Guaranteed, this is not the first time someone has suggested that, if Karl Marx were alive today … he would be 190 years old, and doctors would be staring at him with mouths agape — like rubes at the carnival’s two-headed calf.

As I was saying, if Karl Marx were alive today, he wouldn’t be talking about how religion is the opiate of the masses. He would be astute enough, and have been in enough sports bars, to realize that sports is the opiate of the masses.

So while my friends are getting fired and the newspaper industry that we all loved melts like a snowman on the Fourth of July … I’m going to talk about college football.

How ’bout them Gators?!?!

Really. This is about college football. Really. I’ll get back to anger and despair in a moment. And to Hong Kong goofiness soon after.

Right now … we have to talk about college football.

Among newspapers still publishing … that have their own college football writers … today probably is the day that 99.9 percent of them are feigning outrage (outrage, I tell you!) over the horror that is the Bowl Championship Series.

But at the end of the day, short of everyone playing everyone … the right team is No. 1.

Florida deserves it.

Really, only four teams can even be in this discussion.

Let’s go from least-worthy to most-worthy, of those four.

–Utah. You U of U Utes went 13-0. Congratulations. No one else was undefeated. But I have an issue with your schedule and your conference. You won by two at Michigan, before we realized Michigan had its worst team since Bo Schembechler was in diapers. You beat Oregon State at home by three. You won at Air Force by seven, at home against Weber State (!) by 37-21. (I wasn’t sure Weber still played football.) You had a three-point game at New Mexico and at home against a team known as the Horned Frogs. That just doesn’t cut it. The victory over Alabama? A nice game, but the Tide overachieved all year, had its heart torn out by Florida in the SEC title game and then just mailed it in in the Sugar Bowl. Play Michigan every year, get Weber off the sked, win more BCS bowl games … and maybe we’ll talk.

–Texas. I liked the Longhorns … until the Big 12 started playing bowl games. And Oklahoma lost, Texas Tech was kicked around by Mississippi and Oklahoma State couldn’t stop Oregon. Yeah, Oregon, of the “pathetic” Pac-10. And Texas? Lucky to beat an Ohio State team playing a child at quarterback and without its running back in the fourth quarter. And maybe Texas still loses if it doesn’t get the great spot on fourth-and-3 on the desperate TD drive. Going 12-1 is nice, but you might not be better than Utah, given that no one in your conference plays defense.

–USC. Ahhhh. What is it with the Trojans and the middling Pac-10 teams? They can be counted on, now, to lose at least one game to somebody they should handle. That Thursday night at Oregon State in September is a game the senior class will remember For Ever — as will Pete Carroll. The rest of the time, the Trojans were close to magnificent, and had the best defense in the country. (Wait and see how many guys off that defense end up starting in the NFL; like 10 or 12, even 15, counting part-time players.) But you lost to Oregon State back when the Pac-10 couldn’t even win games against the Mountain West. You had to know you couldn’t afford to stumble and yet you did. Sorry. Can’t put you higher than No. 2.

–Florida. Played in a hellacious conference, and tore it up, aside from the 31-30 loss to what turned out to be a very good Mississippi team. Check some of the scores: 51-21 over then-No. 4 LSU; 63-5 over Kentucky; 49-10 over then-No. 6 Georgia; 56-6 over then-No. 25 South Carolina; 45-15 over then-No. 20 Florida State. And then the 31-20 comeback against Alabama in the SEC showdown — back when Bama thought it was a team of destiny and bullet-proof. It’s hard beating teams that think they can never lose, but the Gators did it.

Florida vs. USC would be a hell of a game, and I would like to see it. But Utah would like to see the Utes get a crack, and Texas figures it should have a shot at Florida, as well. And, well, we’ve played enough games.

I think Florida beats Utah and Texas without much trouble.

Florida and USC? The question is: Can USC score, say, 21 points against a pretty good Florida defense? I’m really not sure they can.  Mark Sanchez? Still not convinced about him.  And who is the game-breaker on offense now that Joe McKnight is officially a fumble-prone underachiever?

And Tim Tebow. That guy is special. He is a monster. I can imagine him meeting up with, say, Rey Maualuga in the open field … and trainers having to help Maualuga off the field. And Percy Harvin would break at least one big play.

I think Florida wins that game,  on the order of 21-17.

So there. We don’t need to play it. But we can think about it. And feel free to discuss it amongst yourselves.

And there! We just went several minutes without spending one minute thinking about print journalism and the plight of the ink-stained wretches and the capitalist swine who are holding down the masses. Sports did that. Sports and our opium.

Pass the pipe, Wang Chung.