2018 College football season ends

Monday night's national championship game marked the official end of the 2018 college football season. It's over, and, as with every other ending like this one, I am a bit saddened. I can't help it. I love college football. More than any other sport, collegiate or professional, college football is spectacular, filled with surprises, and exciting. It is surrounded by the perfection of an autumn day with glistening skies, beautiful cheerleaders, fanatical followers, student bodies that are caught up in the rapture of the perfect afternoon and the knowledge that you will never be this young or this excited again.

I'm not a season ticket holder. I seldom attend games at my alma mater, relying on the generosity of people who have an extra ticket or two. I watch the games on television, which, thanks to multiple cameras and the astounding detail of modern televisions, gives better views of the games than the most expensive game ticket. Television also allows you to see plays again and again. Astute fans might save time by waiting until there's a lot of cheering, and then looking at the replay showing what all the cheering is about. Smartphone Apps will replay videos of the big plays for the next 24 hours.

Monday's game testifies to the excitement and entertainment college football provides. One Clemson wide receiver caught two passe with just one hand. Twice, he managed to collect the well-thrown ball in one hand and pull it into his body while a defensive back slapped at the ball and his arms. Running backs tore through defensive lines populated by giants. At one point, the Clemson kicker "donked" the football off the goal post upright on a field goal attempt, providing the unexpected element most games have. This "donk" ended up not mattering in the long run, but a "double donk" by the NFL Chicago Bears field goal kicker Sunday afternoon eliminated the surging Bears from the NFL playoffs. You never know which play is going to bring a surprise or a spectacular play.

Football is a far more complicated and safer sport than it was when I played football in high school and diligently followed NFL games each Sunday in my twenties. It remains a violent sport, but better equipment and rule changes designed to protect the players have made it better, not worse.

Even with the changes, though, players know their bodies and especially their brains can be damaged beyond repair in today's game. The danger of dementia caused by repeated hits to the head by very large men has caused many young men and parents to decide football is just too hazardous.

Big-time football (like that played by Clemson and Alabama and other elite schools) is sometimes seen as an extension of the universities the teams represent, to the consternation of critics who say the millions of dollars paid annually to coaches and the multi-millions colleges invest in football scholarships, practice facilities and stadiums could be better invested in academic pursuits.

Health concerns or academic critics could one day put an end to college football's dominance, but until then, I will watch with amazement what top college athletes are able to do and how much excitement a football game can generate, even if you're not there in person. My television will get far less use until the next fall when the blue skies, cool breezes, cheering fans and anticipation announce the return of college football.

Football, Super Bowls and the future

This Super Bowl weekend, numerous articles are pointing out the decline in the popularity of the National Football League. President Trump has suggested the decline in NFL game TV ratings is the result of players' protests during the pregame National Anthem. More sober analyses show many factors account for the ratings decline, including the "cut the cord" movement (which has resulted in an overall decline in network/cable viewing), the lack of success by fans' favorite teams (Dallas Cowboys and others) and individual players (Cam Newton and others), and the acknowledgement that traumatic brain injuries are plaguing the entire sport.

Another factor, largely unacknowledged, is the never-ending hype of the networks and the NFL to cram two entire weeks of anticipation into the calendar before the Super Bowl takes place. Sunday's game is scheduled for 6:30, but NBC's coverage of the game begins at noon. That strikes me as a textbook definition of overkill. Fans' capacity for minute details and "expert" opinions has been stretched beyond the breaking point.

This all-day coverage is aimed at selling more high-priced commercial time, of course. The Super Bowl captures the largest annual viewership and charges the highest quarter-minute price for commercials. Super Bowl commercials have become an event almost as anticipated as the game itself.

In the 52-year history (or the LII history if you're into the NFL's pretentious Roman numerals) of Super Bowls, I've probably closely watched 46 (that XLVI) of them. I'll watch number LII Sunday, even though my favorite teams faltered in the regular season or playoffs and won't be on the field.

