Football: Pro vs College

Posted by Picked_Off on November 28, 2012
Posted in: Being a Fan, College Football, NFL. 1 comment

Recently I’ve had some discussions with some friends on the subject of pro vs college football. And by that I mean, which do you prefer. While this sounds like and is a discussion that has been had while drinking many beers (and it has), I think it’s also an interesting question.

Before I jump into the debate and present my thoughts on both side, I’ll provide a disclaimer – I am not from a college town nor am I from a major city that had professional sports teams. I love both levels of the sport and will watch either if it is on TV. My breakdown is not just about the product on the field. I’m including it all. Also, I’m going to rant and ramble, so buckle up kids and let’s get to it.

Pro Football

What can be said about the best damn sport being played by the best athletes at the highest level? It’s so fast. The players are so skilled and so big. It’s the best of the best. Take the best of college football, filter out the crap and serve on the biggest stage every week for 17 (plus playoffs) weeks! It’s also a business. Free-agency, hold-outs and salary cap issues all play into it. Loyalty just isn’t there. Not from management and not from players. Both just want their bank accounts filled.

The passion for the sport is there for many of the players, but for some reason we still see these “star” players play like loafs after they get that massive contract. Let’s not forget the 24/7 access to these athletes and their maturely (or lack thereof) coming through in every TMZ ESPN story. Some are absolutely class acts and use their fame for good and lay every single thing they have on the line each and every Sunday.

So what do we have? The best of the best playing at the highest level, but it’s such a big business that it can quickly become ugly and annoyingly too much…

College Football

It is home to one of the most wonderfully disastrous systems currently in sports. The BCS is so bad it leaves thousands and thousands of fans across the country screaming about “who is #1?!” without bringing a solid answer many time. A playoff is coming, but I’m sure it will be a few years and we’ll be screaming about that system. It’s a business at the top level and money and deals are kept under the training table, you know, where it can do the most damage to the next coach and players after you’ve blotted for the pros.

That said, it is a glorious game! Players play for the pride of their school and for such a small chance to possibly win that National Championship. Currently, every single game is the biggest game of the season. Of course, that leads many of the “powerhouse” teams to schedule cupcake FCS teams which don’t help the game. The fandom is so deep and rabid, it’s hard to imagine there is anything else happening in the world on a Saturday afternoon in the Fall. I’ve been to many a pro and college game, and to be completely honest, there is no other experience quite like game day  in a college town when your team is making a push for the BCS.

So what do we have here? When two evenly matched teams play on that perfect fall Saturday – you have (what I think is) the pure version of the sport. It might be all dirty behind the scenes, but the passion for the sport and the school is like nothing else.

My Thoughts

To me, it’s all about the college game. Don’t get me wrong. I love the pro game. This is like asking me if I want $5,000,000 or $4,999,999.99 handed to me right now. I’m also completely drunk on the season the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are having, so maybe that’s playing into it. It’s been amazing. Of course, they haven’t won anything yet (except for going 12-0). When the Buccaneers went to and won the Super Bowl, I had an absolutely blast being a fan, but this season for the Irish has been beyond that.

So enough of me rambling aimlessly about college vs pro football. I could have added another 40 paragraphs, but I figured I would spare all of you. So, what do you think? You could love both, as I do, but if you could have only one, which one would you pick.

As always, thank you for reading…

NHL not learning from past mistakes…

Posted by Picked_Off on November 1, 2012
Posted in: Being a Fan, NHL. Leave a Comment

As we wait to hear if the Winter Classic has indeed been cancelled, I’m trying to figure out how we got here and I can’t figure it out. It’s very disappointing to me that we’re in this spot. As I wrote back in August, I feared this was coming. The league’s hard line approach would ultimately lead us here and unfortunately it became true. Did the owners actually thinking coming out swinging against hockey players was the way to go? These guys are NOT going to back down.

The players actually have a lot more options than the owners. The players can play overseas. The owners are left with frozen business and empty arenas. Instead of coming to the table to talk, it appears the owners are content in killing this season.

