The new football season is upon us. Badgers, Beavers, Tigers, Ducks, the entire menagerie of NCAA teams, all taking the fight to each other. It will be a fast-paced, edge of your seat adventure.
Unless you count the commercials, which run thick through the production, and they always travel in packs, like jackals. Besides that, though, buckle in and enjoy the show.
Except for halftime, twenty or so minutes of endless drivel disguised as humor and sports news. But, the game that gets your blood flowing and raises the hackles on your neck! At least during the 3 to 7[1] seconds it takes to actually run a play. Then they spot the ball, substitute players, form into huddles and decide what to do next. 25 seconds later the whole it’s go time! Briefly.
Though, the game is so complicated players don’t get to decide what to do next. No, that decision comes from coaches, coordinators, assistants and technicians. They set in a booth and watch the game looking for exploitable trends. Everybody is wired together and can communicate freely, and then send the play to the field.
The days of “hey, you run down there and I’ll throw it to you” are over. Everybody has a job to do, and the whole thing depends on everybody doing the right thing. Not to fear, though, everybody has spent the last several months doing the same things over and over again, hours of rote conditioning so long that it finally had to be regulated by the NCAA.
Even though it looks like 3 to 7 seconds of absolute chaos, it’s really an intricately choreographed dance, precision in motion. Until somebody from the other team throws a spanner in the works.
Which is what they spend their 25 seconds, or thereabouts, trying to do.
On one side you have a group of millionaires, intense and focused asking “should we run or pass?”
On the other side, you have an equally well paid and connected group asking “are they going to run or pass?”
After that, we have 3 to 7 seconds of actual football. And no matter what happens the announcers are going to talk about how wonderful the play calling was. If one of the defense players accidentally tied his shoelaces together in the huddle and tripped causing a domino effect that eventually ended up knocking the ball carrier out of bounds, which ends the play, we would hear how wise the defensive coordinator was for sending his entire squad to the turf as if they were deflated hot air balloons and forcing the ball carrier out of bounds short of the first down.
“Never saw that coming did they?”
Three to four hours later one team, the one with the most points will leave happy, The other team will be sad, and face the tough questions that always follow a loss.
“Why didn’t you guys tackle that guy before he scored that touchdown?”
Or.
“Why didn’t you guys score more points?”
Just once it would be refreshing to hear a coach say;
“Well, we tried our damndest but they just have a lot of better players. Our coaches are just as good as theirs, but our players aren’t. We were doomed from the opening coin toss, which we lost, by the way.”
Imagine the shock waves that would send up and down the sports talk universe. I would be willing to order a team jersey for that kind of honesty.
The main thing is, though, football season is here. Time to dust off your paraphernalia and clichés, grab a few beers some snacks and a big chip to set on your shoulder, and enough humility to get you through a season of heartbreak and disappointment, you know it’s coming.
[1] Just a guess, I’ve never really timed a play.
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