If you don’t think of cornhole everytime you hear America, do you even bleed red, white, and blue? I can think of no other game that so closely lines up with American stereotypes on all levels.
Read More...Someone, somewhere, has been counting down since mid January to the start of a new college football season. Many people probably. At any given point in a calendar year you can do a quick Internet search to see exactly how many days are left until American football returns. Much the same way you can also easily find out how many days are left until a particular holiday season … or any random date for that matter. Whatever your heart desires, there is something online that will give you a countdown for it.
While I enjoy the college football season more than the average person, I find it ironic that the same people who shamelessly countdown to kickoff day are the same ones who generally like to judge others for knowing, say, the exact number of days left until Christmas. If you can keep a daily countdown for football, I can keep a daily countdown until my favorite holiday. That would be 114 days for all you fellow merry reindeer. But today is the start of one of college sports most exciting weekends. Labor Day.
You love March Madness, I love March Madness, we all love March Madness. No denying that. Not as exciting for the College Football Playoff because, let’s be honest, only having four teams compete is garbage. Mostly because the polls are political and I have yet to see a playoff where the four chosen teams were truly the four who should have been in there. I clearly would like a word with the committee, as would a lot of Texas A&M and Oklahoma fans, I’m sure. You’re telling me a team, nay, TWO teams with two losses on losing streaks make it over another TWO teams with only one loss and on 8 game win streaks?! From stronger conferences?! Collusion.
My favorite part of the anticipation is the calm before the storm. That is this week. All of the experts have spent literally months predicting different scenarios and arguing for their alma maters. Sometimes they just talk – actually most of it is them just blowing smoke. After all of that settles, though, the only thing left to do is wait for tonight. There is nothing else to be said. We’ve waited 7.5 months and it’s finally here. And can we talk about how great it is to have the Thursday night kickoff now? Why wait until Saturday when you can start your long weekend with some football? Because no work gets done the Friday before an official long weekend anyways.
Sure, some of the D1 teams from smaller conferences kicked off this past weekend, but, does that count? Until we get a top 25 ranked team in the lineup, it might as well be pre-season. If you weren’t busy, you probably tuned in for a bit. If you were busy, don’t worry. You’ve got the big boys coming in soon with another deadly lineup of top team matchups every week to get any sports fan pumped up. Despite their shortcomings in the playoff debacle, the college football scheduling committee knows how to keep fans entertained for over four months.
Clearly I’m not passionate about the season starting at all. Football is one of the many reasons that fall is the best season of the year. Tailgates being a close second, but what’s a tailgate without a game to attend? Saturdays, and Sundays if you roll with the pros as well, are booked from now through the end of the year. When someone asks if you can hangout, they better put in a Calendly invite for a workday because I’m going to be busy watching a bunch of unfortunate guys get absolutely raked.
There is no better entertainment in sports than seeing a good, hard, tackle. Or a hail mary play. Or a ridiculous, should have never happened, but it did, kickoff return for a touchdown. Or a last minute impossible pick six for the win. Or your team putting an absolute beatdown on a rival. Or your team, hopefully, hoisting the trophy come January. So many ups. So many potential downs, as well, but the season hasn’t started yet. So there is nothing but hope. T minus 10.5 hours to kickoff.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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Everyone loves a rerun. Sometimes. Sometimes everyone loves a rerun. And those times are not all of the time, nor are they in all things. Thus the definition of the word sometimes. At least eloquently refactored in a concise, millennial way. The legit Google definition is ‘occasionally, rather than all the time’ so I guess my version was actually more verbose. Which, in hindsight, one sentence later, is surprisingly fitting for the millennials as a generation.
English lesson aside, we all have reruns that we look forward to, some that we feel indifferent about, and others that we would be fine never seeing again. For example, all the Schitt’s Creek and Parks and Recreation episodes in the world could never be played enough and we will always stand up our friends for a good television marathon of those shows. Historic sporting events are hit or miss, depending on your level of emotional involvement, the overall outcome of the game, how long ago it occurred, and what our social calendar looks like at the time of the showing. Then, of course, there’s the no fly zone which includes making the same dating mistake multiple times, never learning how to study in college and continuing to use the ‘D is for degree’ mindset, and eating the entire piece of cheesecake from The (one and only) Cheesecake Factory by yourself. Again. And ending up not being able to eat for 24 hours. Again.
So we get it, right? Reruns are only as exciting as the context that comes with them. The College Football Playoff is not that context. For all who were wondering. Is anyone still enjoying it at this point? Other than the 3 schools that make the championship game year after year obviously. As a fan, however, this is not doing it for me anymore to be honest. We get it. Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State have political pull, and maybe a lot of under the table money (I’m not here to judge), flowing to the ranking committee placing them in the top four each year.
The problem here is that the top four, and only the top four, even get a chance at making the national title game. And that feels a bit unfair to the teams who happen to be in lesser known conferences. I don’t want to see the predictable. I want Cinderellas. I want upsets. I want an underdog to pull for. Which is clearly why the CFP will never compare to March Madness. Because unless you roll with the tide, think orange and purple is an acceptable color combination, or secretly enjoy sporting your love for Mary Jane, you don’t care about last night’s supposedly biggest game of the year.
Don’t get me wrong, those teams are good. Clearly. But let’s back up a second and think about all the reasons that Ohio State shouldn’t have even been in the playoffs. Reason one: Ohio State did not play 6 regular season Big Ten games. Nope! They only played 5 so the playoff committee was like, all these other teams have double digit games, but sure put Brutus up in the top four. Reason two: Ohio State was not technically eligible for the Big Ten championship game, and thus, not eligible for the CFP. Say it ain’t so! Oh yes, the Big Ten Conference, as a whole, decided to waive it’s (up until that point) very strict 6 game limit to be eligible for the title game so that OSU could play. In place of Indiana, so Hoosiers fans, my heart is with you during this tough time. Reason three: other than the Clemson win in the semi-finals, I’m not convinced that a new challenger would not have knocked off the Buckeyes based on their measly 6 game record. Few of which were blowout wins, might I add.
Ok, enough hating on the Bucks for now. Let’s examine Clemson and Alabama. Sure, we know that both are capable of winning against teams in their conference. Shocker … since the ACC is not a football conference despite their best trash talking efforts and the SEC has been on the decline in recent years. The real football power conferences are the B10, Pac 12, and Big 12. Fight me. What would happen if the playoff included more than one rotating team? My guess, we would not always see one of the Three Musketeers playing in mid-January.
While we’re hating on the CFP, let’s talk about how a four team playoff is, frankly, a joke. It was always a joke. Since 2015 and the first year of this system. Before going further, I have to say that college football has long needed a better system for determining a national championship. Other than having whoever happened to be one of the top two teams duke it out. A playoff, for example. Similar to how every other sport does it. But four teams?! Who was in charge of that? Eighth at a minimum! If we really want a true champion, though, it really needs to hit the sweet sixteen mark. That’s over half the top 25. We’ll see how crimson, orange, and red fare against the full rainbow then.
Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!
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The Restless Professional 