I have a confession to make. I have an addiction problem and I’m having withdrawals from “footballitis.” That’s right. I’m hooked on football.

This footballitis is something I get every year about this time and lasts until some time in August.

There’s only one cure and that is to find a football fix.

And believe me when I say that is very hard to do in the middle of July. It’s nearly impossible to find live football on TV this time of year.

I’ve had to resort to first watching “futbol.” You know, that sport we in America call soccer. That certainly didn’t work. The only similarity futbol has to football is that they play on a green rectangular field.

Finally, last month I was able to find some honest to goodness real live football on the TV. Granted, I had to go out of the United States to locate it, but it is actual football. I found it on ESPN of all places.

The only fix I have been able to find is in the Canadian Football League. Yep, the CFL, where it seems the receivers are always offsides and at least three of them are moving towards the line of scrimmage at the snap of the ball.

If you’re not familiar with CFL football, it is similar to American football, except the offense has only three downs instead of four to move ten yards for a first down, the endzones are 20 yards deep instead of 10, the goal posts are in the middle of the endzone instead of the back of the endzone and the CFL has some incredibly unusual team nicknames, like Tiger-Cats, Argonauts and Stampeders.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch CFL football, it is very entertaining. The players are high caliber with many of them having either played in the NFL or are trying to land a job on an NFL team. In fact, players like quarterback Warren Moon spent significant time in the CFL before coming to the NFL.

There’s also an Ole Miss connection with former Rebel signal-caller Kent Austin working as the head coach of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

I’m sure there are some other names you may recognize with 43 former Southeastern Conference football players competing “up North” in the CFL. In fact, the BC Lions will take on the Montreal Alouettes tonight (6:30 p.m.) and Austin’s Tiger-Cats will face the Saskatchewan Roughriders Saturday night (9 p.m.) on the ESPN network.

So if you need a football fix, I highly recommend tuning in and catching some CFL professional football. I’ll be getting my weekly cure, that’s for sure and counting down the days until August arrives and live football returns here in America.

Rob Sigler is managing editor of The Oxford EAGLE. Contact him at rob.sigler@oxfordeagle.com.