Football

Football by Chuck Klosterman

Football is the most popular sport in the United States. It dominates the TV ratings. The USA vs. Belgium world cup soccer game was the top rated non-NFL sports broadcast, and didn't come close to NFL playoff ratings. It was even behind two Thanksgiving day broadcasts. The Super bowl is always the most popular TV broadcast. Even Canadians are more likely to watch the super bowl than the Canadian Football Grey Cup Championship. The "defects" of football work to its advantage. There is intense action and then a lot of time to figure out what happened. The full game cannot be played casually. The "casual" versions like flag football are fundamentally different.

Football's great popularity is sowing the seeds of its downfall. College football is professionalizing, reducing the strong attachments that students would have to their team. At the lower levels, the dangers are driving parents away from letting their kids play. Outside the south, high school football has become less important. Football is dominating casual fans, but not producing new die hards. It is a conservative bastion in a liberalizing world. People will eventually lose interest and move on to something else. Horse racing was once an extremely popular spectator sport. Today, it is shadow of itself with a few niche events remaining. In the past horses were part of everyone's regular life. Not so anymore. Other dangers could impact football. A death on the field remains a possibility. Sports gambling is helping to increase interest now, but could also create issues. Professional football only surpassed baseball in the 1960s as the most popular American sport. Today, soccer is closing the gap among youth. How much longer will football dominate?

Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut

Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut by Ken Belson

The NFL has become one of the premiere entertainment organizations in the US. Each franchise is independently owned, with values now often exceeding $5 billion. They often pit cities against each other to leverage huge public subsidies for billion dollar stadiums. Football games dominate the TV ratings, with most of the top rated television programs. There are also multiple additional revenue sources including "pouring rights" at stadiums, licensing and more. Some revenue sources are controlled by the NFL, while others are controlled by individual franchises. Owners like Jerry Jones are not afraid to find new revenue sources, even if they conflict with league-wide ones.

The book focuses on three characters that have had a significant impact on the NFL. Jerry Jones had longed to purchase the Cowboys. Once he got his way, he was able to make the most of it. He constantly hunted for new revenue sources and built a huge stadium as a monument to extravagance. His over-the-top personality helped grow the NFL to what it is today. Robert Kraft was somewhat more subdued, but also cunning. He used parking lot rights as an in to eventually purchase the Patriots. The organization had a huge stream of on-field success. Roger Goodell had always wanted to be NFL commissioner. He worked his way up and helped build the NFL to what it was today. Dan Snyder was mentioned at the end. He looked like a potential younger owners. However, his character issues ended up being too much for the NFL and he was subtly chased out and forced to sell his team.

The book focuses on the three main characters and the rise of the NFL. The league does appear to be near its peak now. However, there are a plenty of headwinds. There is greater pushback in local extortion in stadiums. (Though places like Cleveland and Kansas seem to still be willing to pony up.) Injury concerns are impacting multiple areas such as youth football participation and post-football careers for NFL players. NFL fans also skew old and American. Changes to college football could also have impacts on the NFL. (Will players still want to be poked and prodded at the combine.) Can the NFL change enough to continue to reign supreme?

Swing Your Sword: Leading the Charge in Football and Life

Mike Leach's story seems almost too normal for the "Pirate". He does tell the story of how he got his nickname by animating his team. There is a long discussion of the time his Texas Tech team was able to beat Texas. (And he did bring up the important part of not looking down on competition.)

He was born in California, but raised mostly in rural Wyoming. He had some sports experiences, then went to BYU where he was on the rebellious side. After graduating from law school at Pepperdine, he decided he wanted to try coaching. He made a number of sacrifices to work at small schools, then eventually rose up the College Football ranks.

He spends the end of the book excoriating the Texas Tech administration. There was plenty of incompetency and dysfunctionality to go around. Some people wanted him out, and managed to do it under a number of false pretensions.  Leach's side of the argument is very compelling. The biggest concern was that of Tech hiding behind sovereign immunity and refuses to even let Leach litigate his side of the story. 

Game Changer

Game Changer tries to go super broad, but ends up being too narrow. After a hard hit, a football player notices things are a little odd. It turns out he is now the center of the universe and these hits lead to changes in the universe. Stop signs change colors. His family became rich, but he became a drug dealer. Brown v. Board of Education turned in favor of segregation (because Russian nukes failed), leading to continued segregation and musical stagnation. He finds himself gay and a girl in other cases. The universe goes crazy near the end before he finally ends up with just an injury. If he had the ability to change the course of the universe, why was it so narrow, and why just some of the "hot button" issues of today? And could these little changes really have had such a long lasting impact? Or could unexpected minor changes in the past had a huge impact. There is so much potential for interesting exploration that is squandered in this book.

