Fall semester is now underway. Homework and classes dominate time, and sleep deprivation is already setting in for some.With the fall semester comes cooler mornings and shorter days. But for some, the fall semester means it’s time for football.

Football means spending Saturday or Sunday afternoon – or maybe even both – watching games and yelling at the TV.

Personally, I’ve always been a fan of the college game. Probably because I’ve convinced myself that college football is more about passion, desire and the love of the game … not about the money.

But, this year I was invited to join an NFL fantasy football league by some friends. I’ve always wanted to see what the hype was about. Why ESPN has fantasy football analysts. Why ESPN.com has an entire section of the Web site devoted to fantasy games. And why 35 million people, some of whom pay money to join leagues and win prizes, play fantasy football.

So I joined.

Instantly, I found out what fantasy football was all about. I was reading scouting reports, looking for sleepers (someone who is expected to have a breakout year), and busts (someone who is not expected to live up to expectations), learning offenses and defenses, learning how scoring in fantasy worked and preparing for draft day.

Draft day was a couple weeks before the NFL season started and teams were selected. I had some ideas about who I wanted and what I needed, and I knew the big fantasy football names like Adrian Perterson and Drew Brees. But I found myself picking players based on recognizable names and whoever was suggested to me.

The real fun, though, comes on Sundays.

Our league is small, with only eight players, and most of us are good friends who spend a lot of time together. We know each other’s personalities and favorite players, so we can usually figure out what trades will be accepted and rejected without even officially offering it.

Week one started on a Thursday, and I was playing one of my best friends and the guy who started the league.

All week, ESPN predicted that I would beat him because my players were projected to do better than his. But every time we would talk about our matchup on week one, Brandon, my opponent, would always say “Those are only projections,” or “They never make the points that ESPN says they will.”

For the first time, I sat down to watch an NFL game other than the Super Bowl. But that’s when I noticed something interesting.

I found myself not rooting for teams to win games but for players. I wanted Drew Brees to thrown a touchdown to Marques Colston or Maurice Jones-Drew to run it into the end zone. And in some cases I was rooting for players to fail. I wanted LenDale White to score and not Chris Johnson. I wanted Peyton Manning to throw an interception.

I felt awful.

I felt like I was ruining the game of football. It wasn’t about the team or the love of the game or the passion anymore. It instantly became about the player and their specific achievements.

But I won the matchup. And now I needed to make my team better.

D.J., one of the eight guys in our league, had two players I wanted, and I had two he wanted. So I told him I wanted to make a trade.

“Just make me an offer,” he said. “Make me an offer I can’t refuse.”

I offered him a trade, two of his players for three of mine. But that wasn’t good enough. Apparently, it was an offer he could refuse. So, on top of that, I offered money.

I knew he was hungry. I knew he wanted Wendy’s. And I knew he didn’t want to spend his money, but he would spend mine.

So I offered $5. He eventually took the $5 and the trade.

I felt even worse this time.

Not only was I killing the game by cheering for specific players, but now I was bribing my friends to make my fantasy team better.

I feel terrible for killing what I loved about football and for bribing friends, but in the end I won the matchup and my team was better for it.

In one click of the mouse, one click of the button that added me to the ESPN fantasy league, I killed everything that I believed was right with football.

But my team is thriving – and winning.

Author