College Football and the NFL Play Role Reversal
Growing up in the South, the NFL had very little presence outside of television. There were not very many teams here and pro football seemed to have more of a national flavor rather than a regional one. I pulled for the Atlanta Falcons because they were the closest team to me in South Carolina. But the teams they would play were so far away that it was hard for me to take it too seriously. 
Back then, the Falcons were in the NFC West division (if you could believe that) and the only other team that was not from the west coast was the New Orleans Saints (I’m pretty sure that is the reason why they are rivals today). A true rivalry takes place between two teams in close proximity. In the NFL, Washington and Dallas were big rivals. Kansas City and Oakland were also rivals. But those teams are simply too far apart to be regional rivals. Pro Football was fun to watch but it lacked the passion of the college game. Most of the college games were played between teams that were no more than 300 miles apart.
However, a new millennium leads to change and a big one was about to take the NFL and College Football in opposite` directions. The NFL decided that there needed to be re-alignment to put teams closer together geographically. The Carolina Panthers now play in the NFC South division with Atlanta, New Orleans, and Tampa Bay. And if you look at the other divisions, they are put together the same way. With the teams being closer to each other, it means that now the opposing fans can attend a road game just like in College Football.
But wait, College Football is no longer the regional game it used to be. Conferences are expanding and reaching out into different TV markets (for money of course). South Carolina will now have to travel to Missouri in the SEC conference and if you think that’s bad, Boston College is in the same conference with Miami which is 1500 miles away. No two teams are that far apart in the same division of the NFL. Because of expansion at the college level, some teams in football, who used to be rivals, will not play every year and in basketball, they will only play once.
It’s hard to tell what the long term effects of expansion will have on College Football, but there’s no doubt that it is less about the passion of the rivalries and more about the passion of money. The NFL used to be all about the high paid athletes competing. Today, between the debate of a playoff system and teams moving from one conference to another, I see more dollar signs flashing on Saturday than I do on Sunday. How ironic is that?
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Fight Song Evolves to Rally Song in College Football
This has got to be the coolest time in history to be a college football fan. I remember going to games to watch my favorite team but now the football experience is an extension of an aerobics class. For years, teams had a fight song that they would play as the team would enter the field. They would replay the song throughout the game as the team would score.
In the past, the most exciting part of the game was the entrance of the home team onto the field. Auburn runs out with a real War Eagle circling the stadium (at least I think it’s real). Miami University comes out through a cloud of dried ice. When Ohio State runs out, the mascot dots the eye. Clemson probably beats them all as they come charging down the hill through a sea of orange.
Most of the time, these music pieces are designed by the school but nowadays, schools pick up on a popular musical number and then incorporate it into the flow of the game. I love to analyze how and why changes take place over the course of history. Clemson running down the hill was designed to get fans coming to the game early so that the stadium was full when the players enter. Joe Morrison, the coach of South Carolina in the 80’s, saw the value of this and came up with the idea of having the Gamecocks enter to the theme of 2001.
The idea of a Broadway entrance is to keep the players juiced the entire game and to do that, you have to keep the fans motivated. That was not as hard to do 30 years ago when games were not played on TV. Until the middle part of the 80’s, ABC carried the only game of the week and it was at 3:30pm on Saturday afternoon. Everyone else played without the benefit of television and without TV, games were played in 2.5 hours. Now that many games are being broadcasted, you have more commercials. And with more commercials, games drag on past 3 hours.
So with the extended times, how do you keep the fans into the game with all of the television timeouts? Enter.. the rally song. Schools have become quite creative in the past few years with designing ways to keep everyone on their feet. I have spent some time on YouTube looking at the rally songs of various schools and I’m convinced that three schools currently do it better than anyone else.
There are some good rally songs out there but Virginia Tech, South Carolina, and Wisconsin are at the top of the list. By the way, the rally song is not actually a song because nobody is singing. I just can’t think of a better term for it. I have included 3 YouTube videos showing what a powerful tool they can be. Virginia Tech plays the “Sandman.” South Carolina rocks the house with “Sandstorm.” Wisconsin keeps them jumping with “Jump Around.” Take a look at each clip and then picture yourself being an exhausted player in the 4th quarter. Which rally would keep you motivated?
http://youtu.be/CFjTlHDcrHA “Sandman” ‘at Virginia Tech
http://youtu.be/ErJo2CpAYps “Sandstorm at South Carolina
http://youtu.be/tODlPxhbGF8 “Jump Around” at Wisconsin
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Tebow Was Eliminated From The Playoffs…What Do We Talk About Now?
