July Thoughts

 

            It is July and the heat is getting to me.  I’m having hallucinations.  I have visions of footballs, blocking sleds, 350 pound tackles, and 120 pound, blind Ethiopian kickers.  I’m seeing goal posts, end zones, and  scoreboards.  Our wait is nearing an end.  Soon some NFL camps will open. That will be followed by the waste and carnage of NFL pre-season or exhibition games. Who will lose multi-million dollar players in meaningless games?  Which star will be first  to begin re-hab on his MCL for the 2007 season?  The Kijana Karter trophy will be  awarded to the first all pro to be lost for the season in an exhibition game. A special award category, dominated by the Browns of late, will go to the earliest first round draft choice to go down in an exhibition game.  Rumor has it that the half time of the first Browns Steelers game will be highlighted by a motorcycle race at half time between Kellen and Ben.  But, ultimately it all means that football season is less than two months away.

            You can tell the networks miss FB, too, when you can surf all the ESPN channels and find only poker, and team paintball(really). And of course the World Cup drones on with no end or scores in sight.  All I need to know about the World Cup is that France has made it to the finals.  I guess they haven’t figured out how to surrender in soccer.  France, a country made up of women don’t shave and who men don’t need to. Go Italy!!  If we can all be Irish for St. Patrick’s Day we can certainly all be Italian for the World Cup.

 

            News Flash – OSU-Weasel kickoff is  3:30. 

 

Twelve Reasons college football is superior to the NFL. 

1.      Socks:  All socks in the NFL pretty much look alike.  College some wear high ones, some low, some don’t wear socks at all.

 

2.      Hash marks mean something. The NFL hash marks are so skinny the entire game is played almost in the center of the field.  I like defenses that put the safety to the wide side, I like kickers to worry about angles.  It gives Teddy more room to outrun the angles taken by would-be tacklers.

 

3.      No John Madden.  College broadcasters are far superior, especially now that Keith Jackson has retired again.  Don’t get me wrong, in his day  Keith was the absolute best.  But he stayed not only well past his prime, but beyond any degree of competency.  And, no, Brent Musburger does not hate Ohio State. 

 

4.      Cheerleaders: I know the NFL has cheerleaders, but the college ones look less like hookers.  The college game, will, however, have points deducted for allowing male cheerleaders, except in Ann Arbor where it just seems so right. 

 

5.      Saturday:  Saturday is a much better day for a party, tailgate or otherwise, than  Sunday.

 

6.      Strategy: On defense in the NFL we have the 3-4 and the 4-3.  Run anything else and you get fined. College coaches come up with weird and varied schemes (generally only the 4-3 works, but they try). On offense the pros run out of the aptly named pro set and they either run the West Coast offense or they don’t.  In college you might see the wishbone, the veer, the pro set, the spread, empty backfields, one-back sets.  You can find college teams which run  and almost never pass, and you can find other teams who always pass and never run. 

 

7.       Colorful coaches.  The best coach in the NFL, is Bill Belicheck and he is, no doubt, a great coach.  He also has the personality of a fence post.  Now, I will admit that the more colorful college coaches are also the older ones and we can never replace the likes of  Woody, or the Bear.  Still, you never know what will come out of the mouth of a Bobby Bowden, Steve Spurrier, or Joe Paterno.  We have some up and comers like Charlie Weis, Bob Stoops, Pete Carroll  and the always  humorous Lllloyd Carr. Admittedly, there are a few autotrons on the horizon like Kirk Ferentz, Urban Meyer and the local guy in the sweater vest who come in somewhere south of exciting.

 

8.      Overtime:  I know the college OT is not perfect, but it is way more exciting than than the anticlimactic NFL Fifth Period, which puts far too much importance on a coin toss.

 

9.      Team Entrances:  In college you get the bands playing and the fans going crazy, the players pummeling each other, even the occasional fight in the tunnel.  The NFL gives you nothing unless you count the individual player introductions.

 

10.  End Zone Celebrations:  The NFL has them and they suck.  College doesn’t allow them.  I must admit the Big Ten officials go overboard when they flag players for smiling. 

 

11.  Stadiums:  College stadiums are regional landmarks and they take on the aura of shrines to their fans.  While the NFL has been helped by the demise of the cookie-cutter, multi-purpose mausoleums in Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and other places, even their new stadiums don’t hold a place in the hearts of the fans as do college stadiums.

 

12.  Fans:  NFL fills their stadiums and has a great TV market.  College fans are far more passionate and show it at every opportunity.  The teams represent not only a university, but in many cases, such as Nebraska, an entire state.  In some cases a team may even represent a religion, i.e Notre Dame.  All this despite the NFL’s build in advantage with in-stadium beer sales.