| Stop... 4-28-08 by: Mark 1. Complaining about too many bowls. Who cares about the percentage of teams that make it to a bowl game? If a Conference USA team wants to play a Big East team at the end of the season, and a weed eater company wants to bankroll it – there's no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to play. You don't have to watch it and it takes nothing away from the big bowls. Paul Finebaum does not agree; “Football
lovers claim any bowl game is a good thing. Kind of like Baskin-Robbins
adding another flavor, right? Well, that's poppycock.” This is ridiculous. Not only do I have nothing better to do the Saturday before Christmas, I have nothing better to do on New Year's Eve than to watch meaningless bowl games. Paul Finebaum may spend his Saturday nights at The Rock n' Roll USA Bikini Dance Party 2008, but the rest of us usually have nothing better to do do other than choose between the Liberty Bowl and a Twilight Zone marathon for our late December entertainment. People think that the existence of PapaJohns.com Bowl somehow makes the Sugar Bowl less entertaining- or worse yet – RELEVANT. Matching up Hawaii and Georgia makes the Sugar Bowl less entertaining. The Independence Bowl doesn't make the Rose Bowl any less entertaining. Matching up Illinois and USC makes the Rose Bowl less entertaining. If you can call a game relevant, it's because of the teams and their talent level. The Sugar and Rose Bowls are supposed to be the best bowls because they feature the best teams. If a bowl features crappy teams – it'll be a crappy bowl. But, players will enjoy that crappy bowl. Fans will enjoy the chance to go on a vacation to see their football team play. The boring city host will enjoy the fans coming to their boring city to spend money. Everyone should be happy except for Paul Finebaum – who will be forced to leave the Tuesday Night Rock n' Roll USA Bikini Dance Party 2008 early because the Mobile Register is forcing him to watch and write about the St. Petersburg Bowl. 2. Wishing ESPN would cease to exist. Yes. Yes. You've already told me about the closed door meetings they hold in which they plot to destroy Auburn football. And yes, I'm well aware of your theory on why they're willing to sacrifice viewership, advertiser dollars and their integrity just to soil the image of Auburn football. However, there was once a time in which you couldn't watch college football and analysis for 14 straight hours during a football Saturday. I've never lived in a world where this was the case, and I'm very thankful for that. Lee Corso is awesome. Lou Holtz is awesome. ESPN is awesome. It's Lincoln-Financial, the Daves, and their 10:00am games which suck. 3. Calling football players selfish for leaving early for the NFL. My second grade teacher's classroom was covered with motivational posters. One poster featured a picture of a science textbook and a basketball. The surrounding text said something to the effect of; “The chances of being selected in the NBA Draft are 1 in 200 million... Hit the books!” Another poster was placed a few feet away showing an astronaut on a spacewalk. The text read, “You can do anything - Follow your dreams!!!” I don't know what the odds are of becoming a player in the NBA or an astronaut – but I'm pretty sure the odds of being in the NBA are much higher than that of an astronaut. Auburn's known for producing more astronauts than most any other university in the country – but Auburn's produced more NBA players than astronauts. Let's say a kid wants to be an astronaut. He's really smart, studies hard and goes to a good college. For some crazy reason, NASA approaches the kid at the end of his junior year with this proposition; “You have two choices; If you leave college now and work for us, we'll make you an astronaut and pay you $100,000 a year. However, if you spend another year in school, and make the same grades as the previous year or better, and avoid getting injured – we'll still send you to space and we'll pay you a few million a year... assuming we don't find anyone better than you between now and then.” Wouldn't the kid be selfish for picking to wait another year to achieve his dream just for the extra money? Especially since theres a risk, albeit a small one, that he could lose it all? Being an astronaut is supposedly the main goal for the guy – not the money. For many college football players, the NFL is the ultimate goal – not necessarily the money. I'm bothered by the common perception that talented players 'just do it for the money' while the non-talented players 'do it for the love of the game'. That's not a great analogy since I can't think of any Auburn players in recent memory who've hurt their NFL chances by staying for their senior year. We Auburn fans should be incredibly thankful that both Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown (among others) stuck around for their senior years. Were they being selfish? Did they play for money or the game? It seems like they did it for the game. Would they have been wrong for leaving for the NFL after their junior year? I wouldn't have blamed them. I thought The Cadillac was being irresponsible when he refused to call for fair catches – seemingly inviting an injury, but then again, he's a millionaire. I spend my free time doing things less exciting than watching the PapaJohns.com bowl. War
Eagle! |
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