BLUE

...the joy and despair of being a Wolverines fan.

March 9, 2007

SOUTHERN FOOTBALL

I don’t like southern football. It’s not so much this new idea (to me anyway) that they are recruiting mills, grinding up academically challenged football players from the Deep South. It’s not the warm, un-college-football weather or their smarmy, overrated coaches. It’s that they have it as easy as Greg Oden’s class schedule, and yet everyone swoons over that brand of football as if something special is going on. Lauding Greg Oden’s basketball skills is one thing; calling him a scholar is imbecilic.

As we are officially one month into the new recruiting season, I thought I’d wander around the Big Ten to see who’s off to a hot start.

What Michigan fan doesn’t like landing Boubacar Cissoko right out of the gate? Nothing like a stud DB for fans suffering from Post-Traumatic Secondary Stress Disorder (PTSSD). The hated Buckeyes have apparently snapped up a kicker early. Hopefully, he is not a Mike Nugent clone – you never want to be at a disadvantage in the kicking game against Ohio State.  MSU and Minnesota don’t matter.  

Well, not bad…uh…wait…uh…uh…uh…uh…uh…uh…

Je#(#*&##!!$!, what the hell is that? THE FIRST MONTH OF THE RECRUITING SEASON AND TEXAS HAS A CLASS AS BIG AS OHIO STATE’S LAST YEAR?   All Texas kids. Yeah, Mack Brown is a genius. In a state loaded with talent, he basically has to figure out which kids not to offer. Then I guess Texas A&M can step in and pick up those scraps...

Must be a Texas anomaly.  Surely, Georgia…

…or Southern Cal…

…or a retooling Alabama…

…have to struggle like Michigan seems to struggle, recruits ripped out of the clutches of other schools with the ease of uprooting a stump with a shovel.

Tennessee, LSU and even Arkansas already have at least two top local kids in the fold and more very close.

Here we see the teenage mind – a generally worthless thing – at work shaping the landscape of college football and the moods of countless adult professionals with the not surprising application of the SPuD test (Sun, Pussy, Drinking).  As a result, we see top Southern California talent rushing to grab limited scholarships for a shot at the life of Leinart, while an equally prestigious football university short on scholarships in a northern state loaded with talent this year (Penn State) is being cautiously surveyed by local recruits, who, fully recognizing that Penn State scores a 33% on the SPuD test, are “considering their options.”

How can one seriously compare the recruiting efforts of Carr, Paterno or Tressel to these teams? You can’t. One is hard, the other is ridiculously easy. I am not saying that those coaches don’t hustle and log many miles of travel, but signing talent at a big name southern school is like electing a Democrat in New Orleans.  

So spare me the excitement about southern football. It is what it is: the New York Yankees of college football. Everyone hates them (except Yankee fans) precisely because one must compete against limitless talent.

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