Freeman: Give me NFL parity over NCAA parody
Start with the number six. The last time there were that many No. 1s in a season was 1984.
Continue with five games between two top 10 teams. That's usually more than a season's worth in college football. In 2008, all of them came in one conference, the Big 12.
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| Stellar play and high drama in the Big 12 South kept college football in the headlines every week. (US Presswire) |
The idea here is to compare the 2008 regular seasons of college and pro football. I live in Kansas City, so the decision might seem easy (see: the 2-14 Chiefettes). Still, even if the locals were any good, the best thing about the NFL is those 10 minutes Frank Caliendo gets before the early Fox games.
Living within driving distance of half of the Big 12, I wouldn't walk across the street to watch another meaningless NFL game. The playoffs? Great, bring 'em on. The problem is having to sit through 17 weeks of drug suspensions, conduct policies and field goals (always the field goals) to whittle the field from 32 to 12.
You need NFL Network for all this? Apparently not, based on its cable reach.
People such as the somnambulant Mr. Freeman seem to think the dearly departed recent NFL season was "dramatic." Here's my summary of the '08 nap, er, season:
- Tony Romo
- T.O.
- Jerry Jones
- Plaxico's gun collection
Really, that's it, unless you count the Chargers' spine-tingling rally from 4-8 to get into playoffs. Nothing says excellence like 8-8.
The NFL regular season ended with coaches of playoff teams deciding which players to sit. College's regular season ended with a de facto national semifinal in the SEC Championship Game.
College football's regular season matters the most of any sport. That fact is irrefutable. Every game means something, even if it's Vanderbilt trying to get to a bowl game for the first time since M*A*S*H was on.
Not only was it better than the NFL's this season, it is better than the NFL's every season.
I'm with you on the bowls, Mike. Half of them are more irrelevant than the Dave Matthews Band. It's hard to rationalize the BCS, too. But that's the postseason.
In the regular season, we're talking drama you can't script. I didn't notice many NFL coaches leading postgame pep rallies. Rick Neuheisel did just that, grabbing a microphone at the Rose Bowl after a Labor Day overtime victory against Tennessee.
Nick Saban's news conferences work better than Sominex. His team's first half at Georgia (31-0, Alabama) dropped jaws.
Most folks didn't know Lubbock from a striped bass until Mike Leach started calling plays. When Texas Tech started winning enough to get our attention, we could not look away. When Tech beat Texas on Nov. 1, it was the best reality TV you can get.
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Every kid in every backyard has run the same play Michael Crabtree did that night to win the game.
"... between two defenders, makes the catch, tightropes the sideline. Touchdown with one second left!"
Time for dinner, Johnny!
Aw, mom.
This past season the world also discovered that Longhorns can fly. I'm talking the fans who rented that plane to fly over Stillwater in late November. The banner trailing behind attempted to remind us that the Big 12 South race had been settled on the field when Texas beat Oklahoma on Oct. 11.
Confused? So were we when Texas was left on the sideline in that squirrely Big 12 South three-way.
The point is, there's corporate, logoed, NFL passion and there is college let's-rent-a-plane passion.
Also in 2008, in case you missed it:
- Tim Tebow led his first career fourth-quarter comeback a year after winning the Heisman.
- Penn State's coach hasn't seen the field in weeks. The team he coached dominated it in the Big Ten.
- The 10-year-old Mountain West was better than the 92-year-old Pac-10.
- The nation's only winless team (Washington) hasn't had a winning season since 2002. The nation's only undefeated team (Utah) hasn't lost a bowl game this decade.
Don't try to understand it, just enjoy it. It was better than anything you saw on Sunday.