Despite its inherent violent collisions and dangers of serious, even permanent, injury, football can provide moments of beauty, such as a perfectly arced pass that drops the football into the receiver's hand 60 yards from where it was unleashed, a sudden zig-zag that frees a runner to scamper into the end zone past prostate defensive players who were faked out by the move, or a ballet-like leap into the air to snag a pass and return to earth within the painted lines on the field.

These moments are why I still watch the game, even though I find college football more interesting and exciting. Both collegiate and professional football are facing an existential threat in the form of crippling brain traumas that leave retired players with severe mental disabilities and/or dementia. Participation in football is declining at the middle school and high school level. Parents are reluctant to allow their sons to play a game that can result in their permanent disability. Without youth football to supply the apprentices to the college and pro games, the sport cannot survive. Even though the NFL and the NCAA have imposed new rules to limit the severity of collisions to the head and neck, the hazard of debilitating concussions and dementia persists. Better helmets don't seem to be the answer.

I'll watch the Super Bowl Sunday knowing that the event might not reach its ninety-ninth year (that would be Super Bowl IC), and I will look forward to the start of the college football season (although my team isn't doing well) with all its hoopla, youthful excitement, and perfect blue skies. It's one of the reasons I love the autumn.

UNC's neck is in the guillotine

University of North Carolina alumni and fans are awaiting a verdict from the NCAA a little like a man with his neck in the bottom of a guillotine. How bad will it hurt?

To punish a scandal that essentially sold out the university's integrity for success in athletics over a period of 18 years, presumably giving UNC an advantage over college teams that didn't bend the rules (wink, wink) or forgo the college's agreement to provide a college education to talented athletes willing to toil for the college's glory, what is the appropriate punishment? I'll never understand the logic behind the NCAA's inconsistent decisions, but it seems inevitable that UNC will have many, most, or all of its game victories and championship seasons negated. Roy Williams' stellar record of career basketball victories could be shoved to the bottom of the list, just as Bobby Bowden lost his place in the career victories list after a scandal at Florida State. That might be the least of the consequences.

The NCAA could go for the coup de grace. It could issue the "death penalty," as it did in response to a scandal at SMU in 1987. SMU's offenses were long-standing — a slush fund that had paid players for a decade. SMU was barred from fielding a football team for a year, which stretched into two years because the university had to start over from scratch. UNC's scandal was longer-lasting but perhaps not as blatant as SMU's. UNC did not violate the sacred notion of amateurism, but it tarnished its own academic reputation and integrity. A "death penalty" is not out of the question for UNC.

Ameliorating circumstances on UNC's side might be that the academic fraud was limited to one department and was conceived by and run by a handful of lower-level officials. But that might not be a sufficient excuse. The ability of non-academics to hijack education for the benefit of struggling athletes (and a few others) indicates a lack of oversight by the university administration. Perhaps that fault falls outside the purview of the NCAA — an academic matter rather than an athletic one — but it's of little comfort for UNC supporters who are embarrassed and angered by the indignity of it all.
 

Football bowl games are not what they used to be

This is day — what? — of the college football bowl season. There has been at least one bowl game on television every day or night since sometime around the beginning of Advent. Who can keep track any more?

Gone are the days of New Year's Day bowls stacked one over another all day long and into the night. You had to choose which one to watch. You couldn't possibly watch them all, even if you had a TV remote control, which you didn't. You had to physically get up and turn the knob to get a different channel, and because all TV was broadcast, you might not get a clear picture on one or more of the games.

The big bowls were the only bowls at the time — the Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl — and they were all played in warm climates so that those of us shivering in a poorly heated house could vicariously feel the tropical warmth shown on TV. Those days are long gone. Bowls have proliferated. Someone noticed that attracting 100,000 football fans for a holiday weekend was good for the local economy, so bowls grew in all sorts of places, such as Memphis, Nashville, Orlando, Atlanta, Tempe, and so on. It got to the point that there were so many bowls that teams with barely winning records received guaranteed bowl berths. Thus, we have bowls pitting two 6-6 teams against each other in stadiums that are more than half empty.

