I love college football. But I hate the timeouts, the penalties. Lou Holtz' half-time chatter and the other constant time wasters which tend to turn an hour-long game into a four-hour marathon.

But there was a technology -- which at least until today -- made some of the more boring gridiron games tolerable. My Comcast digital video recorder was a trusty ally during football season, allowing me to fast-forward through recorded games to the exact moment that I wanted to watch.

However, to my frustration and apparently the frustration of other sports fans across the Seattle area, Comcast has meddled with this more time-efficient method for watching games and all other TV programs. I noticed this today while attempting to watch a recording of the Florida-Miami (Ohio) game on ESPN. I'd fast-forward to the beginning of a play, and auto-correct would kick-in setting me back to a place I didn't want to be. That might have been the end of an interview with Florida head coach Urban Meyer, an inane sideline report or an ad for Bass Pro Shops.

You'd think if I fast-forwarded to a point in the recording, that would be the place I wanted to watch. But that's not how auto correct works.

The worst part is when you move through a commercial (perhaps the greatest benefit of a DVR) to the beginning of the next play. With auto correct, the recording pushes you back 10 seconds into the ad or some stupid promo.

Now, who would like that?

I called Comcast today to air my frustrations. And apparently I'm not the only one who'd like to go back to the old way.

A Comcast customer service rep told me that she hated the auto correct feature too, noting that she'd been receiving a number of complaints from customers.

"I'd say more often than not people don't care for it," the customer service rep told me. However, some folks do like it. My brother, also an avid football fan, tells me that he's grown to like it on non-sports related TV shows.

"My thumb isn't quick enough to stop dead when the commercial is over, so the new service does it for me," he says. However, he has yet to try it out on a football game this season.

My brother also notes that you simply have to "unlearn the old way and relearn the new way." That took him about a week. But the new way for football fans means you need to fast-forward 10 seconds into the play in order to get reset to the proper place. That sucks.

The customer service rep took my name, registered my complaint and offered some hope that the Comcast would offer the ability in a future upgrade for customers to turn it off. I hope they do. [And while I am at it, why is the UW-BYU game on a Comcast channel I can't access?]

I've been a loyal customer of Comcast for a number of years, and haven't quite been ready to cut the cord like some TechFlash readers. [See: "How to save $420 on your Comcast cable bill this year"]

I realize this is a relatively minor issue in the big scheme of things, and that 10 years ago TV fans had to endure the entire game. But I'd grown accustomed to the new method of football viewing that the Comcast DVR allowed, and I liked it.