We all know what it’s like to be around someone who can only talk about one subject and once the topic shifts, they fade into the woodwork. I get the feeling that the same thing is happening in the sports media since Tebow was eliminated from the playoffs last weekend. For four months now, we have had the discussion of Tebow shoved down our throats. It’s not like this is the NBA or Major League baseball where there is so little to talk about that they have to hang on one issue until it dries up. This is the NFL. And they can’t stop talking about whether he is right for the league or not.
I’ve listened to some talk radio this week and I hear a lot of topics being thrown around as if they are trying to make up something to say in its place. Heck, they are even talking basketball and why not, it’s basketball season. I even heard one discussion concerning Joe Flacco (QB for the Baltimore Ravens) and how one of his teammates, who happens to live down the road from him, apparently tweeted that he saw his quarterback on a skateboard and didn’t think that was safe behavior from a player getting ready for the biggest game of his career. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have made the discussion if Tim Tebow was still playing.
Anyway, the Tebow ship is in dry dock for the off season. And the talking heads are trying to remember what they used to talk about before the Broncos season began. Well here are some topics for you. The Giants and the 49ers will clash today in what appears on paper to be one of the closest matchups we’ve seen in some time. Tom Brady will try to get revenge on a team that eliminated them in the playoffs a year ago. And for the first time in 20 or more years, the Tar heels and the Blue Devils in basketball look vulnerable at the same time. Could this be the year that someone else wins the ACC? Well maybe if the rest of the ACC didn’t stink. Chew on that one talk radio!
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The NFL Needs a College Influence and Tebow Could Help
Trends within the NFL seem to move faster than trends in College Football. We might see periods in the NFL where defense dominates and when that happens, all you really need is a safe quarterback that manages the offense with limited turnovers. Baltimore and Tampa Bay were two teams in the recent past with such a personality.
In the past few years, the teams with the best throwing quarterbacks are the ones that go deep into the playoffs. For example, the New England Patriots have virtually no defense and very little running game and they are heading to the playoffs as the number one seed in the AFC. It also appears that Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers are set for an NFC showdown as the two best quarterbacks on that side of the bracket. The 6 or 7 best teams in the league all have quarterbacks capable of putting up 350 yards passing or more every game and all of the other teams are average at best.
One of the reasons I prefer college football is that there is such a wide variety of styles at that level. There is a big difference between the offense that Navy runs and the offense run at Southern California, but there’s not much difference in the offenses at the pro level. Every team has pretty much the same portion of talent and that makes the game boring. For example, a beautiful woman would turn heads in a small town in the middle of the country but not in Southern California where they are all gorgeous. If they all look good then they are all average because none standout. In the NFL, the only difference is the Quarterback and the game plan.
So how can we jazz up the NFL? Well, by making it look more like College Football. We need more trick plays, more fake punts, and more Quarterbacks running with the football. And that’s where Tim Tebow can help. Some folks are hoping that Tebow can grow into a great throwing QB. I think it’s a better bet to hope that the style of managing the game with good defense comes back. Tebow would be more successful running that style but with all of the throwing going on, I certainly think that more players doing what he does would make the game more interesting.
I like it when my team is stronger than the other team but I love it when my team is smarter. With Aaron Rodgers andTom Brady, you pretty much know what they are going to do and you have to figure out how to stop it. But with Tim Tebow, you have to figure out what he’s going to do because he has more possible options. The trend right now says that the Tom Brady way will bring you more championship rings, but sometimes, the Tebow way is more fun.
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rder your favorite tailgating items from your favorite North Carolina sports teams at http://ncsportinggoods.com
Running Up the Score in College Football
I’ve often wondered why coaches from this generation are so sensitive. They respond to accusations before they check them out, they jump all over the media for things that were said about their programs, and they get upset when the opposing team seems to run up the score. And in most cases, these accusations are not justified.
Two weeks ago, Bobby Petrino pointed his finger at Les Miles when it appeared that Les was running up the score by kicking a field goal at the end of the game in which LSU beat Arkansas 41-17. Running up the score was not the plan. Les simply wanted to get as many style points as he could so that he would still be in position to play for the national championship in the event that they would lose to Georgia the following week. At half time of that game, the reporter asked Bobby how he would keep his team together in the second half given their fragile state in the past. Bobby took exception to this comment but the fact that Arkansas was blown out in the second half showed the legitimacy of the statement.
