Goodbye, College Football
December 5, 2008
So it’s all about to end.
The college football season that began way back in late August—back when all of us thought our favorite teams were bound for the national title, back when it was 93 degrees instead of 39 degrees—is just about over.
We will still have bowl season, of course. And that will be great. But the drama of the regular season—the best regular season in all of sports—will screech to a halt Saturday night in Hawaii, when the final gun sounds on Cincinnati-Hawaii (and remind me: why in the hell is Cincy playing this game?).
Now, there are only two ways to handle this sad news, folks.
Your first option—and I’m not saying it’s a bad one—is to generally be depressed and watch those Saturday games with a college football cloud of misery hanging over your head. You can let the day slip away in a fog of depression. You can lament the weekends to come, in which you’ll be forced to watch basketball.
Your second option, though, is even better. You can go out with a bang. You can celebrate the last Saturday of college football season for what it is: Very simply, the last Saturday of college of football season. There ain’t any more, folks. So my advice to you is to savor this one as much as possible.
That’s what I’ll be doing.
Scrapping my earlier plan of watching the games in sad solitude back home in The Beautiful Wissahickon Valley, I will instead be hitting the road for a season-ending celebration of America’s Greatest Game in—where else?—The Greatest City in America.
Yes, I am headed to Baltimore.
Specifically, the East Baltimore college football-watching mecca that is NcDevin’s Tavern (no, not McDevins; it’s NcDevins). There, I will be joined by Two-Time TCFA Champion Mike Unger, Unsouthern Southern Guy Brian M. Schleter and Scott “Shady” Burke (and, hey, if y’all want to come down and join us, feel free—I’m serious). And we will commence a day-long festival of sipping fine craft beers and White Russians, watching college football from noon to past midnight, hitting the jukebox for tunes by Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson and the Drive By Truckers, and generally needling each other for our team’s various failures. I am most looking forward to that part, because my team had no failures (except one). Their teams had a lot.
Now, maybe there are better ways to spend our time. Maybe, given the woeful state of the world economy, we should he putting our money away rather than spending it on White Russians and Willie Nelson tunes.
Maybe we should bid college football adieu in a more low-key, buttoned-up manner.
But you know what?
You only live once, folks.
You only get so many college football seasons. And you only get so many last-Saturdays-of-the-college-football-season.
So I say, hell, let's throw caution to the wind. Have a blast. Splurge for the fancy beer. Stay up late to catch that ridiculous Hawaii-Cincy game.
Take it all in.
Because after tomorrow, folks, it will be gone.
Out And About: News And Notes You May Have Missed
• This weekend brings us college football’s grandest tradition: The Army-Navy Game. And believe it or not, Army might actually keep things close this year. As we all know, Army hasn’t been Army for long time now, and as a result, this great rivalry has suffered. Navy’s dominance can be traced back to 2002, the year Navy hired a little-known coach by the name of Paul Johnson. Johnson, now working miracles at Georgia Tech, went about giving Navy an identity—an identity built around The Triple Option, Official Offensive System of TCFA. He succeeded, too. After going 2-10 in his first season, Johnson went 8-4 in his second. He took Navy to bowl games in each of the next five seasons, went 9-1 against Army and Air Force, and even led the Middies to a Top 25 ranking back in 2004. Army, meanwhile, went in the tank. They were 1-11 in 2002 and winless in 2003, 2-9 in 2004, 4-7 in 2005, 3-9 in 2006, 3-9 in 2007 and are 3-8 so far this season. And yet there is a glimmer of hope. Despite its still-horrible record, Army has actually shown flashes of improvement this year. They beat a 7-5 Lousiana Tech team and also took MAC West champ Buffalo to overtime. This isn’t a bad team, folks. And as was reported by Annapolis Capital (Your Editor’s old stomping grounds) reporter Bill Wagner this week, Army’s defense has in recent years found a way to slow down Navy’s triple option. So much so, in fact, that Navy is actually worried about it. Said Middies coach Ken Niumatalolo: "Defensively, Army has a good plan. When we first played them in 2002, [defensive coordintor John] Mumford was still figuring out what type of package to use. Now he knows exactly what he wants to do. … I think he has found something he likes against us."
