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College Football

College Football: Here We Go Again

As another exciting year approaches of NCAA football, we gear up for it in different ways. Many get excited watching the new College Football Live show, which now airs on a daily basis (M-F) on ESPN. This show is entertaining, stirs up excitement, but is becoming more and more predictable and downright illogical.Media types are becoming more and more like politicians.

Take last year’s University of Kansas Jayhawks football team. They finished with their best season in school history, a 12-1 campaign, coupled with an Orange Bowl Championship over #3 ranked Virginia Tech. You have to remember that media types refuse to ever admit they were wrong.  They will give an “out-of-nowhere” team credit kicking and screaming.  Ever notice how KU was one week away from being “for real”?  It’s because every media guy in America thought KU was one week away from losing. . every week. Media types will stick with an argument as long as they can, no matter how ridiculous it is.  Then when something finally goes their way, they will shriek that this is proof they were right all along, all other evidence to the contrary. I’m sure they were shrieking for joy when KU lost to Missouri, proclaiming KU was fake all along. So fake, in fact, that they went down to Miami, outnumbered in fans and respect, and proceeded to beat the #3 team in the nation convincingly. (KU kneeled inside the 5 yard-line on the last play of the game to make it appear closer).

Take Mark May as another example. Week after week he predicted KU to lose, even up to the Orange Bowl. Not shockingly, a few days ago on College Football Live, while previewing this upcoming season, he predicted KU as one of his two teams to be a “bust” and have a down year. Does he want to keep looking stupid for as long as possible? Does he have something against Kansas? I think the majority, like May, are more worried about their image and ensuring they come off as an “expert”.  They hate a Kansas coming out of nowhere, because that’s an additional team that they have to watch tape on and research.  It’s more work.  They’d rather there always be a max of 7-8 “good” teams a year, and to just go on cruise control vacillating between hyping the flavor of the week.  LSU!  no, USC!   no,  OSU!  no, OU!  It’s easy.  They know Stoops.  They know Carroll.  They know Tressel.  They know their schemes and what not, and call describe them differently enough to us that they can make it seem like they are revealing some sort of big secret to us.

Cinderella stories wreck havoc on them, especially as the season lasts on.   They hope so bad that we’d just go away, because they could just go back to talking to what’s on their cheat sheet.   If they do invest some time and research an up and comer, and they proceed to dump in their pants (RE:  South Florida), then they view that as wasted time. Unfortunately, I think it’s an issue of  worrying too much about “how” the sport is covered, and not worrying about its stories.
It’s not just the media hacks, it’s a reflection of college football as a whole being a popularity contest. The inevitable means by which each season is decided ensures that certain teams will always receive a boost from the media and polls mainly because their program, despite perhaps having a sub-par year, will still generate more money than a “non-traditional” school having a superior season. Thus OSU can back into the national championship game every year, ND gets pre season top 10 rankings out of outer space, and KU drops 5 spots or so after losing to a damned good #3 ranked team on a neutral field. When you consider just how much variables factor in such as average annual revenue, attendance, fan base, and media market, the final result would look something like an 8-4 USC team is roughly equivalent to an 11-1 KU squad (remember May in particular arguing they were worth of a national championship despite having been beaten by lowly Stanford.. he used injuries as an excuse conveniently forgetting Stanford was without their starting QB for that game) Yeah..

I’m not excited for KU’s upcoming football season simply because of recent success. I’m not excited simply because of our new state of the art facilities, best recruiting classes ever, or 16 returning starters. I’m perhaps most excited because Mark May started this season off right…by picking us to lose yet again.

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