1998 Week 4
September 24, 1998
Well, that was quite a weekend to get through. I'm still sucking down the Geritol to ease up on some of the excitement. Heck, I ought to get one of them ID tubes in my arm and get my liquid refreshment that way.
Speaking of things that look like liquid refreshment, I saw a couple of highlights from the "Somewhat Bigger House" in Anne Arbor last weekend. What was it with that new yellow ring around the outside of that stadium? That yellow rim stain looked like what happens in my bathroom when I accidentally take Viagra instead of my Metamucil and lose control of my aim.
The game of the week had to be the one in Knoxville, where the Volunteers finally knocked off Florida for the first time since they pushed Johnny out the door and back to revive the glory days at Pitt. I'm still mad because ESPN wouldn't send me back to Pitt with Johnny. Johnny always had the best wine cellar in the East, it was great fun hanging out there after games, sucking down some MD 20-20 and swatting at all the 10-legged spiders that Johnny kept on imagining were in charge of his defense.
But I still don't understand these new overtime rules the NCAA has adopted. I guess I get the part where Tennessee kicked the field goal and won the game in sudden death and all that, but what's this field position thing? It seems completely unfair to me that the team that gets the ball first gets it already in field goal position at the opponents' 25 and then goes ahead, runs a couple plays, then kicks the field goal to win the game.
Even in the NFL sudden death overtime the team has to receive a kickoff back around their goal line, run it back maybe 20 yards, then drive about 50 yards to get in range to win the game, so why is it that the NCAA rules let Tennessee start so much closer?
I also have to question Coach Spurrier. It wasn't until the next day that I rememberer that Visor Boy WON the overtime coin flip. Wouldn't any other coach have taken the ball at the 25, kicked the field goal, and won the game? What was Coach Spurrier thinking? That Tennessee couldn't make a 42-yard field goal and win it in sudden death or something? I don't get some of Steve's thinking at times.
The current overtime rules are a recent development in NCAA football. But the new, confusing rules are not the first time the NCAA tried to break ties.
There was plenty of controversy in the early 30's, when Bennie Bierman's Minnesota Golden Gophers tied about 5 games one season. The NCAA, knowing that Bennie only had 4 sisters, figured it had to do something before one of them got kissed twice and Bennie got hauled up on incest charges.
So, the next year, the NCAA instituted a tie-breaker system. Sure enough, a couple of weeks into the season the annual Virginia vs. Maryland showdown ended in a 13-13 tie. So the teams went to overtime.
The NCAA first had been inspired by the World Cup soccer tournament, which had begun mere years earlier. This still-obscure form of "football" involves a bunch of wormy little 5'6 guys running around in shorts, then falling down and screaming for their mommies every time someone nicks their shin. Trust me, you don't want to watch it unless your only alternative is "Oprah" or something like that.
Anyway, the NCAA thought that the "shootout" rule in soccer could be applied to college football as well.
Then, one day, the NCAA sent someone to watch a game played with a little disc designed by Ed Whamo, where teams threw the disk at each other and tried to hit the other team and the other team tried to catch the disc. It was originally thought to be a stupid game, so it was called "Nuts", but then they started noticing where people were getting hit and they changed the name to "Guts", and that served as the inspiration for the college football tie-breaker.
The method chosen was for a given player at the 10 yard line to throw the football directly at an opposing team's player stationed near the goal line. If the opposing player caught the ball his team scored a point, but if it touched him without him catching it or he dropped it, the other team scored a point. Misses were worth 0 points. Each team got to match up 5 players with 5 opponents and the team with the most points at the end would be the winner. If it was still tied the one-on-ones went on and on until there was a break in the tie.
Well, both teams had trained long and hard for this tie-breaker and could whip the ball with amazing accuracy from 10 yards. And both teams managed to score on every throw as neither team had a player who could catch the ball. The injuries mounted, the rounds went on, and every throw was a hit but none of the throws was caught. The favored throw was one right at the groin, which players usually couldn't dodge due to their center of gravity and would usually inflict tremendous damage.
After 40 rounds both teams ran out of players due to all the injuries (most of them were lying on the ground moaning by then, just like in "The Longest Yard") and the game was declared to be over, in a tie. Both Virginia and Maryland had to forfeit the next two weeks due to all the groin injuries (one errant throw caught a player right in the sternum and he was out too). And by then the NCAA thought better of using tie-breakers and went back to allowing games to end in ties.
I like it a lot better these days that we settle things on the field, even in spite of these goofy sudden death rules. Though it might have been fun to see Florida and Tennessee decide the winner by throwing footballs from 10 yards at one another's groin, except it might remind me a little too much of some of those all-guy movies Mom has me pick up for her at the video store.