Despite paying little or no attention to college football in my blog this year, in the spirit of the recently-concluded "rivalry weekend" (or I guess I could say week now, as there were games on Thursday and Friday), I'm going to force you to choose whether or not to be subjected to my musings. (But the answer is yes).
-First of all, hats off to Michigan for beating the Buckeyes for the first time in seven years. Granted it was a very close win at home against a far inferior opponent, but still- a win is a win. A lot has changed at Michigan since the last time they beat the team from the south. Michigan has been doing the Hoke-y Pokey this season, which seems to have turned themselves around (which is really what it's all about). Jim Tressel (the anti-John Cooper) is busy rocking his sweater-vest as a consultant for worst NFL team in the world (for once, not the Detroit Lions). Terrelle Pryor, highly esteemed four year OSU starting QB, graduated and....wait, you mean Pryor didn't graduate? He was forced to leave school early because of a scandal? Oh. Never mind*.
- Urban Meyer, former Florida Gators coach and current ESPN talky guy, created quite a stir this weekend by denying reports that Ohio State had offered him its head coaching position, but then asking to be taken off of the broadcast team for the OSU-U-M game. Meyer has admitted that if the Buckeyes make an offer, he'd have "a decision to make" (which shows that Meyer has come a long way from middle school, when girls would ask him to dance and he'd just sort of stand there until they either gave up or just grabbed his arms and dragged him to the dance floor).
I mean, if he does decide to return to coaching, he's not going to get much of a better offer than OSU. Top notch school, great tradition and history, able to pick from the best players every year- with a great offensive mind like Meyer has, OSU would be back on top in, like, two seasons. Tops.
And I hate that we're even talking about this. Not just because it's OSU, either.
What pisses me off is that he "retired" last December (which is, according to my calendar, less than a year ago) to "spend some time with his family". I used the ".." because I think it's probably B.S. And I'm not just hating on Meyer. I know other coaches have done this as well, and and retiring to spend time with his family, only to quickly return to some other lucrative coaching opportunity.
At least Meyer did take some time off. Yeah, he took off about a month and a half before he was hired by ESPN in January of 2011 to be a college football analyst. This probably means one of three things:
1) He realized that he really doesn't like his family that much.
2) He does like his family, but in that month and a half he was able to spend so much time with them that there was literally nothing else that they could do as a family.
3) Urban is really, really bad with money and just needed to get a job.
Of course, a fourth reason is probably that he realized Tim Tebow had graduated and that a string of 4-5+ loss seasons was looking him square in the face. That's enough to send any coach to the hospital with chest pains. I think coaches leave for this reason or that reason, and the "spend time with family" one is supposed to somehow dumb things down- like they're trying to convince us that they really are humans (just like us) and not simply overly-competitive workaholic megalomaniacs.
I wonder if his kids got really excited when they found out he was quitting the job that meant he was never, ever home (and probably distant/stressed out when he was home)- and what their feelings were when, less than two months later, he was going back to another job that meant lots of hours, phone calls on birthdays and 'hurry up and open your damn Christmas presents, I have to be at practice at 6 a.m. today' holidays.
Note to future Urban Meyer players: If Urban Meyer ever refers to your team as 'family', then abandon ship- you know that you are about to be thrown under the bus.
-Speaking of throwing under the bus, Montee Ball from U-W decided that, in his quest to break Barry Sanders' single-season record for TDs (and by the way, when I read that, I realized how strongly I still feel about Barry Sanders because it sort of made me mad that someone was approaching his record), he would give his O-line the Marq-tran Heave-ho. After the Badgers win against Penn State, he said (in terms of the record), "Whatever the offensive line wants. If they want me to get there, then I'll get there".
Alright, so I guess it's not really throwing them under the bus, it's more like a well-time hip check just as the bus is coming by.
Still, I couldn't believe it when I read that. You're putting the onus on your O-line to get you this mark? That whether or not you achieve your record is dependent on their level of desire? Never mind which plays the coaches call, down/distance, game situations, defensive game planning, what have you. The latent statement here is "If I don't get it, it's because my O-line is a bunch of selfish slackers". Which isn't really a message you want to send to the guys protecting you from the 250+ pound Ball-seeking missiles.