While they may have been money-makers for the local economy, bowls were expensive to put on, so corporate sponsors were added with companies like Continental Tire and Tostitos corn chips lending their names to bowls.

And, of course, television ruled everything in collegiate football (just as in collegiate basketball). The TV rulers determined that it would be better for their ratings if the big bowls didn't compete for viewers' attention, and so the bowls were spread out from early December to sometime in January with starting times determined not by local clocks but by the national prime time. Tonight's game starts at 8 or 8:30, which means I might watch the beginning of the game but probably won't watch the end.

For all its flaws, college football is a supremely entertaining and exciting athletic/art form. I have watched bits of most of the bowl games this season, excepting the arcane bowls in out-of-the-way places pitting two mediocre teams against each other. Some of the games (such as Duke vs. Texas A&M) were supremely suspenseful and entertaining, and some were runaways. That's the way college football is.

Joe Paterno, rest in peace

Rest in peace, Joe Paterno. I'm sad to see you go, especially in the manner that your death came.

I was never a Penn State fan, but I was always a respecter of Joe Paterno. Unlike most of his college football coaching colleagues, he seemed genuinely concerned, first and foremost, with the character, education and success of his players. He could have worked his way up the coaching ladder, going to ever-larger schools until he reached the pinnacle, the football factories of the NCAA. He eschewed the showboating and grand spectacles of win-at-any-cost football programs. He insisted on plain uniforms without player names on the jerseys. He lived in a modest house, by coaching standards. He gave generously to charities. He went to Penn State and stayed there until they kicked him out.

The kicking out was the saddest part of Paterno's story. He was summarily fired by Penn State after it was revealed that he had been told that Jerry Sandusky, his former trusted assistant, had sexually abused a young boy in the Penn State football complex. Paterno reported the incident to university administrators. Police were never called. Sandusky is now accused of abusing several boys over a period of years, both during and after his Penn State coaching career. In his only comments about the incident, Paterno said he did what he was required to do. He reported the accusation to his superiors (who have also been fired). He also said he had only vague information about the incident and has trouble imagining that sort of conduct. It's easy to believe that Paterno was naive about child sexual abuse. It's easy to believe that he could not conceive of his old friend doing anything so despicable.

Paterno accepted his dismissal as gracefully as anyone can accept being fired after 41 faithful, successful years. One mistake can wipe away all those successful years, and that incident (which is thus far only an accusation; Sandusky has not been tried or admitted guilt) will undoubtedly taint the stainless legacy Paterno had built at Penn State.

Paterno's legacy will survive his error in judgment relating to Sandusky. His 400-plus wins will be an insurmountable peak to conquer. His insistence on education and sportsmanship will endure. In 1968, he explained his philosophy to Sports Illustrated's Dan Jenkins: “We’re trying to win football games; don’t misunderstand that. But I don’t want it to ruin our lives if we lose. I don’t want us ever to become the kind of place where an 8-2 season is a tragedy. Look at that day outside. It’s clear, it’s beautiful, the leaves are turning, the land is pretty, and it’s quiet. If losing a game made me miserable, I couldn’t enjoy such a day.” That sort of clear thinking is needed in sports.

If only he had never hired Jerry Sandusky.

An embarrassing exit for a legend

Penn State's board of trustees fire Coach Joe Paterno for failing to report an incident of child sexual abuse to police, and students riot in support of "Joe Pa"? If there's any doubt that big-time sports are running academia, it can be proven in the students' attitude: The big game with Nebraska is more important than protecting innocent child victims.

On the other hand, no one has been convicted in this case. A prosecutor has brought charges against the alleged perpetrator, former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, but Sandusky maintains his innocence and has not yet faced a jury. The charges against Sandusky have created a media sensation with many seemingly willing to forgo due process and fair trial. Paterno, as well, apparently will not get his day in court to defend his legendary reputation.

Regardless of the truth of the allegations, Paterno's departure is a sad ending for a storied career. He has won more college football games than any major-college coach, and he has avoided any hint of scandal. But if the allegations are true, he failed police his assistant coach and made only a minimal attempt to report the crime reported to him. Only a week ago, Paterno, 83, had seemed destined to walk away into history with insurmountable victories and a reputation without blemish. Now he may have only the victories.

But the students at Penn State who rioted on his behalf need a reality check. Big Ten football is one thing; child sex abuse is quite another. Hint: The latter is the bigger deal.

The cost of big time college football

It should have been seen as a harbinger. The championship-hungry power brokers who tore down the idyllic and iconic Kenan Stadium Field House (seen in the center background in this 1927 photo) in a push for more seating and high-priced suites for wealthy fans should have seen it coming. If all you care about is winning, there is a price to be paid. They tore down the charming old Field House at the east end of Kenan Stadium, even though it had been there since the 1920s, when the stadium was built. They wanted an exclusive new edifice, one that would charm and fete the wealthy donors who were highly sought after to feed the big-time football program's hunger for big money for coaches and equipment. They wanted to close in the stadium, to make it a complete oval, like Michigan's stadium, or the Rose Bowl, or the Lowe's Motor Speedway. A few years before, they had cut down the trees and enclosed the west end zone with a huge, multi-storied football center, making Kenan Stadium, which had been built in a natural ravine with seats on each sideline, in a horseshoe-shaped stadium. The new facility was supposed to make Carolina football competitive with the Big Boys. That wasn't enough; only a complete oval would do for a Big Time College Football Powerhouse.

But just a week before the start of the 2010 season — in a nationally televised game, no less — the UNC Tar Heels are wondering whether they'll have enough skilled players to field a team. An NCAA investigation into players' relationships with professional sports agents threatens to decimate the team. Double-digit player disqualifications are being rumored. On top of that, the NCAA investigation led to a subsequent university investigation into irregularities involving a tutor of football players. There is even the possibility that last year's wins, which came after the allegedly illegal contact between players and an agent, might be vacated.

In just a couple of weeks, the Tar Heel team has gone from top-20 preseason excitement to potential disaster.

That's what you get when all you care about is winning. The old mission-style Kenan Field House has been demolished. It cannot be resurrected. I searched for a recent photo of the Field House and could not find any online. The closest I came was this photo of the building's demolition. The Field House had stood, with many renovations and additions, for 80 years. It had seen many championships and many All-Americans. It was good enough for those glory years, but it wasn't "Big Time."

Personally, I'd prefer to have the Field House back, along with a little integrity.

One final late night for college football

OK. The college football season is over, and I'll have to go into withdrawal for the next eight months. Last night's BCS championship was a good game, in doubt until the last few minutes and with plenty of spectacular plays. It was a game I stayed up to watch (why TV's dictatorial influence puts these games on until midnight on a Thursday night is another issue), and I wasn't disappointed.

Neither team was my choice for the championship, and I have an abiding distaste for both head coaches, but since someone had to win, I relished seeing Mack Brown lose more than seeing Nick Saban win. Roll Tide! (Too bad Auburn didn't succeed in knocking you off and Nebraska failed by one second knocking Texas off.) If I had a vote in the final polls, it would go to undefeated Boise State, the team that still gets no respect, despite one of the winningest records in college football over the past three or four years.