Not all the blame rests on the league, but the fact that they have walked away from the table puts much of the blame on them. No compromise has ever been struck by walking away and saying “deal with it.” Bettman’s words and attitude in the media will only make the players dig in deeper. The owners signed all these crazy deals and now are trying to save themselves by backing out of it. The stupidity of having free agency before the lockout still amazes me.

The long-term affects of this lockout could be much worse than the previous. Are they killing more than just this season?

The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. Not just in all the lost revenues and salaries, but in passion for the game. At a time when hockey was gaining momentum, they decide to cut the power, shut the doors and walk away with their middle fingers up in the air. This is costing the NHL and its teams fans. They are paying for this lockout in fans and they don’t exactly seem to care about it.

Unfortunately, I do not see the league recovering from this lockout (if the season is lost) like it did the last time. It won’t happen. The mainstream isn’t clamoring for hockey like it did for football. And think about this, we never actually lost any games in football (minus the HOF game). We’ve already lost a month of the NHL season and they are about to cancel their biggest single game (the Winter Classic).

Yet, it’s all quite for the most part. Twitter isn’t screaming for a deal. ESPN hasn’t set up shop outside every meeting. The press isn’t coming to help either side apply pressure. Even the hockey media seems to think this season is over. The stories coming out seem to be full of disappointment, anger and frustration.

The NHL is damning their own game to always be the fringe sport and, as I have said, they seem content in doing it. Bettman will continue to be the merchant of doom for this league. He’s done some good things, but the bad will always outweigh the good. Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a good article that pretty much sums up Gary Bettman’s legacy. Check it out here. Hopefully he wakes up before this nightmare is complete and we’ve lost another hockey season to stupidity.

As always, thanks for reading…

Could the best college football team beat an NFL team?

Posted by Picked_Off on October 31, 2012
Posted in: Being a Fan, College Football, NFL. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Why am I writing about this right now? The Old Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier, brought this up while talking about the current No. 1 team in the country, Alabama. “Alabama, gosh, they look like they could beat a couple of those NFL teams that I’ve watched on Sundays,” Spurrier said. “I think a lot of the odds-makers out there, that usually know what’s going on, I’d guess Alabama would be favored by a little bit.”

Coach, let me stop you right there (and give you a quick slap to the back of the head). I’ll answer in two ways. The first will be a short answer (so you know immediately where I stand) and then a long answer (where I’ll explain).

Short answer: HELL NO!

Long answer: Think about this… Even former college football stars are riding benches in the NFL. Some recent Heismen winners aren’t starting and some aren’t in the league! The league is full of All-Americans and college award finalists. The best college football team might have a couple (at most) All-Americans, right? I don’t care how “loaded with talent” they are, they still are not on the level of even the worst NFL team.

Players are in the NFL for a reason. At any given time, there are only 1696 total roster spots available in the NFL (32 teams x 53 roster spots). A typical FBS college program can have up to 126 on their roster. The NFL is the top talent taken from all these teams. And it’s not like these players hit their peak in college. Many of them hit their peaks while in the NFL. They get bigger, faster and stronger.

The best players stick out in college. They say “he’s a man among boys.” They don’t blend in very well at that level. Those same players litter all the rosters of NFL teams and they don’t always seem quite at big. A group of college players will not beat a group of men who play every week at the highest level of the game. Won’t happen.

Could the college team score on an NFL defense, I think that’s possible. But in a full game, the pro team comes out on top and probably by a lot. No question to me. So let’s stop there and go ahead and get back to the short answer of NO!

Of course, you can disagree with me. You’d be horribly wrong, but you are welcome to your opinion. I’d be happy to hear it if you do.

As always, thanks for reading…

A night at Soldier Field…

Posted by Picked_Off on October 12, 2012
Posted in: Being a Fan, College Football, Notre Dame. Leave a Comment

So, from time to time I like to share fan experiences I have on this blog. Well, this past weekend I had a great one. This is a little late, but it’s been a busy week. This past weekend I got to see the Notre Dame Fighting Irish take on the Miami Hurricanes at Soldier Field in Chicago.  I’ve made it pretty clear on here before that I am a huge Irish fan, so this is a completely biased post about my experience there.

