Oh believe me, I'm extremely glad to have lived through many of the LSU seasons I lived through...
I think I trace the death of my give-a-damn to a specific point in the 2014 LSU/Alabama game. It didn't happen all at once, but I clearly recall a moment when I thought, "What am I doing? Why do I care so much? I'm not so sure this interests me like it did." The interest was still rather strong at that point, though.
I hate to say this, but that snowballed the next few years, and, unfortunately, while I gave it a lot of lip service, the 2019 season never excited me or caused me to care like I wished I did. I was fully aware of what I was watching. I knew I should be loving the hell out of it. But it never meant as much to me as 2003, for example, or 2007. Or other seasons that didn't end with NCs. One sad piece of evidence of that is I can't name tons of guys from that team, just the major stars, really. otoh, I can still remember the backup left-guard from the 2005 team, and a long list of people like him, from many years. I remember events and game-flow from specific games, who we played, what point in the season we played them, all the narratives.
I've reached a similar point with following sports where I don't miss it if I'm occupied with something else - like overseas travel, working the weekend, or busy at something like a book fair or taking one of my nieces/nephews to their soccer games or dance classes. I still dependably follow sports, mainly through radio shows but I do not absorb myself in spectating sports to the obsessive degree with which I did for about a fifteen year period, from about 10 - 25 years old. I will probably always follow sports thanks to my personal history with sports giving me a childhood home of sorts, with which to pick back up on when I have the time. But overall I've reached a point where I can entirely replace sports with different interests I've developed into my adulthood.
Remember as a kid you and your friends were fascinated by something like Star Wars or any other kid property from the ongoing, ever changing Saturday morning cartoon lineup? And well into your teens you and most of your friends had moved on to other interests such as competing for a spot on the baseball team or getting your driver's license? But there was always those one or two classmates who kept themselves (and still do) immersed in Star Wars?
I believe that like most, I similarly grew out of my kid like fascination with sports, though it took well into my twenties. Since then I've stopped following college football at a granular detail, such as recruiting and studying rosters. But, like you, I still remember rosters from that era more than I would know current rosters. For every few dozen of us, there's a man our age, like an adult Star Wars fanatic, who's never loosened their grip on living their life through college football. You can hear them dialing into Paul Finebaum's show.
And sports still has social value for me. I just bought six tickets to a game that I'll be going to with college friends, some of whom I only see once a year. Going to college football games are among the live events I most look forward to every year, but I'm glad to be free of the exhausting narratives, betting and fantasy leagues associated with fandom.