I've watched a lot of bowl games over the past couple of weeks, and I'm the first to admit there are too many of these games over too long a stretch of time and at kickoff times that make no sense to anyone but television executives. Most of the bowls are nothing but profit-making transactions for the teams and host cities and excuses for partying by fans (thus, Memphis was an ideal bowl city for ECU, with its party school reputation). I watched these games not because they were meaningful or because I wanted to see how area teams stacked up against other opponents (though I did), but because college football is a terrific spectator sport that is ideally suited to television. Instant replay and multiple camera locations have turned watching football on TV into a viewer-friendly fascination. The team loyalties and passions of college football make it the most exciting of major sports. I still watch NFL games occasionally, but the loyalties and passions are not the same when grown men are playing for million of dollars per game.

There's much wrong with college football (and college sports in general) — the overwhelming control of television, the monstrous budgets, the non-playoff, non-decisive BCS bowl system, the odiously extravagant coaches' salaries (Mack Brown — $5 million a year, plus bonuses; Nick Saban — $3.5 million or something like that) — but it achieves its purpose of being grand entertainment.

I'll miss it over the next eight months.

Super Bowl's final minutes worth waiting for

Last night's Super Bowl lived up to its billing. The last four minutes or so were super football performances. Arizona's last touchdown drive and Pittsburgh's final winning drive were both things of beauty, turning what had been a lopsided first half into an exciting ending.

This was a Super Bowl in which I had no real favorite. My favored teams had fallen earlier in the playoffs, but I was still happy for Pittsburgh and Arizona. I had been a Steelers fan during their glory years of Chuck Knoll, Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Mean Joe Greene and all the rest. But I also like to pull for the underdog, and the Arizona Cardinals certainly fit that description. Kurt Warner proved again that he's one of the top quarterbacks of the last two decades. Even with different teams and different talent levels, even with being benched in favor of a younger, glitzier quarterback, he quarterbacks as if he were prenatally designed for the job. The awarding of the Walter Payton trophy, the NFL's humanitarian award, to Warner before the game started was especially touching. Warner had been ignored by the NFL, turned into a league MVP and won a Super Bowl, then benched and overlooked again before coming back this season at an age when others would have been retired. Through it all, his character has been unchanging.

So I was sort of pulling for the Cardinals, and mostly for Warner. I was glad to see him put together that last touchdown drive. But the Steelers deserved to win. That final drive and that final TD pass will be talked about for years.

Now the NFL season is over. I'll miss the excitement over the next seven months, and I'll especially miss it after college basketball closes its season around the first of April. But like the fresh fall air and the spectacular autumn colors, football will return again. Baseball has its adherents and college basketball can be exciting, but, for me, American football, with its varied strategies as complex as chess and war and its combination of graceful moves and brute force is the ultimate distraction.

We're No. 1; No, we are!

Florida beat Oklahoma last night in the BCS championship game, so that makes Florida the national champions of college football, right? I'm not so sure, and I'm far from alone. Some people who watch a lot more college football and know a lot more about it than I are not convinced.

Utah had already defeated Alabama in a convincing fashion to complete its undefeated season. Anybody else got an undefeated season? Nope. That, it would seem, should make Utah the national champion. Or maybe not.

ESPN columnist Rick Reilly makes the argument for Utah being No. 1. He also argues for the Bowl Championship Series' monopoly on deciding who gets the most prestigious and most financially lucrative bowls to be declared illegal. The Utah attorney general has launched an investigation into the BCS. President-elect Obama has said he wants to see a collegiate football championship playoff system. Might the Obama Justice Department file suit against the BCS? My guess is that Obama has more pressing matters to contend with, but an anti-trust suit might not be out of the question.

The larger issue here is the predominance of intercollegiate sports over the higher education interests of colleges and universities. Television dictates when games are played (which is why so many college games are played at night during TV's primetime instead of on Saturday afternoon, as God intended), and athletic revenues and prestige have universities in a painful grip. The big-time football and basketball powers of the NCAA turn that sports publicity into increased donations and student applications. Sports exercise greater control over higher education than any chancellor or professor would want to admit, and the situation hasn't improved since the Knight Commission began its critique 10 years ago.

A federal lawsuit or indictment against the BCS might finally get the colleges', coaches' and TV networks' attention.