams are members of a conference that includes schools relatively near each other in geography to make it easier to schedule games
• These conferences are the major power centers in college football – very similar to the fiefdoms of the Middle Ages
• The Big Ten Conference launched their own cable channel and are making LOTS of money despite earlier setbacks
• Despite every other sport in college athletics having championship tournaments, college football’s best division doesn’t (because the conferences make LOTS and LOTS of money from an outdated end of season tradition called “bowl games”)
• To make more money, universities have decided to make their conferences bigger and sell the broadcast rights to their conference games (especially their conference championship games)
• The Big Ten is one of the few conferences to not have a championship game and now wants to expand its membership to support one
• This week, my alma mater and beloved team, University of Nebraska accepted the invitation to leave its current conference and join the Big Ten
• All heck broke out with seemingly every school and conference rethinking their “marriages” and some jumping ship to join a rising class of “Mega Conferences”

So why should you care? Because college football will save the US economy.

Forget all about the rational actor model you learned in Economics 101, Nobel prizes have been awarded in recent years to economists who have proven that irrationality drives the economy. As a lifelong college football fan, I can think of nothing more irrational than devoting one’s life to the success and failures of 18-23 year old athletes.

While some might bemoan the millions and millions of dollars that flow thru college football coffers, let’s step back and realize why.  Money = Emotion.  Money = Passion.  College football and other college sports wouldn’t make so much money if NO ONE CARED.  Obviously, people care – the same cannot be said of many important social issues.  So let’s embrace this passion and put it to work for the American economy.

To channel a couple tech startup founders I heard speak this past week, I haven’t figured out how to monetize all this passion yet, but let’s not allow that inconvenient truth from building out this idea.

In true web fashion, I am crowdsourcing the monetization strategy for how we leverage college football to save the US economy.  I hereby announce the launch of the “Flying Wedge Prize” that will be awarded to the person who offers up the best idea in the comment section. The winner will receive a nominal cash prize (25 cents paid a later date) and the license to place a “Flying Wedge Prize Winner” badge on your blog.

You have until Thursday, June 17 at 12 noon EST to submit your idea.  Now, go!

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During his professional career, Scott Henderson has been an interactive agency executive, major gift fundraiser, foundation executive, magazine editor, marketing consultant, and president of a capital campaign firm.  Today, he is managing principal of CauseShift, a team of strategists who help organizations provoke, connect, and market. Current clients and projects include P&G, UNICEF, and wecanendthis.com, a yearlong, multi-partner initiative to spark innovation and engage more people in the cause of ending hunger in America. In addition to Sundayed, Scott finds time to write for Advancing Philanthropy, Chronicle of Philanthropy, and Technorati.  Even with these accomplishments, Scott is most famous for being married to Jennifer, father to Ethan, and a proud Nebraskan living on the north shore of Boston.  Find him on Twitter @scottyhendo.