The Perfect Pass: American Genius and the Reinvention of Football

Football is a very tradition-based sport that prides itself on violence and physical contact. Change does not come easy. It took the deaths of many players in the early days to kick start some initial change (such as the allowing of the forward pass.) However, it took oddballs to really bring the passing game forward. The "outsiders" would go on to heavily influence the game, yet not be able to glory in the rewards.

Hal Mumme had toiled the near-destitute life of a football coach. He had worked for high school and college programs. In the process he became enthralled by the passing offensive. He researched efforts by other programs, such as an Ohio high school, BYU and the San Francisco 49ers. These programs had opened up passing offenses. BYU in particular under Lavell Edwards had focussed on passing to compete with teams that had much greater talent levels. Mumme sucked in any knowledge he could get as he went on to develop his offense.

He helped Copperas Cove high school in Texas to get out of the cellar and even defeat rival Temple. From there he got a college coaching job at small school Iowa Wesleyan. He built up the team nearly from scratch, recruiting people from all over. He also hired quirky Mike Leach to help run his offense. Together they had a great deal of success. In fact is was too much, and the university decided it was time to move on. He went on to a college in Georgia before being hired at Kentucky. There he helped fill the stands with his pass-happy offense before being chased out. Since then, he has toiled in relatively minor coaching rolls. Leach has managed to carry on better with positions at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State. However, he was chased out of Texas Tech, despite being one of the winningest coaches.

Mumme's innovation was the "air raid" spread offense. This was a fast moving, pass-first offense offense. The playbook was kept very simple. Players had the ability to quickly read the defense and adjust accordingly. This made it appear very complex to the defense despite being relatively simple for his players. He was also able to give his players many more reps practicing the plays due to the simplicity. He also had a "lighter touch" to practice. He didn't want players to get injured with heavy contact. The plays focussed on short, high probability passes. Despite throwing more, his quarterbacks had much higher completion rates. He utilized the entire width of field to space things out. The offense is extremely difficult to defend.

The old guard of football criticized Mumme's offense as being gimmicky. However, it has since gone mainstream in all levels of football. 

NFL and Unity

Why does the NFL have such a great problem with the National Anthem protests, while the NBA doesn't seem to mind? Pageantry plays part of the role. Football games are once a week, large school community events. The stadiums are huge. Even at the high school level, they attract a large portion of the student body. Cheerleaders cheer, the band plays and various other ceremonies are attached. The "homecoming" event is connected to the football game. Similar pageantry is attached to the college game. The NFL lacks some of these "ceremonies", yet still is a significant community event in a way that is not seen in other sports. The way the game is played also requires unity. The team lines up and executes a number of plays together. There are some chances for individual heroics, but these are usually enabled by many teammates working in precision. (I remember seeing a video of a great Marschawn Lynch run a few years ago. in the run, Ricardo Lockette sprinted out of nowhere to make a great block enabling him to continue scampering. Though Lynch would get the credit for the run, it would not have been possible without that springing and block.) People attend the games to experience unity and be at one with their community and team.
Protests over the national anthem distract from this unity. Instead of unity, we have different people showing their individuality. The Star Spangled Banner is seen as an important unifying event at the game. Most fans are standing during the anthem. Those fans down getting nachos tend to be out of sight. However, the players intentionally taken a knee are plainly visible and appear to break the unity. This lack of "unity" breaks with the ethos and the reason for fans to attend the game. The actual action does not matter so much as the lack of unity. Kneeling is, after all, a form of reverence. I doubt there would be much of an issue if everyone took a knee for the anthem. However, seeing a loner detracts from the experience.
Basketball, on the other hand, is much more of an individual experience. A single player is much more able to do great things on their own. People play regularly play basketball on their own in a way that resembles the pro game. (Pick-up football, on the other hand, is usually of the "touch" variety, and is almost a totally different game than the one watched as a spectator.) Basketball players are visible as individuals, wile football players shed their individuality in full body protective gear. Fans still support their team, but the pageantry is less critical to the experience. The basketball games also happen at much greater frequency. While football is a complex team activity with bursts of individual achievement, basketball is a showcase of individual talents that are enhanced by teamwork and planning. Thus individual protests hurt football, while not impacting basketball.

Fantasy League

This is a lot like his other books. Kid overcomes hardships and has all sorts of great things happen in the world. Kid's sports team wins the championship. And just for drama, some big medical thing is involved. I guess when you write for the young crowd, you can get away with just recycling the same story over and over again. (Is this the boys version of the Rainbow Fairies?)