I’m not really a Bears fan so Soldier Field isn’t really special to me, but the idea of seeing my team play a night game under the lights in Chicago had me trying to get tickets since they went on sale. Of course, the moment they went on sale the prices were ridiculous. I had resigned myself to going down and doing some tailgating then heading to a bar to watch the game. Well luckily, I was able to snag some reasonably tickets from StubHub. It looks like a Miami fan grabbed a full row but ended up not being able to move them so they were posted for just above the face value ($75) and I was able to grab two of them.

Grabbing seats at the last second for as cheap as possible does have it’s draw-backs though.

Turns out these seats landed us about as far away from the field as possible. We were in the second to last row in the upper-upper deck. Luckily, it’s not a big stadium and the view was pretty cool.

Well the game kicks off and I don’t think I need to break the whole thing down, but it was awesome. The Irish dominated The U 43-3. It was a glorious thing to behold. It’s really a cool feeling to watch your team play in a pro stadium and on a national stage. The fanfare of it all only added to the atmosphere.

Also, watch jackass Miami fans get kicked out of the game (twice) was entertaining. Seriously, if you’re only going to the game to start s#!t with people around you, you should just stay home and evaluate your life decisions. Don’t show up and bro-out on all of us and start fights you clearly won’t finish. I digress. It was all fun.

I say this pretty often to my friends. You really have to go see your sports teams play in-person. If you’re lucky enough to go see them play in their home building, it’s even better. I make a yearly trip to South Bend, and will be doing it again on 11/3. It’s something I always look forward to.

Halftime in Chicago

The game this past weekend allowed me to see another “home” game for the Irish and it was a great experience I will always remember. I might have remembered that weekend a little differently if the score hadn’t been what it was, but luckily for us Irish fans it turned out alright.

So this post wasn’t too exciting, but an experience I wanted to share. My message to you: Go see your teams play in person. Watching them on TV is OK, but nothing beats being at the stadium with thousands of other like-minded fans.

Irish Win!

As always, thanks for reading…

You’ll have to forgive the absence…

Posted by Picked_Off on October 11, 2012
Posted in: Being a Fan. Leave a Comment

It’s been a while since I last posted. Truth is, my sports platter has been a little full lately. I’ve got three of my teams playing right now (if the idiots at the NHL had any sense, I’d have four). It’s been busy and extremely hard to not write about my teams as I try to not completely surrender to my bias here. I get a little caught up in the experience of it and just haven’t been writing.

Go Irish! Go StlCards! Go Bucs! Go Hawks!(whenever they get back to playing hockey)

Sorry, I just had to get that out. I feel better now. So lately instead of just writing here, I’ve spread it around to one of the coolest sites I’ve found for sports fans. This is a total product plug, but as someone who puts the fan first I feel the need to share this site with my (few) readers.

If you’re looking for great and interesting coverage of your favorite teams from all different leagues, you have to check out SBNation.com. It’s become my go-to. As some of you may know, I’m a little anti-ESPN at the moment. Maybe it was the week of televised remotes from Jets camp or that fact that Skip Bayless is employed there, I just don’t know. They have disappointed me. So I’ve recently moved my page views over to SBNation and you should too.

They have around 316 different sports blogs. Basically one for every major sports team (pro and college) and then some overall ones that are good. The thing that makes them special, to me, is the emphasis of the fan input. They actually encourage fans to post about their teams. It’s a cool opportunity to either join in on a discussion or start your own. Ok, enough with the sales pitch. Go there, sign up and start participating.

Also, I want to give a shout out to my boy, Dewey. If you’re interested in the inner-workings of the mind of an escaped, insane asylum patient, you should check out his blog here. He’s definitely a friend to me and this blog. He’ll keep you entertained.

So that’s pretty much all I got today. I’ve got a story coming about a recent sport experience that will be up soon. It will be completely biased, but I honestly don’t care.

As always, thanks for reading…

Can we replace the replacement ref conversation?