• Though TCFA has in the past taken potshots at Alabama coach Nick Saban, Your Editor has to admit: The guy is growing on me. As we all know, Saban took heat for leaving LSU for the Miami Dolphins—and then a lot more heat for leaving the Dolphins for Alabama. But please. Who would want to coach the Dolphins (snore) when you could coach Alabama instead? And, hey, it must be noted, all Saban has done in his time in Tuscaloosa is turn ‘Bama from an SEC also-ran into The Best Team In The Country (yes, they are The Best Team In The Country). He’s going to beat Florida on Saturday and then he’s going to win the national championship. And if he stays at ‘Bama for another 10 years, he might win five more SEC titles. The guy is that good. Now, is he gruff? Yes. A little joyless? Of course. But as he proved this week, he’s also got a good head on his shoulders. According to the New York Times’ Pete Thamel, Saban during a meeting with reporters launched into a two-minute screed against the nation’s athletic directors (as a group, they seem pretty excited about firing people this year). Reacting to news of Tommy Tuberville’s "firing" at Auburn, as well as Sly Croom’s demise at Mississippi State and Phil Fulmer’s at Tennessee, a somewhat exasperated Saban said: “I guess we’re 5-7 away from the same thing. Those guys are really good coaches, and they’ve done a good job for a long time and have a tremendous body of work. I really question some of the judgment relative to how it is for our game that people with those kind of relationships and done that kind of job and affected so many people in a positive way and have had a reasonable amount of success relative to their circumstances would not be given more respect and consideration than what these guys have been given.”
Quick Hits: Straight And To The Point
• Now, I have my issues with Tony Barnhart, the longtime Atlanta Journal-Constitution college football writer who is just a little too obsessed with the SEC (and the myth of its superiority), but when it comes to football in the South, the man knows his stuff. So it’s worth noting what he had to say to about Tommy Tuberville being forced out at Auburn. Wrote Barnhart: “Most fans are rational but a lot fans are like teenaged boys. They are always convinced that there is a prettier girl in the next room and that if they could take her to the prom instead of their old date, life would be perfect. … If you move out a proven, if flawed, head coach in the desire to take your program to another level, you sometimes get that wish. But that next level is down, not up. That is where Auburn is right now. This is a hire the school must get right or the Tigers could be in the football wilderness, relative to Alabama, for a long, long time.”
• I was informed this week by Two-Time TCFA Champion Mike Unger that Nebraska is playing Clemson in the Gator Bowl. I have three questions about this: 1. How and why are both Nebraska and Clemson playing on New Year’s Day?; 2. What has happened to the Gator Bowl? 2. Why, really, is the Gator Bowl even played on New Year’s Day? That’s the one game that I’m convinced absolutely nobody watches.
• Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly says a few schools have contacted him about their coaching openings (I am guessing: Syracuse, Washington). But Kelly, whose team just won the Big East (!) and yet is flying to Hawaii to play A Completely Destructive And Meaningless Game (!) anyway, says he’s completely happy at Cincy. For now. Said Kelly, future coach of Notre Dame: "All I can say is that with all the speculation and all the jobs that have been out there, sooner or later 'no' means 'no.’ No one can ever speak in terms of forever, but what I can tell you is there's been a lot of interest in my services, and I want to be here at the University of Cincinnati because of the right reasons."
• I wrote in this space several times that I believed that Joe Paterno was going to retire after this season. But the man just had hip replacement surgery (on a Sunday), was back in the office the next week, and apparently is now walking without a cane. He is also gameplanning for the Rose Bowl. So I now believe that Joe Paterno is never going to retire. And that’s great. Except if you’re Tom Bradley.
• Speaking of Tom Bradley, rumor has it that the Penn State defensive coordinator is interested in the Syracuse job. I don’t buy it.
• Speaking of Syracuse, this is how bad things have gotten for the Orange: Temple coach Al Golden, who was apparently on Syracuse’s short list, announced that he was not interested in the job. Yes, folks. It’s true: The coach at Temple is not interested in the job at Syracuse. Ugh.
• I suppose at some point I should mention the Big 12 title game, even though said game is going to be an absolute blowout. So here goes: Oklahoma’s offense is really good. How good? This good: They have scored at least 61 points in each of their last four games. In that fifth game, they didn’t score 61, but they did score 58. They will beat Missouri by 40. Or 50.
• Finally, a note about the Beavers. Oregon State, which might end up playing Pitt in the Sun Bowl, has lost its last three meetings with Big East schools by an average score of 45-14. Which is the same score they lost Penn State earlier this year. The Beavers just don’t like the East, I guess.