Flags. Planting flags in the center of a football field.
Seriously?
You must be joking.
This is what conversations and arguments about college football have descended to in the Year of Our NIL 2024?
It was, of course, inevitable.
I guess this is what happens in the end days of realizing the essence of the sport is toast, and all we have is ridiculous debates about what an entitled clown show looks like on national television.
Not even an entertaining clown show, actually. More of a boorish attempt by entitled and emotional enraged knuckleheads protecting turf. Featuring clowns in full football gear, clowns wearing full football coaching attire, stalwart upstanding people wearing zebra costumes, (hey, never piss of a ref for no reason), with the proceedings all announced to the appalled and the enthralled by individuals who know they had best not say anything negative about anyone lest social media attack and berate them for being either “homers” or “haters”.
The recent proceedings featuring said engaged and enraged knuckleheads from Ohio State/Michigan, North Carolina/NC State, and as if almost on cue demanding a rare triple play “creature feature" Florida/Florida State, lit up social media at the same rate of Taylor Swift announcing a love child with Matt Gaetz.
Ewwww.
Football is a turf battle, much like Roman Gladiators vs. Roman Slaves, neighbors battling it out to see who has the most effective or gaudy collection of holiday decorations strewn about the yards, or the brilliantly choreographed carnage that ensues when “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” cosplayers show up at the Comicon armed with battery powered phasers and lightsabers.
For my money I’m always taking the Luke Skywalker replicants over Captain Kirk. More flair and no hairpieces.
In these turf blood feuds, it all boils down to either revenge, or who has the greatest set of (foot)balls on that given day. But it also provides a glimpse into the often overly emotional, overdone and out of control idiocy something as conclusive as a final score provides in these former amateur competitions.
In the OSU-UM nonsense, the most discussed evacuation of common sense brain cells on the calendar, Michigan had just upset the #2 ranked Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium. In accord with this punkish foolishness, it meant tossing any level of sportsmanship right into the refuse. Wolverines players were handed a school flag for the purpose of driving it point first into the midfield ground to make an exclamation point, and take a figurative dump on their arch-rivals.
Fair to say it was the cops on field and the use of pepper spray that upped the ante.
Similar incidents occurred on the same day in Chapel Hill NC as the NC State Wolfpack beat the home UNC Tar Heels and bypassed any handshake heading with flag in hands for midfield, and in Tallahassee FL where the Florida Gators pounded the hapless and helpless Florida State Seminoles and tried to drop flag at midfield. Brawls ensued in both locations, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, with a special sideshow at the UF/FSU melee where even the Head Coaches lost all composure and went for the jugulars.
All in good, clean, wholesome entertainment. I mean, at this stage of what’s roiling around America these last few years, a couple of well-placed head slaps and body punches just makes for a more interesting experience.
For those who bemoan the fact that there is no “sportsmanship” anymore in college football, time to head for the basement and fire up that 22” black and white Philco while cracking open a lukewarm "Old Milwaukee". At the level where these games are played, the truly major college football powers, sportsmanship left the building right about the time marching bands no longer tuned up at halftime.
Players are often driven into maddening rages by coaches who know if they don’t at the very least put on a good show, they could be called to the big office and told to bring their playbook. Not that a good number of them even really care. Those are the ones with fat buyout and firing clauses in their overstuffed and overpriced contracts who actually might welcome a good firing. They can then bank all that dumping cash and keep moving on to the next sucker….I mean, athletic program…willing to bankrupt their morals for a shot at nationally televised title shot nirvana.
These are the programs and coaches who control their players like an old animal trainer commands his charges with a heaping helping of fire, brimstone and raw meat. They hold no actual control over their players, thanks to the high-ended Name/Image/Likeness cash being tossed around like so much training table candy. Players cashing in know they have all the power, as few coaches will actually attempt to control them because should those key players be missing from the lineup, and that playoff dance card doesn’t get punched, those guys with the headsets are the ones who will be replaced instead of those wearing the helmets.
That’s because players have the threat to just pick up and head for the competition on a whim and a nice slice of financial pie. Coaches, those who actually know the names of their players, in many such lofty places are just there to keep the right parts moving the machine at any cost. That includes foregoing any class, dignity, pride without arrogance, and that near-bankrupt sportsmanship. To them, it’s neither important nor even necessary.
Coaches will verbally seek to castrate those involved in such extra-curricular activities, maybe even embarrass them a touch in meetings. Not too much, because again, piss off that player you need and watch as he takes his effort and those of his buddies down the tunnel for another round of catered lunch while wearing the latest trademark schwag he gets from a minor personal sponsor.
The Big 10 fines Michigan and Ohio State $100K each for the slap happy showcase? WOW! $100,000! In real money??? Each school gladly writes the check as everyone is talking about them winning at the cost of only 0.00000000003% of their football budget. Trolling cash, my friend.
It won’t take long before the flag-planters are all reveling in the stories told about the time they kicked the other team’s aspirations and then danced on their field. Many a cocktail and other legal and non-legal libations will flow in celebration. On the other side, already they are scheming for their revenge next year, especially if it means there’s a minor dismemberment to be had as fun time.
This is all part of the former amateur dancing bear show referred to as “college” football that collects rabid fans and even more rabid gamblers every day during the fall they can jam one of these onto a broadcast schedule. It’s what the fans want, the coaches need to jack their players into a frenzy, the colleges need to keep the media money rolling into the program for spending on football and basketball while the rest of their sports go begging for scraps.
However, and here’s an important caveat to all this, there comes those moments when players respect their coach, the coach respects the game, and the choice is made to not be part of a juvenile spectacle. Kudos to Texas Head Coach Steve Sarkisian, who after watching his Longhorns defeat rival Texas Tech, kept his players from planting their flag at midfield. The fact his players listened to him speaks volumes, lessons either never learned or just tossed aside in places such as Ann Arbor, Gainesville and Raleigh, where coaches are likely complicit and in full throated agreement about allowing their “kids” to show their “pride”.
The “Lead, follow, or get the Hell out of the way” mentality that was coined by con artists and cowards generations ago is alive and kicking on these college campuses and plenty more locales where it’s all about winning and spitting on an opponent on your way out the door.
Just another showtime with what now passes for the usual set of bad actors and jocks who forgot to wear their bulbous foam red nose.
Crack a beer and fire up the Philco.
Ed Berliner has been covering college football, sports, and the intersection of nonsense and nabobs for his entire adult life, and sees no reason to overlook what this sport has descended to. Read all his columns and those of numerous other analysts and commentators by subscribing to the free email newsletter, "Shakedown Street", where no favor is given and no stone of intelligent discourse is left unturned. .
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