Idle Thoughts, while waiting for college bowl season, next season for the football Giants and for a nationwide ban on Christmas music:

• Dr. Idle, Dr. I to his close friends, begins today by saluting the state championship New London 8U football team, a winner in the title game over Springfield last weekend at Rentschler Field.

Congrats to the team members: Tae Robinson, Kai Edwards, Jaiden Annibalini-Winston, Deuce Stanford, Eli Johnson, Cam Haley, Shay Lee-Seales, Ronnell Tate, Sawyer Stewart, Aiden Sihabout, Christian Moore, Samir Ibrahim, Izaiah Arias, Jalani Singleton, Alvindow Goode, Jasiah Santos, Noah Peck, Grayson Sharp, Erimiahs Rosado Rivera, Kaleo Dozier, Ar’Nell Tate and C.J. Roderick Jr.

The coaches: Eric Robinson, Abdul Thomas, Kevin McKinnon, Corley Shannon, Darnell Williams, Alberto Garcia, Lawrence Edwards, Jamel Annibalini and Barquis Haley.

• Kudos to the CIAC for (finally) allowing state high school coaches to coach their athletes in the summer.

The proposal will allow coaches to work with their athletes beginning the Monday following the spring championship weekend (in June) through the second Saturday in August. Coaches may meet with their athletes two days a week for two hours. It cannot be mandatory.

Always nice to see the CIAC willing to listen to its constituency, which has been screaming about this for years.

• A funny thing happened as Dr. I has enjoyed poking fun at the Red Sox all these years.

The Yankees have become their own punchline.

Did you catch amateur hour last week? First, Brian Cashman embarked on an expletive-ridden rant at the media — as if the media doesn’t have the right to question why Yankee fans had to endure immortals Billy McKinney, Jake Bauers and Franchy Cordero all summer.

Then Hal Steinbrenner told the media that 1) the Yankees need to bunt more next year; and 2) he consulted Nick Swisher for advice on whether to keep Aaron Boone.

Nick Swisher.

What, Nick Buoniconti wasn’t available?

• Dr. I has received quite a bit of correspondence in recent days about the difficulty of watching the UConn women on SNY.

Wish there was more Dr. I could do. There isn’t, other than to suggest a cable system or carrier that carries SNY.

Example: In recent years, Dr. I has gone from Frontier to YouTube TV, Fubo and now the DirecTV stream in pursuit of watching his teams.

Suggestion: Try the Fubo base plan at $74.99 per month ($54.99 the first two months). It carries SNY and several other sports channels (but not YES).

• If Susan Sarandon married actor Norman Fell, divorced him for former Yankees hitting coach Rick Down and then divorced him for former major leaguer Matt Stairs, that would make her Susan Fell Down Stairs.

• Note to Jim Harbaugh: cheat, cheat, never beat.

• Shout out to the athletic directors of the ECC for very well-run conference tournaments last week.

• So if the person who calculates UConn football attendance has the same job for basketball, that means the “record” crowd of 10,299 at Gampel the other night was actually about 5,482.

• Dr. I really watched only one election result.

And he was very happy to see longtime friend Kate Southard win a council seat in Montville.

Listen to Kate, good people of Montville. (Plus, she’s really good at math.)

• Dr. I loves listening to soccer analyst (and former Montville coach) Colin Delaney on GameDay streams.

If Dr. I has this right: You need to attack down the spine and keep your shape by putting everything on frame and not being unlucky. Lovely diagonal feeds are always welcome and should be celebrated with a “well done!”

(Dr. I didn’t even get to “inswinger” yet.)

• Always nice to see Scott Black at the ECC swim championships.

Tremendous advocate for the sport and a great public address announcer.

• Congrats to Waterford High softball players (and Dr. I favorites) Grace Muti (St. Peter’s), Melanie Martin (Bridgeport) and Emilia Podeszwa (Binghamton) who all recently announced their college plans.

• Finally (and seriously): Things have changed here at The Day. Our fearless leader, Chuck Banning, has retired as sports editor. We’ve lost other staff. We cannot cover as many events as we used to. We ask for your patience. If you have ideas, compliments, questions, problems, difficulties or gripes, please send them to m.dimauro@theday.com. You’ll get a prompt answer and more satisfaction than whining about us on social media.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro