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So, with these Saturdays free, I've taken it upon myself to watch some college football while I catch up on all the chores I shirked when I was working on Saturdays. For almost two years, my girlfriend did the chores on Saturdays while I worked. Now, she's teaching on Saturdays and I get to acquaint myself with the Swiffer mop. Fun times.
So, I turn on the TV and flood the floor with Method wood floor cleaner (we're enviro-Nazis, did I mention that?). As I work the Swiffer up and down the floor, I watch big name college football schools go up and down the field on some of these smaller schmo schools. Occasionally, I'll see a Stanford upset a USC; a Appalachia State embarrass a Michigan. I see how these teams win, using offenses that are so out-of-date that Lou Houltz, a man who looks as old as Jesus, shakes his head at. I see big name schools with prospect players, that will one day go on to have great NFL careers, using the option play.
Huh?
Isn't that as ancient as, like, the wishbone T formation? And what's up with teams running the QB option out of a shotgun? I see teams deploy this and then I nearly fall over from a heart attack as the QB gets a first down (and sometimes more) running from that formation. I mean, if someone tried to pull that dumb play in the NFL, this is what would happen to him.
After seeing all this Saturday after Saturday as I scrub floors, dust bookshelves, clean mirrors, wash windows, and change litter boxes, I've questioned whether or not I like college football. At first I thought something was wrong with me. When I read articles like this, I have to assume that college football is great and enjoyable to watch. However, after watching several games and witnessing the bad coaching, the sloppy tackling, the option play run with success time and again, I'm now of the mind that no, there isn't something wrong with me.
College football just, you know, kinda sucks donkey nuts.
I know there are college fans out there who are not all that jazzed about the NFL, just as I'm sure that back in the early 1900s horse and buggy enthusiasts didn't shoot their load after seeing the first Model T Ford. After perusing the college football landscape with a fine tooth come, searching for reasons why I feel dirty and abused after watching college football Saturday, I've discovered several reasons why college football is, quite simply, an inferior sport and spectacle to The Man's Game that is currently America's sport: The NFL.
COACHING. Look across the college football landscape. Tell me, who are the most respected college coaches right now? The ones with the most success? The ones who have built the best programs? Won BCS championships? Bowl games? Here's a quick list of names that, if you are an NFL fan, might induce projectile vomiting:
Pete Carroll
Nick Saban
Steve Spurrier
These three men are considered by many to be the top three coaches in college football. All three have won BCS championships. All three have insane success in bowl games. All three have built stellar programs that bring in monster recruits. All three suck hairy balls as coaches.
When these men left their little college football fiefdoms, protected from those dirty, nasty reporters that are destroying our society by (gasp!) asking tough questions and demanding accountability when the team loses, and tried their luck in the man's game, they generated a combined record of 54-58. Only Pete Carroll sniffed the sweet scent of the playoffs, and after taking in that fine playoff air, Carroll emerged with a 1-2 record despite inheriting a New England Patriots team that, a few years prior, was playing in the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Nick Saban was busying lying to his fans and berating his staff while Steve Spurrier couldn't figure out how this whole offensive line thing worked in the pros. I guess the "Old Ball Coach" thought he could just draw up some pass patterns, expecting his o-line to kinda hold off the defense. Things like stunts, blitzes, and zone defenses that adjust coverages pre-snap just baffled the old ball coach. Such things just aren't done when you're playing Vanderbilt.
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Oh, and Spurrier also seemed to think that Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews were as good in the pros as they were with him in Florida. For Redskins fans, this was a dead giveaway that some kind of rare, brain-eating zombie disease must have infected Spurrier's mind. That, or that he's just a classic dumb ass coach. The former is assumed by college football fans, and that Spurrier is now cured; the latter by NFL fans because we have seen far to many "great" college coaches come to The Man's League and stink it up to believe in anything as silly as a brain-eating, zombie disease. The only exception is Dennis Erickson. He IS that brain-eating zombie disease, corrupting and destroying everything he touches.
Again, all three of these men couldn't coach their way out of a paper bag if it were on fire and someone were elctroshocking their testicles. Laziness, being under-prepared, blind arrogance, and delusions of grander are terms that have all been applied (rightly) to these men. Just last week, Carroll was accused of not being prepared for Stanford. Spurrier is notorious for his lack of work ethic, perferring golf to actually working for his paycheck. Nick Saban is just an angry little man who doesn't like it when people question him when the team loses. I mean, it's not like he's the leader of the team or anything. How dare they question the Nick-o-nator?
These, my friends, are the pinnacle of college coaching. I haven't mentioned the Cam Camerons, the Dave Wannestadt's, the Charlie Weis's. Fear for your children.
GAMEPLANNING. Any game where the QB option still works is a crappy game. It's like playing Trouble. It's a novelty at first, a throwback to the old days. Those dice trapped in that little plastic bubble like audience members locked in a theater and forced to watch Pauly Shore in Biodome. You pop that little bubbled and the dice roll and its funny and you giggle as you move your plastic pieces around the board and cause "trouble" for your opponents. After a while, the novelty wears off and the game starts looking silly because the concept is stupid and people start to get snippy that you're knocking them back to their starting place and you're then forced to introduce alcohol into the scenario because drinking always makes game playing better, right?
Yeah, the option play is like that. Sort of.
I watch Tim Tebow run all over opposing defenses in CFB and I can't help but think that if this doofus did this in the Man's Game he'd have to remove his own head from his ass after a hit from Big Bad Bob or Troy Polomalu.
Again folks, this is hitting in the NFL, this is what happens to little options scrambling QBs in the Man's Game:
I can remember the years at Florida State where Charlie Ward, yes THE Charlie Ward, was winning games by scampering all across the gridiron by running the option from the shotgun formation. When NFL scouts questioned Ward's ability to transition from this rather pathetic offensive system to The Man's Game, Florida State coach Bobby Bowden decided to start using Ward under center in an I formation.
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I guess to Bowden, this looked like a pro-style offense. The results were disastrous. Ward was quickly back into the base shotgun and after school entered the draft.
The NBA draft.
I'll give Ward credit. He was smart enough to know he had no chance in the Man's Game, and that only the silly spectacle of college football could make him look like a football player. BTW, Ward hardly ever got off the bench in the NBA; perennial backup. And Reggie Miller owned him in the playoffs.
So, while I'm sure many people see virtues in college football, I know I don't. I hated myself for awhile, thinking that there is just something wrong with me. Fortunately, I discovered my feelings were not isolated to just me. Like many, I'd rather spend my time watching real men play a game with crispness and stunning efficiency rather than see a bunch of boys run around a field like headless chickens while brainless (or brain dead) coaches tell them what to do. True, in the Man's Game they are paid well. But, like all things in life, you get what you pay for. Watching Peyton Manning (called a "loser" in college) dissect a great defense is a helluva lot more fun that watching Ohio State forget how to tackle a QB who couldn't get drafted on the first day in The Man's Game. I refuse to reward, watch, or pay for sloppiness. I refuse to watch teams that win by simply loading up on talented recruits, negating the need for quality coaching and sharp execution.
I refuse to watch a game that has no playoff format. No playoffs system makes about as much sense as running a league in today's market with no salary cap.
About the only thing worth watching on College Football now is the cut shots to the stands:
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Or, maybe I've just turned bitter as I spend my Saturdays cleaning floors.
(Note: This article is a response to the fine, but OBVIOUSLY FLAWED, article at SMQ.)