Montee, you've had a phenomenal season, even if you don't break the TD record (and I'm hoping you don't. Just saying). But could it be that maybe you got your sports cliches mixed up? That is, you recognize that the O-line is a huge part of your success and you know that every player is an important part of the team but you had to answer a question about an individual record and there was some sort of short circuit in your brain...maybe?
It'll be interesting to see if the Badger O-line takes it personal (and I'm hoping they do. Just saying).
-After a topsy turvey seasons end, the BCS is finally shaping up a little bit...unfortunately it looks like it's going to be an SEC title game in the NCAA title game. As a football fan and SEC ambivalist, I'm not really looking forward to this.
I don't want to take away anything from the LSU Tigers- they were pretty much dominant in every game this season (only one win was by less than 2 TD- technically. 13 point win against Mississippi State) and they look like the best team in the country. I'm still holding out hope that Georgia pulls the upset in the SEC title game but I'm not holding my breath. And even if I were holding my breath, I'd wait until much, much closer to the actual game itself because I would surely pass out several times if I started now.
But after seeing Michigan lose out on a shot at a rematch against OSU a few years ago (when they met late in the season as #1 vs. #2) , I'm not overly keen on seeing LSU-Alabama II for all the marbles. Yes, they're ranked #1 and #2- but my personal feelings are that those rankings are (maybe) more indicative of where they started the season ranked. At seasons beginning, LSU was ranked #4 and Alabama was #2. Now, they did each have an early season test (which they both passed)- but there was a lot of fluff to be had on those schedules as well. And overall, the SEC had what I would call a down year.
I've already written about the inherent flaw in the ranking system, so I won't get into that again. In fact, I'm not even going to hyperlink to it. If you want to read it, then by golly get up off your lazy butt and find it! Sorry, I was just channeling my inner-Montee Ball there for a second.
As someone who likes to see underdogs succeed, it's very frustrating that teams like Oklahoma State (who admittedly had a really, really bad hiccup), Boise State (who lost a much more defensible close game at home versus a very good TCU team), and even Stanford (with only one loss, which came against a top-10 team) are going to be left on the sidelines while Alabama gets the second chance that Michigan didn't get five years ago.
- If Mark Ingram won the Heisman back in 2009 (which he did, according to my sources), then Trent Richardson deserves to win it in 2011. I would vote for Richardson on principle, but he's had superior numbers to Ingram and ended his regular season with a monster game in the Iron Bowl against Auburn (unlike Ingram, who limped to the finish and pretty much won the Heisman because he had a captive audience the weekend the votes were cast). There are plenty of worthy candidates- but Richardson has been a beast all year playing for the #2 ranked team. He was held under 100 yards rushing 3 times- against Kent State (37 yards, probably only played like a quarter, did have 3 TDs), Tennessee (77 yards, had 2 TDs), and LSU (89 yards, with 80 yards receiving). So even when he was "sub-par", he was still pretty "sup-er". Did you see what I did there? Impressive, no?
So that's my football thoughts for now. In the meantime, Go Snow Flurries!!!
*Obviously I knew about the scandal. Even though I no longer consider myself a die-hard Michigan fan, this disdain for OSU has died hard, and I couldn't resist a little elbow-to-the-ribs of the Buckeye nation. Nothing like a rivalry win to make me feel a little Internet bravery, eh?
Showing posts with label College Football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label College Football. Show all posts
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Penn State and video games
This is going to sound extremely trivial, so you're going to have to bear (bare? Gosh, I can never get this right!) with me for a bit- NCAA Football 11 for the PS3 drove home the magnitude of the Penn State sexual abuse/cover up scandal.
I don't mean this to belittle the severity of what happened or the pain of those whose lives have forever been shattered. I just merely wish to point out that in the complexity of the human brain, we can still find surprises in the every day, mundane things. In this instance, I spent several hours this past week reading articles about Jerry Sandusky and Penn State University and it took EA Sports and a year-old PS3 title for me to really process this historically awful event.
