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Is it too early to call the Super Bowl matchup? The Patriots’ 24-20 victory over Indianapolis puts New England on track to reach the Super Bowl, since the Colts now need the Patriots to lose twice if Indy is to have a chance of hosting the Patriots in the AFC championship game. Meanwhile, Dallas’ rout of Philadelphia reinforces the long-standing belief that the Cowboys are the class of the NFC.

New England-Dallas would be among the most marquee of Super Bowls. America’s Team vs. the Team America Loves to Hate. Anything is possible, but I don’t see that matchup being derailed. New England is a scoring machine, and while the Colts held down the Patriots reasonably well, it will be much tougher to do so in Foxboro, Mass. New England’s victory means it is likely to finish with the best AFC record. And heck, the Pats could go unbeaten. Meanwhile, two games loom that will determine Dallas’ fate. Next Sunday, the Cowboys go to the Meadowlands and play the 6-2 Giants. Dallas, 7-1, can take total command of the NFC East with a win. On Nov. 29, the Cowboys host Green Bay. The Packers, 7-1, have been playing inspired football under Brett Favre. My guess? Even if Dallas loses to the Giants, the Cowboys will win the division and secure the best record in the NFC.

There’s a word you’re going to hear often in the next few weeks.

Access.

The media often complains about limited access, particularly when it comes to football, and the public can misconstrue what we mean.

The public thinks we mean letting us in on stuff. Practices, gameplans, who’s in trouble. That kind of stuff.

That’s not what we mean. We understand keeping us at arm’s length on those issues. Sure, we’d love to poke our heads in huddles and sit in on film watching. But we don’t expect it.

What we do expect is to be able to talk to players and coaches. Simply ask them questions.

And that’s what we mean by access. And that’s what been more and more limited over the years.

Who you can talk to. When you can talk to them.

College football programs have become much more protective of players over the years, and you can understand why. The media has exploded in the last decade. Time was, maybe 3-4 guys would cover a typical OU football practice. Today, anywhere from 15-20 reporters could be there.

Also, unscrupulous forces  —  agents or agent runners, betting representatives, heck, even professional autograph collectors  —  can mix into the media throng. The schools’ response has to batten down the hatches.

OU and OSU are neither worst nor best in terms of working with the media. Some schools are remarkably open with access; USC for example. Some schools are remarkably closed; any school that employs Nick Saban, for example.

OU in 2006 set an offense day and a defense day. You could talk to offensive players after practice on Monday (or Tuesday, I forget which) and defensive players after practice the other day. That’s a once-a-week shot.

If you’re doing a story on wide receivers  —  and 98 percent of college football stories are harmless features just like that  —  that means it could be difficult to chat with Malcolm Kelly, Juaquin Iglesias and Malcolm Johnson in the short time allotted. That’s what we mean by limited access.

OSU set a policy that first-year players were off limits to the media. So when Dantrell Savage ran for 100 yards against Texas A&M, he couldn’t talk to the media. That’s just silly.

A bunker mentality does NOT help a school’s public-relations image, even though schools think it does. Most people in power on college campuses  —  presidents, athletic directors and coaches  —  are into control. They think they can control even the media, which means they are ignorant of more than 300 years of American history.

The professional sports leagues figures this out long ago. They do not try to control the media. They work with the media, not against them. They have access that is tenfold greater than that found on college campuses.

The pros figured out the media propels their billion-dollar business. Not all colleges have figured it out, even though it’s true. 

It doesn’t seem like Don Meredith spent 15 years in the network broadcast booth. Looking back on the halcyon days of Monday Night Football, it seems like Meredith analyzed NFL games for but a few seasons.

But his work indeed was lasting. And not forgotten by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which has named Meredith the 2007 recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award.

Young NFL fans really have no concept of what Meredith and Monday Night Football were like back in the days, 1970-73 and 1977-84, the three-year break courtesy of NBC, which stole away Meredith.

There’s really no counterpart in today’s television. Everyone today is so serious. Meredith was like Charles Barkley, only less biting and more charming.

While Howard Cosell gloriously infuriated us with words we never had heard and ideas that haven’t graced a football field before or since, Meredith jabbed back with feather gloves.  He carved up Cosell not with a butcher knife, but with a scalpel.

Wearing those gaudy yellow blazers, Cosell was that incredible bluster of insufferable intellectualism and Meredith was the downhome counterpart who would talk about prairie dogs when Cosell brought up world peace.

All around the context of a football game that everyone in America seemed to be watching.

John Madden, Troy Aikman, Phil Simms, all have their strengths as NFL pitch men. None can match Dandy Don and his sidekick, the New York lawyer Cosell.

 The honor from the Hall of Fame is well-deserved. Alas, it also reminds us of what we’ve lost.