The discards are undefeated

Andy Reid had one of the best records as a Philadelphia Eagles coach. He had one bad season (that happened to be when his son died.) He was promptly canned.
Alex Smith was a #1 draft pick who suffered through a number of different coaches and coordinators. He finally found a good coach in Jim Harbaugh and was having a career season. He had a concussion, his backup played great, and he lost his starting job.
Both these two ended up in Kansas City where they are now off to a 3-0 season. The Eagles with their hot-shot coach are 1-2. The 49ers are currently 1-1.
In his games, Alex Smith has not been a "hot shot" player that single-handedly wins games. However, he is great game manager who does not lose games. His skill is just what a great defensive team. (San Francisco, alas, lost to Seattle, thanks in part to 3 interceptions and a lost fumble. Perhaps with Smith and his "game management", the 49ers would have handled that game.)
I've never been a Kansas City fan, but now it is nice to see the "discards" succeed. They already have a better record than last season, and are the "feel good" story of the season. (The 49ers have a DUI in addition to the loss.)

Good athlete, bad athlete

A former Stanford football player stopped a runaway bus in San Francisco. Frank Primus happened to be on his way to his position as a surgical resident when he jumped into action. Meanwhile, a former Florida (and now former New England Patriots) football player, Aaron Hernandez was charged for murder. Some players have a good plan for life after football, while others still haven't learned to live a life during football.

We have seen plenty of football players acting like thugs. However, we also see cases of thugs finally growing up. (See Cam Newton returning to Auburn to take classes towards his degree.) The current lawsuit seeking compensation for former players should be a wakeup call for the NCAA and college football in general. They have often treated the players as true semi-professionals. This is a disservice both to the universities and the players. College should be a time of learning and self-discovery. When teams forget the person behind the player, we get antics like that of Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M. He's a great player, but all his juvenile activities are out in the public eye. Where is the university to educate him? Most students get a chance to be an idiot in front of just their facebook friends. He gets to do it in front of the entire world.

Some football players go on to become doctors or Rhode Scholars. They may have come in with these goals and used the experience to their advantage. Others come in with only a desire to become an all-pro in the NFL. These guys are the ones that could most benefit from the life lessons in college. Whether they make it pro or not, a good education could help them in their future. If colleges fail to do this, they are really nothing more than minor leagues.

College to NFL

The coaching journey from NCAA to NFL is riddled with cautionary tales. Nick Saban has won a few championships at Alabama and LSU, but he bombed out in the NFL. Petrino, and Spurrier each had short, unsuccessful NFL coaching stints, before returning back to success in the SEC.

Recently, however, coaches have been having more success jumping from college to the NFL. Most successful coaches have already had "big city" experience, and are often going to a "smaller" town for the pros. There aren't a lot that are "king" of their college town.

Jim Harbaugh didn't have to move to take the 49ers job. Stanford is less than 15 miles from 49ers headquarters.
Pete Carroll moved from LA to Seattle. USC is arguably LAs pro team, and moving up to Seattle could be seen as a less stressful job.
Greg Schiano was at Rutgers - just a few towns over from Giants stadium in New York. Going down to Tampa Bay could almost be considered a retirement.
Doug Marrone was at Syracuse, in upstate New York, just a few hours from Buffalo.
Tom Coughlin went from Boston College to Jacksonville - another trip from a big city to Florida. He eventually ended up at New York, and has not done too shabby.

Now the Eagles have tabbed Oregon's Chip Kelly as their new coach. Where does he fit in? Oregon is a Pac-12 school, and those coaches have had recent success in the NFL. However, Eugene is a college town. Portland is nearly two hours away. And the nearest pro team is 4.5 hours away. The Ducks are the "big boys" of football in the state of Oregon. They have Nike's money showering down on them. It seems more like an SEC school than the schools everybody else is coming from.

And the destination? Philadelphia is a much bigger city than Eugene. He will also be going to the opposite side of the country. However, prior to Oregon all his coaching experience was in the northeast, so it could be considered a homecoming. We will see how it pans out. However, there are a number of question marks now.

And there is also the question of why he decided to leave now. Not many days ago, he seemed ready to accept an NFL offer, but then decided to stay in Oregon. Perhaps during the few days he saw some major NCAA penalties coming to Oregon. Could he be pulling a Carroll and bolting before everything falls apart? Carroll and Caughlin saw their college teams regress after they left for the NFL. However, Stanford and Rutgers both continued to do well after Harbaugh and Schiano left. (They also both promoted from within.) We will see how things turn out.