Let me break it down.
Earlier this afternoon I was playing NCAA Football 11 while I try to get Shane to JUST FREAKING FALL ASLEEP ALREADY OH MY GOSH!!!! Seriously he was not feeling well so I was doing whatever I could to get him to get bored and fall asleep. Like a good dad should, right? Anyways, what could be more boring than watching your dad relive his imaginary glory years than by quarterbacking a pretend school on a 27 inch television?
So I turned it on, started playing innocen...OH COME ON REF- THAT HOLD HAD NO RELEVANCE TO THE PLAY- GAH ALL THE COMPUTER DOES IS FRICKING CHEAT!!!!! And that's when I started to realize what this whole Penn State fiasco means for football.
I don't mean that statement in a manner that belittles the sufferings of sexual abuse victims. I spent about four years at a non-profit agency working with kids who had been abused and neglected. So I have a slight idea, a limited understanding of what sexual abuse means to those kids. It's probably the ugliest thing that can happen in our society nowadays. So in the grand scheme, it really doesn't matter what it means to football.
But looking at college football as a separate entity...OH MY GOODNESS- how does this happen? I know that sports are not immune to this sort of vile crime, and that I'm prone to thinking through my idiot lens. But college football people don't do this. College football people take steroids, and pay athletes under the table, and practice more than they're supposed to, and sell their swag for tattoos, and help their athletes stay eligible by cheating in the classroom. College football people don't sexually abuse children. They don't ruin innocence. Yes, yes, I'm generalizing and type casting- but that's the college football image that has been cultivated in my mind over years and years of exposure. Sure, we break the rules...but nobody really gets hurt. They can't say that anymore.
The fact that it's Penn State just adds to the layer of shock. Maybe it's just all the articles I've read in the past couple of days from Penn State alums talking about how great Penn State is/was...but this is probably the last institution I ever would have thought I'd hear that this sort of thing had happened at. Maybe it's the boring uniforms or the lack of offseason shenanigans or the Coke-bottle glasses-wearing coach- the truth is I just never really thought about Penn State at all, which in our culture of Falling-Star worship is pretty much the highest praise I can give to an institution. They excelled on the football field, but they kept their profile out of the tabloids. You can't say that anymore.
And it took an afternoon playing a football video game for me to really get ahold of the concept that the Penn State scandal is not just about the loss of innocence for those 8 victims- it's about the loss of innocence for an entire sport. Sexual abuse is no longer just something that that faceless villains to do innocent kids in nameless towns all over the world. It's something that can happen anywhere. Anywhere. Even in college football, a place that I always thought was safe from that sort of thing.
Of course, having worked with a subset of the population that it has happened to, I knew this. It's probably my biggest fear as a parent is that somewhere in the system, someone that we trust our children's lives with will brutally and shamefully violate that trust and leave our children with the most horrible and painful scars imaginable. But I suppress it, largely because if you have that level of distrust of every person working in the system all the time- you turn into a paranoid schizophrenic.
Still though...the lesson now is that as a parent, there is a need for some hypervigilance. Those we used to write blank trust checks for are now the ones that we will take the closest look at. By all accounts, Jerry Sandusky was a saint. Now it appears he was merely a wolf dressed as a sheep. And his alleged actions (and the actions of those like him) have made wearing wool the latest fashion faux pas.
Today, I officially laid to rest college football's aura of innocence. I don't grieve for the sport- rather, I grieve for those who have been hurt because of my (and those like me) obsession with it. The culture of invincibility that we have worshipped at for countless Saturdays has been exposed as just another big business venture willing to do whatever to whoever in the name of self-interest. That said, I will try to keep perspective in the weeks and months ahead and not just assume the worst of every coach, coordinator, and player I see.
I just won't think they're Mr. Rogers, either.
