Time to organize

Sounds like the movement is really rolling. Sigh. Unfortunately, I don’t think anything will change. It’s like the people who bitch about the ridiculously high prices for parking, concessions, tickets, et cetera and the ones who complain about how much money pro players make and that they’re entitled. They complain about all those things, but they still go to the games, still buy merchandise, and still tune into the games on Sunday. The powers that be know this. People may complain incessantly, but at the end of the day, not enough are going to boycott to make any real difference, and most will still have their TV’s on the game.

Give it time.

college football seems to be one of the few sports in which incredible accomplishments go unrecognized by the hoards of people who claim to love the sport.

Tennis fans respect Nadal’s superhuman ability to put a high spin on his forehand, soccer fans recognize the “most-valuable” nature of a holding midfielder even though he’ll almost certainly not be involved in any goal, but in football, college football especially, if the ball isn’t crossing the goalline, nobody gives even half a damn. Its why no defensive player (or even an offensive player at a non-skill position) will ever win the Heisman.

Scoring a touchdown in college football is not really a great accomplishment. Yes you have to execute well enough, but in nearly every case a touchdown is scored because of a mistake made by the defense, or under more intriguing circumstances, a touchdown is scored because a clever offensive coordinator exploits a weakness in the opposing defense. But that weakness kind of needs to be there, and in most cases it is. Its why “everyone in Texas is an offensive coordinator” according to Mack Brown, because we all perceive different measures of attack that might be effective on a given day (ex: Damn it Harsin, why did you get away from the run game when it was working?!!) and so we’re agitated when our coaches don’t appear to be doing it.

But give me the offensive scheme that will crack LSU or Bama’s defense? Chip Kelly, Bobby Petrino, Dana Holgorsen, and Mark Richt are all ears. Hell, even Saban and Miles scored 40 points against everybody else, but couldn’t cross the goal-line against each other.

Watching the solid discipline of Alabama’s defense almost never missing an assignment, and watching LSU’s line consistently get enough pressure on the quarterback without blitzing so that the defensive backs can make aggressive game-changing plays gives me the same satisfaction as watching Barcelona pass their opposition to death or watching Michael Jordan frustrate a good perimeter defense.

Consistently frustrating very talented offenses for an entire season is among the highest achievements one can witness in sports. Consider how much we’ve adored Manny Diaz and his young play-makers this year, and yet that extraordinary unit is still capable of handing us a performance like the one we saw in Waco. But neither the Tide nor the Tigers has really had an off day defensively this year. Let that sink in for a moment. Its incredible.

But noooooo! I had to fall in love with the one sport whose fans shun its own greatness in favor of 52-45 overtime crowd-pleasers, which are in almost every case poorly played football games. It generally means there were so many exploitable weaknesses in both defenses that the OC’s had their pick of attacking strategies. But yay!!! Points!!!

Its Ingmar Bergman vs Michael Bay. One’s a work of noteworthy accomplishment, and the other masks its flaws with lots of explosions. But alas, the box office numbers indicate that I’m in the minority on that one as well.

I just overreacted there. Don’t need to get down in the gutter.