Posted by Picked_Off on September 26, 2012
Posted in: Being a Fan, NFL. Leave a Comment

Enough already. I’m tired of it. Get in a room and figure this mess out. Can you really be that far apart? BOTH sides need to come together on this. The product on the field is no suffering. It’s an embarrassment on both sides. You may think it’s the league’s, but it just makes refs, as a whole, look less competent.

Also, people need to remember that we also hated the regular refs. We screamed at them when Ed Hochuli mumbled through a complete screw up a few years ago. Stop acting like this is something new. Mistakes are always made in refereeing. It’s part of the game. If you are so appalled by the product on the field, don’t watch, don’t go and don’t talk about it. This unrelenting whining has become unbearable. I will not stop watching. I will keep enjoying football. It is wonderful. Even with the horrible refs, it’s still football.

I will not sit here and crush the NFL for this. It’s been played out. I’m not sure why the all-powerful sports media is only focusing on the NFL being the problem. I know it’s easy to go after the big corporation and the ridiculously rich owners for this. I get that, but for one second think about the other side. I’m not seeing them step up. There is no compromise here.

Without compromise, there will be no deal. You’ll have to excuse me as I refer to this job as what it really is. It’s a weekend gig that requires a lot of extra time. I’ve hear people say that refs put in about 36 hours a week into this job. It’s also something they chose to do. If that’s what is required, you do it. From my understanding, it’s not like they are paid nothing. Both sides need to get their asses to the table and iron it out or eventually these replacement refs will just be…refs…right?

Oh and one last thing on the “The Fail Mary” in Seattle. The guy who reviewed it WAS NOT A REPLACEMENT REF! He was a regular league official. So stop acting like this was the more horrible thing to ever happen to football. This happens in leagues all across the planet. Human beings can make mistakes! I’m done with it.

Of course you can completely disagree with me, so let me hear it!

As always, thanks for reading…

Prior to Kickoff – Week 3

Posted by Picked_Off on September 15, 2012
Posted in: College Football. 1 comment

As we approach kick off to week 3 in college football, I thought I would let you know what I’m looking for today. And no, this is not a preview to ND vs MSU. As much as I would just like to write about ND, that’s not exactly what I’m doing here.

Here’s a breakdown of games I’m watching today with a quick reason of what I’m looking for out of each:

  • California at No. 12 Ohio State – OSU needs to show who they are here. While they are indeed 2-0, I haven’t seen enough out of the Buckeyes to get a real feel of who they are going to be this season. I think this could be a good team, they just need to put together four quarters of solid football. With Cal sitting at 1-1, OSU needs to show a dominant performance against this Pac12 team. The B1G does not need another Wisconsin this week…
  • No. 1 Alabama at Arkansas – This game could have been BIG. Of course, Bobby P decided to go for a joy ride with his grad assistant mistress and laid down his bike and threw away his coaching career. Now, the Razorbacks are floundering and the Tide will roll in and drown Arkansas. I look for Alabama to show their dominance today. I see Saban just putting the pedal down on this and not letting up. Hopefully the Razorbacks will give a little more than they did against the Warhawks of Louisiana-Monroe.
  • Navy at Penn State – How will PSU respond to being down 0-2? Navy is coming off an early bye week after being beat down by Notre Dame. Both teams need the win, but I think PSU will bring it and rise up against the adversity they are facing right now. Question is, will that kicker be able to get it through the uprights or will he kick his team in the nuts again…
  • No. 20 Notre Dame at No. 10 Michigan State – Of course I’m going to preview this game. My heart is telling me one thing, but my head is saying something else. I know the hype is around Bell vs T’eo, but I’m thinking the deciding factor in this game will be how ND’s O-line responds to being shoved around last week. If they can’t pull it together, it really won’t matter what MSU does on offense because even a little bit will be enough. ND needs to get the run going early and it needs to work. MSU needs to hold the run and make Golson throw on the run. As the leader in the B1G right now, MSU needs to be that team on the big stage. We’ll see how this one plays out.

Those are the games I’m watching today and hopefully going to be seeing an ND win… Enjoy football today and as always thanks for reading.