PIC- http://www.nickjr.com/flex_article/assets/wallpaper/dora-school-wallpaper/dora-school-wallpaper-standard.jpg
I don't mean this to belittle the severity of what happened or the pain of those whose lives have forever been shattered. I just merely wish to point out that in the complexity of the human brain, we can still find surprises in the every day, mundane things. In this instance, I spent several hours this past week reading articles about Jerry Sandusky and Penn State University and it took EA Sports and a year-old PS3 title for me to really process this historically awful event.
Let me break it down.
Earlier this afternoon I was playing NCAA Football 11 while I try to get Shane to JUST FREAKING FALL ASLEEP ALREADY OH MY GOSH!!!! Seriously he was not feeling well so I was doing whatever I could to get him to get bored and fall asleep. Like a good dad should, right? Anyways, what could be more boring than watching your dad relive his imaginary glory years than by quarterbacking a pretend school on a 27 inch television?
 |
| And ordinarily, you'd be right. |
I don't mean that statement in a manner that belittles the sufferings of sexual abuse victims. I spent about four years at a non-profit agency working with kids who had been abused and neglected. So I have a slight idea, a limited understanding of what sexual abuse means to those kids. It's probably the ugliest thing that can happen in our society nowadays. So in the grand scheme, it really doesn't matter what it means to football.
But looking at college football as a separate entity...OH MY GOODNESS- how does this happen? I know that sports are not immune to this sort of vile crime, and that I'm prone to thinking through my idiot lens. But college football people don't do this. College football people take steroids, and pay athletes under the table, and practice more than they're supposed to, and sell their swag for tattoos, and help their athletes stay eligible by cheating in the classroom. College football people don't sexually abuse children. They don't ruin innocence. Yes, yes, I'm generalizing and type casting- but that's the college football image that has been cultivated in my mind over years and years of exposure. Sure, we break the rules...but nobody really gets hurt. They can't say that anymore.
The fact that it's Penn State just adds to the layer of shock. Maybe it's just all the articles I've read in the past couple of days from Penn State alums talking about how great Penn State is/was...but this is probably the last institution I ever would have thought I'd hear that this sort of thing had happened at. Maybe it's the boring uniforms or the lack of offseason shenanigans or the Coke-bottle glasses-wearing coach- the truth is I just never really thought about Penn State at all, which in our culture of Falling-Star worship is pretty much the highest praise I can give to an institution. They excelled on the football field, but they kept their profile out of the tabloids. You can't say that anymore.
And it took an afternoon playing a football video game for me to really get ahold of the concept that the Penn State scandal is not just about the loss of innocence for those 8 victims- it's about the loss of innocence for an entire sport. Sexual abuse is no longer just something that that faceless villains to do innocent kids in nameless towns all over the world. It's something that can happen anywhere. Anywhere. Even in college football, a place that I always thought was safe from that sort of thing.
Of course, having worked with a subset of the population that it has happened to, I knew this. It's probably my biggest fear as a parent is that somewhere in the system, someone that we trust our children's lives with will brutally and shamefully violate that trust and leave our children with the most horrible and painful scars imaginable. But I suppress it, largely because if you have that level of distrust of every person working in the system all the time- you turn into a paranoid schizophrenic.
Still though...the lesson now is that as a parent, there is a need for some hypervigilance. Those we used to write blank trust checks for are now the ones that we will take the closest look at. By all accounts, Jerry Sandusky was a saint. Now it appears he was merely a wolf dressed as a sheep. And his alleged actions (and the actions of those like him) have made wearing wool the latest fashion faux pas.
Today, I officially laid to rest college football's aura of innocence. I don't grieve for the sport- rather, I grieve for those who have been hurt because of my (and those like me) obsession with it. The culture of invincibility that we have worshipped at for countless Saturdays has been exposed as just another big business venture willing to do whatever to whoever in the name of self-interest. That said, I will try to keep perspective in the weeks and months ahead and not just assume the worst of every coach, coordinator, and player I see.
I just won't think they're Mr. Rogers, either.
PIC- http://www.nickjr.com/flex_article/assets/wallpaper/dora-school-wallpaper/dora-school-wallpaper-standard.jpg
Saturday, October 1, 2011
The most uninteresting segment in the world
I just got done watching a segment on College Football Gameday that was so atrociously bad that I am purposefully breaking my writing sabbath to rake it over the coals. Yeah. It was that bad.