Last week, Clemson coach, Dabo Swinney was asked about a statement that Steve Spurrier supposedly made after the game with South Carolina. Spurrier was said to have made a comment that, “we might not be Alabama or LSU but at least we’re not Clemson. Instead of checking the statement out first, he went into a 4 minute response comparing his school to USC.
I have some theories as to why coaches are this way. When I was a kid, you only got a trophy when you won the championship but today, we give trophies to everyone on the team just for competing. Maybe that’s why, twenty years later, we are constantly expanding the playoffs to add more teams and why the younger coaches seem to be so sensitive to having the score run up on them, who knows?
The biggest problem I see with the coaches acting as they do is that they lose the power to create bulletin board material for the next meeting between the two teams. Bobby Petrino could have saved his anger until next year when Arkansas gets LSU at home and then talk to his players about LSU running up the score a year ago. Instead Les Miles will probably show the video of Petrino pointing his finger at his team from across the field.
Dabo Swinney could have held his views of South Carolina until next year and then the week before the game, plaster it all over the locker room. Instead, he went on and on about South Carolina where he made the statement that in all states, there is a rivalry but in our state, it’s more of domination because we’ve beat them so much. With those comments, he just took all of the bulletin board material for next year and gave it to South Carolina. Personally I think Danny Ford would have handled the situation a little better.
To be fair, today’s coaches have to deal with around the clock media and 24 hour sports channels because this generation can’t seem to get enough. I know because I’m one of them. However, there are a lot of young guns coaching college football teams these days with a lot to learn about how to handle the media. Wasn’t it Andy Griffith that used to say, “Act like you got some smart?”
Order your favorite tailgating items from your favorite North Carolina sports teams at http://ncsportinggoods.com
College Football Playoffs…Who Needs It?
Awh, it’s that time of the year again. The interstate rivals, the conference championship games, and the bowl season right around the corner. But as usual, everyone is caught up in the college football playoffs controversy. It seems to happen every year. People with poor memories will forget what it used to be like and how we would derive at a national champion.
The two best teams seldom ever played for the championship. The most embarrassing year was in 1984 when Brigham Young University won the title. Let’s get one thing straight off the bat. Finishing the season undefeated means absolutely nothing if you play crème puffs to get there. Brigham Young didn’t even have to play a serious opponent in a serious bowl to win it. They played Michigan, who finished tied for 6th place in the Big-10 and they played in the Holiday Bowl.
All of the elite bowls back then were played on New Year’s Day which means that the championship was decided early in the season. To be fair, Oklahoma was supposed to win it but they were upset in the Orange Bowl against Washington University. And to make matters worse, the Cougars barely beat Michigan to take the bowl.
Folks have been screaming for a college football playoff system since the BCS started. But the number one accomplishment of the BCS is that it has instated a computer system that ranks teams by strength of schedule. Unlike the NFL that has parity and only 30 teams, college football has over 100 teams and some conferences are simply much stronger that other conferences.
Who needs a playoff anyway? The passion and drama of regular season football at the college level can never be matched by the NFL. The bowl season begins in September and runs through December. You can lose a game and quite possibly two and still get there, but the pressure is on to win every week. In the NFL, most playoff posturing has been decided before the last two weeks of the year so playoff bound teams rest players. That means that the final two weeks are similar to pre-season. That never happens in college. You fight to the finish.
The BCS since its inception has continuously but the two best teams in the final meeting and the ratings have been awesome. I have one last example for you. If baseball didn’t have a playoff system and we decided the World Series like we did 50 years ago, guess who would have played in the World Series? The Yankees and the Phillies would have been the final two teams and I think the ratings would have been a bit better than the Rangers and the Cardinals don’t you?
Here we Grow!
Hello,
This is the beginning of a new blog about college sports. I’m from North Carolina and will spotlight the college teams in the region from time to time but will tackle anything that is happening, of note, in college sports anywhere in the country. I will also post pictures and a link to my site where the locals can purchase tailgating items from their favorite college sports teams from the great state of North Carolina.
I look forward to the input from everyone so let’s have some fun! http://ncsportinggoods.com
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