Sunday Evening Links and Notes -- Ohio College Football Edition

by Josh Kirkendall on Aug 31, 2008 7:00 PM EDT

Leaning back in my television chair, complete with retractable foot rest, cup holder, miniature refrigerator and elongated rubber tube that feeds into the bathroom (don't ask), I realized that today will be the last Sunday in which my favorite sport won't be dancing a ballet of pigskin toughness; though an afternoon with IRL street racing, and an evening of boring California NASCAR will compose my manly entertainment act for the day. I'm a NASCAR fan, and California is really, really boring.

Not yesterday. Even though I was draining the battery on my cell phone, refreshing browsers to several sites regarding NFL cuts, and anticipating reactions from Bengals-related blogs, most of my day was spent watching college football. A great experience of pure football where hitting the quarterback doesn't mean an overnight stay in the county jail.

I find the NFL and college football an intriguing idea/discussion of how something is the same, but completely different; different rules, different schemes, an exponentially higher rate of player turnover are my quickest-to-explain examples. The competition is so strong in the NFL that mistakes are magnified; significantly impacting the game. It's the best of the best; an all-star of college players, playing 512 games. When good teams in the NFL win by more than a touchdown, it's a good team winning within expectations. If good teams in college football don't blow out bad teams, we learn that the good team isn't that good; they didn't win by 50. Even though college football and the NFL play the same sport, the difference is magnified by people like us that watch any brand of football to ridiculous extremes.

Some of you noticed, while the Bengals beat the crap out of the Colts third-string players Thursday night, I updated the scores of two local college teams (UC and Miami). I love local football; high school, college and professional. Even though the Ohio State and Michigan holds the nation's best rivalry, the University of Cincinnati and Miami University hold the country's oldest non-conference rivalry fighting for the Victory Bell (Ohio version... USC and UCLA also fight for the Victory Bell). Cincinnati has a two-game winning streak. Though the Bengals are bound to have a down-season, the state of Ohio is rich with football. Good football. After all, it's our state that created most of what you know about football today.

The state of Ohio has a school nicknamed the "Cradle of Coaches" -- with names like Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler (it's no mistake that Michigan's greatest coach is an Ohioan), Sid Gillman (the guy that introduced us to deep passes), Jim Tressel and even Paul Brown. There's many I'm surpassing, but you get the point. When you read about the history of football, Ohio plays the leading role; from the creation of professional football, to Paul Brown's single-minded contributions that created a majority of everything you see today.

Speaking of college football in Ohio

Even though the Ohio State Buckeyes won, 43-0 over Youngstown State, the state of Ohio holds their breath waiting on the update of Beanie Wells. Ranging from an ankle and foot sprain, a torn ligament in his toe to turf toe (hyperextension... upward, bending back), reports are scattered, inconsistent, and likely wrong. The Buckeyes are mum, saying via email from Shelly Poe (Ohio State spokeswoman), "It's not likely that there will be any update until probably [Monday] after some initial treatments and therapy." The good news is that x-rays were negative.

The UC Bearcats dominated Eastern Kentucky, led by three first half touchdowns by quarterback Dustin Grutza. Defensive end Connor Barwin recorded two sacks.

This week, the Bearcats head to Norman, Oklahoma taking on the Sooners for the first time in history. In a bit of Mason pride, a former Comets kicker, Brandon Yingling, could compete this week for place kicking duties, after Jake Rogers was pulled missing two extra points.

For more on college football, read Matt Miller's New Era Scouting College Football Guide, combining ranks, with predictions and interviews. There's a wealth of information about college football -- and it's free.

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so time warner

relented and gave us the Big 10 Network- for pre-season Buckeye football fodder, excruciating games featuring other conference teams, and basketball so hard on the eye it’s unwatchable. Whoo-hoo! The Ohio State University now lines up for an Ohio University snoozefest, minus Beanie Wells but with Terrelle Pryor- who knew you could run so fast so upright, who needs the reps for the following week’s matchup with the disgustingly staunch USC defense. I’m not overly worried about the Buck’s D versus the Trojans but I’m never been sold on Beckmann(sp?) in big games, particularly against a defense that makes Florida and LSU’s look like amateurs.

Meanwhile, Rich Rodriguez’ work in progress, that team up north, is FAILing in an EPIC manner, getting manhandled by Utah, yep, Utah, the same place that gave us the glass-shouldered and gloriously inadequate, Alex Smith, Pope Urban Meyer, and, if I’m not mistaken, Jonathan Fanene, who I remember having a big bowl game the year of Smith’s coming out party. It must have been the Holy Underwear shipped in from Salt Lake. And while watching Michigan lose at the Big House in front of a booing home crowd is almost as exciting as watching Duke lose in hoops, when it starts to happen this often, it’s just not as special anymore. And we can thank Corey Lynch for that.

East Carolina beats VaTech at Beamer’s own game, Bowling Green- another Ohio school, puts Pittsburgh’s Dave Wannstedt on the hot seat extra early this season, and Terry Bowden’s vaunted, purported national championship contenders at Clemson roll over and present their bellies to an Alabama squad that has me remembering a certain historic figure in a houndstooth hat that once strolled their sideline. Yeah, fuck Nick Saban’s amoral ass but he’s got the Tidel loaded for bear. Ha, get it? Bear. I’ll be here all week.

Though EKU hardly represents a challenge, it’s good to see Grutza and the Kelly system up and running on all cylinders. Mick Cronin’s hoops bruiser, Barwin, seems to have made the tight end to defensive end as seamlessly as John Paul II’s transition from Polish goalie to Pope. Connor would be a good Bengal, though I’m not sure I’d wish that on anyone.

Ara Parseghian is another in that Cradle of Coaches Miami U. lineage and maybe even the recently deceased John Pont, who took Indiana- yeah, that Indiana- to their one and only Rose Bowl. Paul Brown was the man and I can’t fathom how his genetic legacy could become so diluted and murky in just one reproduction, one generation. It makes me sad to think of Paul because he’s inextricably linked to his shitheel son.

Outside of my professional rooting interest- my tragic obsession with my hometown squad, I prefer the college game over the pros by a long shot. The NFL product hasn’t become as unwatchable as pro basketball but it can get excruciating. Games like App. State’s Michigan upset, that Boise State over Oklahoma bowl, and Georgia’s annihilation of Colt Brennan and June Jones’ careers in the Sugar Bowl, just don’t occur with any regularity in the pros. Hell, I have no iron in the Clemson/Alabama fire but the intensity was contagious. You get your Keith Jacksons and your Brent Musburgers, you get fresh-faced, non surgically enhanced cheerleaders, even the dorks come out suited up in their band gear. It’s a spectacle. It’s the crispness of autumn, the smell of mud in the churned turf.

The pro game is too dominated by advertising, by ridiculous protections put in place so that exorbitant investments aren’t hobbled- versus college where they’re still actual people and to hell if they get folded, spindled, or mutilated. It’s all gotten too accountant-driven. I think about my formative years watching the Big Red machine and how I never heard the phrase “pitch count”. But I digress.

That’s what I do. I digress.

by IgnatiusJReilly on Aug 31, 2008 11:56 PM EDT reply actions