The feature revolved around Baylor University quarterback Robert Griffin III. Griffin the Third is the next Peyton Manning for all I know- but from the amount of effort it appeared that they put into the spot, he might as well be the next Cooper Manning.
They led into it by telling us how much of a 'free spirit' Griffin is. The actual spot borrowed the Most Interesting Man motif, right down to the music, grainy film quality, and the narrator- or maybe it's his brother who apparently has some Pharyngeal disorder. I liked your first story better. No offense to RG3, but if he truly is the most interesting man in college football then the NCAA has a personality crisis that goes far beyond the mere lack of knowledge of the Force.
Let's review the list of qualities that ESPN felt qualified Griffin 3.0 to be "The Most Interesting College Football Man":
Might be the fastest quarterback in the history of football- Hey this isn't the dark ages. Might be? Why settle for woulda/coulda/shoulda? We could actually find this out! Simply run all of the quarterbacks in history through a series of speed drills, use a complicated mathematical formula to plug the numbers into, and voila- we could know for sure. But don't try to sell us on speculative qualities- we get enough of that crap from Washington.
Participated in the US Olympic trials- as a 17 year old- Nadia Comăneci scored a perfect 10.0 on the uneven bars during the 1976 Actual Olympics. At 14 years old. So basically there have already been kids doing what he did except they did it better and younger.
Graduated early from high school and college- Well that's certainly quite a feat, but I'm sure there are tons of students that have accomplished that. It either means he is really smart or took really easy classes, or some combination of the two. I'm not sure if that makes him Most Interesting. Or even marginally interesting. Most smart people tend to be boring, and if he just took easy classes, then he probably doesn't have a very wide knowledge base from which to draw his topics of conversation.
Wears goofy socks- I suppose that's pretty interesting. I admire a man who can wear kids socks and get away with it. What really makes this interesting is that Griffin said that each pair of socks "has a story". Yes Robert, I'll bet they do. Let's explore some of those stories, shall we?
Proposed to his girlfriend using a song that he wrote- Thank you, breath of fresh air. Proposing to your girlfriend using an original song has probably never been done. Ever. Oh wait, what's that? There was a guitar involved? Woah! I've never heard of that sort of thing happening. Sorry Girlfriend, I was incapacitated by the sheer overwhelming sensation of all the innovation and I didn't catch what you said. You mean he proposed while you were walking on the football field????? Who could have ever imagined a football player proposing on a football field????? While singing a song- that he wrote!!!!! That is just too cutting edge. My brain can't process this much creativity in one sitting. I need to go lie down.
He has thrown more touchdown passes than incompletions so far this year- Please. That's just a statistical anomaly. Sure, it's interesting- but that's not something that makes Gryffindor himself more interesting, because technically any quarterback could have accomplished that. I mean, Peyton Manning could have done that- would that have made him the most interesting man in college football- or any demographic, for that matter?
I'm sure that Robert Griffin III is a very interesting guy. But I think that because of individual make-up of each person, from their unique genetic structure to their environmental influence, everybody is interesting in their own way. I just wish that ESPN would have made a little more effort to make Robert Griffin III feel like a really unique individual, instead of telling us he was off-the-charts interesting and then showing him putting on kids socks (which is only mild-to-moderately interesting) and listing off a series of accomplishments that happen all the time.
PIC- Cooper- http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/07/images/large/C_1_cooper2_197601_1107.jpg
Cookie Monster- http://i.ebayimg.com/t/12-24M-SESAME-STREET-BLUE-INFANT-SOCKS-COOKIE-MONSTER-/05/!BuHOHu!!mk~$%28KGrHqQH-DQEv0t1byytBL-+BT7D3w~~_35.JPG
Angry birds- http://www.quertime.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/red_yellow_green_black_angry_birds_socks.jpg
Ninja turtles- http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Q1rDMQBQL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
Scoobie doo- http://assets.lolquiz.com/4b2e384591513.jpg
Peyton- http://c553622.r22.cf2.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/p1_manning2.jpg
The feature revolved around Baylor University quarterback Robert Griffin III. Griffin the Third is the next Peyton Manning for all I know- but from the amount of effort it appeared that they put into the spot, he might as well be the next Cooper Manning.