Records at college and NFL (from ESPN)
Chip Kelly, PHI .868 ?
Pete Carroll, SEA .836 .518
Tom Coughlin, NYG .614 .555
Jim Harbaugh, SF .580 .750
Greg Schiano, TB .504 .438
Doug Marrone, BUF .500 ?

Nerd Bowl

Maybe it is time to add a standardized test to the bowl festivities. Most major sports conferences have a smallish, private school that boosts the average SAT score, but usually serves as nothing more than a free "win" on the football schedule.

Apparently, these academic "doormats" didn't get the message.

Stanford has always been one of the most academic prestigious schools in the nation. A half-dozen years ago, the football program was a mere afterthought, with some pundits even calling on them to disband it as a worthless cause. Now, however, they have gone to through BCS bowl games in a row. If not for a few missed kicks last season, they would have been 3-0 in these bowls. The victory this year in the Rose Bowl was the first Stanford Rose Bowl victory since Nixon was president. Stanford has a young hot-shot coach who also happens to be an alum, and doesn't plan on going anywhere.

Northwestern is the private oddity among the big public schools in the Big-10. This season they won the Big-10s lone New Years Day game. This also happened to be Northwestern's first bowl victory since someone named Truman was president. If not for a few blown forth quarter leads, Northwestern could have been undefeated. (With just a couple small breaks for the Cardinal and Wildcats, we could have seen a truly "nerdy" national championship game.) Like Stanford, Northwestern is led by a young alum for a coach.

The SEC's nerd school also got in the action. Vanderbilt won its bowl game to rack up 9 wins, a number that has not been seen since World War I. While the coach doesn't have ties to the school, he did bolt from a "coach in waiting" position at Maryland to go to Vandy. He will be a much more likely "flight" risk than the other two.

In Texas, Rice also had a bowl win. The only "nerd" school that didn't win its bowl game was the ACC's Duke. It was, however, Duke's first bowl appearance in 17 years, so you need to start somewhere. Notre Dame is joining in the ACC (playing 5 ACC football games, and fully joining in all other sports.) They are a top 20 private school. This year they just happen to be playing for the national championship.

In this years US News rankings, Stanford is #6, Duke #8, Northwestern #12, and Rice, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame are tied for #17. They make up all the schools in the US News top 20 that play top division college football.

It almost seems that the "scholar" is coming back to "scholar-athlete", with top-flight football universities actually fielding top-tier football teams. The schools have now got a new pitch for recruits: You can go get a top notch degree with endless possibilities - and if that doesn't work out, there is always the NFL.

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game

Lawrence Taylor willed himself to destroy the quarterback via the blind side. This lead to a changing of the way football was played. Unfortunately, there was a limit to Taylor's willpower, and he wasn't able to will himself out of an addiction to drugs.

Michael Oher similarly exhibited strong willpower. He grew up in a broken "family" in the projects of Memphis. He was in and out of school, and bounced around from place to place, trying to avoid being taken away by child protective services. His goal was to become the next Michael Jordan. He continued to work at it, even as his body grew to enormous proportions.

Through a series of fortunate events and coincidences, he was able to attend a private, predominantly white, Christian school on the "good" side of Memphis. There he was adopted by wealthy white family who helped train him on how to navigate the wealthy, "white" world. He was also discovered by the football coach. Oher's size and speed allowed him to become the centerpiece of the team's offense. Would he have had these opportunities if he were not a great athlete? Almost certainly not. However, even if he were a great athlete, if he didn't have the support network, he would never have succeeded in sports, and would probably still be on the streets.

He was recruited by many schools, and interrogated by the NCAA for rules violations. (The dark underbelly of college athletics is well exposed.) He had to a cram in many last-minute correspondence classes to get his GPA high enough to play college football.

For many inner-city kids, sports seem to be the only way out of the projects. Yet they are caught in a catch-22 where success in sports requires you to first get "out of the projects" and perform well enough in school to play for your high school and make it to college before you can finally make it to the pros and get a paycheck. There are so many chances to fail in the process, with the best "consolation prize" often being work as a gang bouncer. Does glorification of the athlete really benefit the community as a whole?

This book does present a nice uplifting story, told primarily from the point of view of Oher's supporters. (Oher is remarkably silent in this book, though he has since written his own book.) It is clear that he was strong willpower and character, but needed some guidance and opportunity to channel it. He knew he would succeed and he did.

college football working right?

Robert Griffin III, Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson are all rookie quarterbacks in the NFL. Luck has lead his team to a huge turnaround and a playoff appearance. Wilson is currently one of the hottest QBs and has helped push his team to the playoffs. RGIII is a rookie Pro-bowler who has his team on the cusp of the playoffs.

