Massie On College Football
Exactly what a Scotsman is doing liking the most American subset of the most American sport is still beyond me, but Alex Massie’s ode to college football at Culture 11 is quite excellent.
I think one thing he could have expanded on is how the college football game is meaningfully different from the NFL. In college, the defenders are signifigantly slower – and worse tacklers – than NFL defensive players. This means that you can give an athletic player the ball on every down and run your offense. And although it’s hardly football at its best, the Darren McFadden offense Arkansas ran last year (give McFadden the ball in whatever way possible) was college football at its best. Or Nebraska’s Eric Crouch offense, or Clemson’s Woody Dantzler Offense, or Indiana’s Antwan Randle-El offense and so on and so forth.
The other cool – and unique – college football offense is the Spread. Sports Illustrated had a fantastic feature on the wide open, pass-heavy offense. Once again, because of the slowness of linebackers and their lack of coverage skills, having four receivers and a running back running around, with the quarterback in the shotgun to give him enough time, is basically unstoppable. Some would point to these trick offenses as proof that college football is an inferior product – and it is. But unlike college basketball, which really is just NBA basketball with people who can’t jump as high or run as fast, college football provides a different game than the NFL. And unless the NFL continues its all week colonialization, Saturday (during the day, not night) is still safe for college football.
There’s only glaring problem with Massie’s piece – the love for Michigan. I mean, I guess as a Scotsman, he has free ground to pick a team, and one could do worse with Michigan, but one of the most annoying things about college football is how sycophantic the media is toward old, established, mostly Midwestern teams. Michigan isn’t the best example, Notre Dame is. For some reason, if they get into the top 12, they always get a BCS bowl. I still remember the 2001 Fiesta Bowl, where the insanely talented Oregon State team(Chad Johnson and TJ Houshmandzadeh were the first and second recievers) absolutely bull-whipped Notre Dame, an underperforming team that no right being in the game in the first place. The way I see it, the Midwestern fascination needs to be broken. As best as I can tell, the best teams are consistently from the SEC (Florida, LSU, Auburn) plus USC.
There’s also, of course, the broken Bowl/National championship system, which noticeably screwed over Kansas State in 98, Miami in 2000, Oregon in 2001, USC in 2003 and Auburn in 2004. It really speaks to the strength of college football as a cultural phenomenon that it could have a championship season that no one defends and still be so compelling and beloved. Massie really gets at just how strong the emotional connection is many fans have with their team. If you walk around Manhattan sporting a Longhorns T-shirt, you’ll get dozens of “Hook ‘em Horns!” USC too. The irony is that these fans are rooting for players that they couldn’t have less in common with. The black (college football fandom is pretty white) high school footbal stars who make up most of the top-tier teams could care less that John Hayes has been going to Texas games since he was 8 and met his wife at a pre-game frat party, they just want as much PT on as big a stage as possible.
I should also note that I’ll be participating in the great cultural tradition that is college football. The California Golden Bears are opening the season at Memorial Stadium against the Michigan State Spartans. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BEARS!