 |
| No no, I'm totally fine with the fact that I developed spinal stenosis while both my brothers went on to lucrative, Super Bowl-MVP winning careers in the NFL. I love living in New Orleans and trading energy. I don't blame God at all... |
Let's review the list of qualities that ESPN felt qualified Griffin 3.0 to be "The Most Interesting College Football Man":
Might be the fastest quarterback in the history of football- Hey this isn't the dark ages. Might be? Why settle for woulda/coulda/shoulda? We could actually find this out! Simply run all of the quarterbacks in history through a series of speed drills, use a complicated mathematical formula to plug the numbers into, and voila- we could know for sure. But don't try to sell us on speculative qualities- we get enough of that crap from Washington.
Participated in the US Olympic trials- as a 17 year old- Nadia Comăneci scored a perfect 10.0 on the uneven bars during the 1976 Actual Olympics. At 14 years old. So basically there have already been kids doing what he did except they did it better and younger.
Graduated early from high school and college- Well that's certainly quite a feat, but I'm sure there are tons of students that have accomplished that. It either means he is really smart or took really easy classes, or some combination of the two. I'm not sure if that makes him Most Interesting. Or even marginally interesting. Most smart people tend to be boring, and if he just took easy classes, then he probably doesn't have a very wide knowledge base from which to draw his topics of conversation.
Wears goofy socks- I suppose that's pretty interesting. I admire a man who can wear kids socks and get away with it. What really makes this interesting is that Griffin said that each pair of socks "has a story". Yes Robert, I'll bet they do. Let's explore some of those stories, shall we?
 |
| Once, when I was a kid, there was Sesame Street, and this blue monster and he just ate cookies. HAHAHAHAHA |
 |
| Once, a booster bought me a smart phone...um, I mean, my mom bought me a smart phone, and there was these Angry Birds, and they killed pigs. HAHAHAHAHAHA |
 |
| Once, when I was a kid, there was a dog, and he was stupid but everybody thought he was a great detective. HAHAHAHAHA |
 |
| Once, when I was a kid, I learned the dangers of toxic waste thanks to these turtles that turned into pizza-eating ninjas. HAHAHAHAHA |
Proposed to his girlfriend using a song that he wrote- Thank you, breath of fresh air. Proposing to your girlfriend using an original song has probably never been done. Ever. Oh wait, what's that? There was a guitar involved? Woah! I've never heard of that sort of thing happening. Sorry Girlfriend, I was incapacitated by the sheer overwhelming sensation of all the innovation and I didn't catch what you said. You mean he proposed while you were walking on the football field????? Who could have ever imagined a football player proposing on a football field????? While singing a song- that he wrote!!!!! That is just too cutting edge. My brain can't process this much creativity in one sitting. I need to go lie down.
He has thrown more touchdown passes than incompletions so far this year- Please. That's just a statistical anomaly. Sure, it's interesting- but that's not something that makes Gryffindor himself more interesting, because technically any quarterback could have accomplished that. I mean, Peyton Manning could have done that- would that have made him the most interesting man in college football- or any demographic, for that matter?
 |
| Actually... |
PIC- Cooper- http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/07/images/large/C_1_cooper2_197601_1107.jpg
Cookie Monster- http://i.ebayimg.com/t/12-24M-SESAME-STREET-BLUE-INFANT-SOCKS-COOKIE-MONSTER-/05/!BuHOHu!!mk~$%28KGrHqQH-DQEv0t1byytBL-+BT7D3w~~_35.JPG
Angry birds- http://www.quertime.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/red_yellow_green_black_angry_birds_socks.jpg
Ninja turtles- http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Q1rDMQBQL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
Scoobie doo- http://assets.lolquiz.com/4b2e384591513.jpg
Peyton- http://c553622.r22.cf2.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/p1_manning2.jpg
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