College Football goes post-modern

As a Nebraskan, it sort of hurts to say this, but college football has started to take on the same generic look as the NFL. Why is the case? I don't know if there is any specific cause, I only know the symptoms.

We all know that the Wishbone and other forms of the triple-option are dead. what casual fans don't realize is that pass-happy offenses like the run-and shoot are also passe. No program is philisophically commited to running or passing the ball. Nebraska claims to run a "west coast" offense in order to impress recruits. But the term "west coast offense" has never meant anything, and now, somehow, it means less than nothing.

The fact is that Nebraska runs the same offense that everybody else does. That is, they "establish the run" with handoffs straight up the middle. If a team doesn't run into any difficulty, they will continue running throughout the game. If they are losing in the second half, than no matter how small the deficit, no matter how much time is left, the run will be abandoned. One can look at all of the "west coast" or "multiple" offenses in Division I and find the same thing.

Furthermore, there is no variety to the running game anymore. there was a certain pleasure in watching teams concoct various ways to put for backs in the backfield. It was silly, defending against he wing-T was not terribly different from defending against the wishbone, but it was charming too.

the one exception to this rule is the improvising quarterback. Texas won a national title last year by lining up in passing formations and than letting Vince Young do whatever he liked. This brought back memories of the old game, of an offense specililizing in one thing and doing it over and over again until they won or lost. It was a big part of what made college football interesting. Watch the 1984 Orange Bowl on ESPN classic. (Nebraska vs. Miami, the failed 2-point conversion game) It was like an old gladiator contest, one with a sword and shield, one with a spear and a net, or something like that. those days are gone, both teams throw more or less the same shit at each other.

So why do I watch this game, now that it's just as predictible as the NFL? Well, I'm an actual college student, so that makes me a bit less pathetic than the truck driver from Allience bitching over sports talk radio. I also like importance of each game, and how this effects the atmosphere in a college town on game days. You don't get that kind of atmosphere when a major league baseball team plays one game out of 180. But in college football there is a really big difference between, say, 10-2 and 9-3, so the tension hangs in the air of the host city on gameday, it spreads to the streets and the squirrals, It's quite nice.

Still, I do miss the days when teams revealed their personalities in their game stratagy. In the real world, anyone with a romantic side to them is either torn to pieces or has their sentiment exploited and used against them by shysters and demogogues. sports, like movies or any other form of entertainment, is supposed to be, if not an escape, than at least a little rest from reality. It's a shame to see every team get so damned practical.