They are all hot-shot quarterbacks that have outplayed many of the veteran quarterbacks they have faced.

They also stayed in school longer than they had to. Luck was already considered to be the number one draft prospect before he decided to come back to finish his degree at Stanford.

Wilson and RGIII both graduated from college in three years. They both opted to stick around for graduate school rather than enter the NFL draft.

We can consider these three to be the anti-Cam Newton. They were taking full advantage of the education that could be provided in college. Rather than simply go there to play football, they were attending class also. Perhaps college football is really something more than a minor league for the NFL.

Worst BCS team ever?

ESPN had a cow about Northern Illinois being a disgrace to the BCS. How dare they play in a big came when other "more deserving" schools are shut out. Northern Illinois did not exactly come out of nowhere. Less than 10 years ago (in 2003), they had been ranked #10 in the BCS, and had a victory over Alabama (in Alabama) under the belt, as well as a victory over Iowa State and a top 20 Maryland team. Alas, they lost a couple conference games and "only" finished 10-2. Their bowl reward? They got to stay home.

Now we have people complaining that they go to the BCS after winning their conference when teams like Oklahoma and Texas A&M are "stuck" in the Cotton Bowl. At least they get somewhere after going 10-2 and not winning their conference. That's much more than you can say about the 2003 Northern Illinois team.

Perhaps Northern Illinois is used to deflect the true "worst team" to make it to a BCS game, Wisconsin. They have five losses, and only managed to get in because two teams in their 6 team division were not eligible for the post-season. They blew out Nebraska in the title game, so they do appear to be on a roll. But, by their record, they are the worst the BCS has seen.

Wisconsin and Northern Illinois have also both recently had their coach leave for another job.

The other tragedy of the bowl season is "bad teams" making the bowls over good teams. 6-7 Georgia Tech will be playing USC. Middle Tennessee finished 8-4. They beat Georgia Tech (in Atlanta) by 21 points. They will not be going to a bowl.

9-3 Louisiana Tech will not be going to a bowl. They lost by 2 to Texas A&M. Alabama lost by 4, and get to play in the national championship. 6-6 Mississippi lost by 3 to A&M and gets a bowl game.

The biggest knock on the two teams is that they played in the WAC and Sun Belt. Had they been in a "BCS" conference, they would surely be bowling. Even Conference USA or Mountain West would have likely sent them to a bowl. Looking at Sagarin rankings, #88 East Carolina, #107 Air Force and #103 Rice finished lower than #84 Middle Tennessee and are both going to bowls.

Those ratings also can help us objectively identify who may truly be the worst BCS team ever.

Wisconsin, in spite of its record comes in at #21. Northern Illinois looks pretty pitiful down there at #34. (They are even behind WAC schools Utah State and San Jose State.) At 34, they must be one of the worst teams ever, right?

Nope. Not even for this season. Way down at #52 (5 spots below non-bowling Louisiana Tech) sits Louisville. Yep. The candidate for true "worst team" ever is the Big East representative in the BCS Sugar bowl against Florida.

Lets see how the games turn out.

Million Dollar throw

It is a sappy sports book written for a tween audience. Literary masterpiece it is not.
It is filled with details of the game of football. The protagonist is one serious junior high quarterback. An like all stereo-typical non-Andrew Luck quarterbacks, he doesn't do so well in school. However, we don't hear much about school. We do hear a lot of what goes through his mind on the football field.

Times are not going so well for his parents. (Queue sap-o-meter.) His father lost his good job, and is now struggling to make ends meet. His female friend is losing her vision. And in to all this, he got selected to make one attempt to throw a football through a hole to earn a million dollars. Oh, and did I mention this was at halftime of a Patriots game. Yeah, andhe goes by the name Brady because he is such a huge fan. And we get all sorts of details of the Patriots past and prsent... And he has the chance because he paid $500 for an autographed Brady ball (minumum $500 purchase required to qualify.) Yep, all over the top.

Of course, all of these events mess with his mind and he can't through if his life depended on it. He gets benched, and his life gets even worse. And then the girl may be going off to a school for the blind... The badness just piles on.

It does't matter because we know it will all turn out well at the end. There are attempts to inject a little suspense in the process, though this is more annoying than suspenseful. (Why tell us almost everything about a Google alert, but not what it was? Oh yeah, because that would spoil the suspense.) And then, the ending also has his hero come out, him participating in a magnanimous act and he and his buddies all starting on the varsity team as Freshman.

Could we have just a bit of believability? Sorry. nope.

This is a junior high football players dream. That pretty much sums it up.