Remember Two Things

Originally Posted 11/02/03--12:31pm

Two things happened in college football this weekend that have me shaking my head and lamenting the condition of college football. I have previously written in this space about my feelings regarding Ohio State and the Maurice Clarrett situation, which I feel started this season with the wrong tone. While there have been great moments during this college football season, Saturday was a lesson in why we should never get too comfortable.

Debacle #1--Ohio State at Penn State

The Penn State Nittany Lions are not a Top 25 team. In fact, this year they are not a Top 50 team. They are young and inexperienced but talented and determined. The chips have just not fallen for these Lions. In games where the offense played well, the defense collapsed and vice versa. Turnovers and the kicking game have also done their part to ruin chances for wins this year. However, whether you are a fan or just an observer, you could see that these players were just a few good games away from putting it together and really becoming a team. Some thought that might happen when Ohio State came to town this past Saturday.

What a story it could be. An emotional pep rally on Friday that stirred the emotions of everyone in attendance being led by a man nearly four times the age of the average attendee. This young Penn State team could come out charged with that emotion and put it together against the defending National Champion. Maybe even start a chain reaction that would carry this Nittany Lion team to wins over Michigan and Michigan State as well. A 5-7 season in which you beat the sixth, seventh, and tenth-ranked teams in the country is at least palatable. And it could all start this Saturday against Ohio State in Happy Valley where Ohio State had lost its last three games. In a series where the home team is 9-1 over the last 10 games. Yes, this could be the turning point for this team.

So what exactly is a "turning point" and how would we be able to tell if it was happening? Well, it is actually fairly simple. Teams like this young Lion team shoot themselves in the foot just as much as they are beaten and they usually lack the ability to finish games even when they are ahead. So, what we're looking for is consistent play for four quarters during which, players who were previously unproductive start to find their stride and the team as a whole begins to move in one direction. Look for the defense to play well even though they will be overmatched in size. Look for the offense to get a boost from a patchwork receiving corps that has been horribly inconsistent all year. If these things happen, you should look up and see the Lions in a position to win the game in the fourth quarter.

Now that we have our definition laid out, lets take a look at what happened. After being out for 3 weeks with a knee injury, Zack Mills came back from lackluster performances in his first 3 games to lead this offense. He was accurate, ran well, and made good judgements under pressure. The receivers finally began to inspire confidence. Dropped passes were kept to a minimum, clutch catches were made for first downs, and this group even made a couple of great catches to help pick Mills up when his passes weren't perfect. Barring Ohio State's first drive of the game and their first of the second half, this defense played flawlessly. They were able to get pressure with an undersized front four, brought blitzes in appropriate situations, and the secondary was like a blanket, even converting an interception into a score. The result of all of this: Penn State led for all but about 7 minutes of this game.

This game was everything it was supposed to be and everything Lions fans had hoped it could be. This team was coming together and learning that if they played hard and smart and fought for four quarters, they could beat the sixth-ranked team in the country. This is the kind of win a program can really hang its hat on, or in this case ressurect itself on. And then the disturbing part happened.

Penn State players did look up at that scoreboard in the fourth quarter and did find themselves ahead. It was the product of blood and sweat and effort. They were sore and tired but they were ready. They were ready to "become." And as they stood on the edge of "becoming," finally seeing what had eluded them for three quarters of a season, they had it all snatched from them by non-participants who, with alarming recent frequency, have been the center of attention in college football games (And the NFL for that matter.). Who are these non-participants? Incompetent officials and officiating crews.

It happened to the Nittany Lions three times last year and led to stories of Coach Paterno "losing it," and needing to retire. Against Iowa, Ohio State, and Michigan last year, Penn State had drives that could have won those games halted by grossly incompetent officiating. Mistakes that were later admitted to by the Big Ten and its officials. And yet despite these acknowledgements, Conference President James E. Delany (Who, by the way, claims credit for the Big Ten's inclusion in the BCS on the Big Ten's website [http://bigten.cstv.com/school-bio/delany-bio.html], which is like claiming credit for the sun rising. There was never any doubt that the Big Ten would be a BCS conference. Delany did nothing to make the Big Ten more attractive to the BCS. Over one hundred years of quality football took care of that. Claiming credit for "inclusion" is ridiculous. However, it is not surprising considering Delany also claims credit for league expansion, bowl tie-ins, league parity, attendance growth, and relocation of the Big Ten offices, things that have nothing to do with anything he does as Conference President. The final say in expansion rests with the universities. League parity is the result of NCAA rules and recruiting, neither of which has anything to do with Delany. Bowl tie-ins, like inclusion in the BCS, are the result of the Big Ten being the Big Ten, not James E. Delany's negotiating skill. Attendance growth has more to do with the ever expanding fan base and stadiums all across the country than anything else. Relocation of the Big Ten offices? This is something a conference president puts on his resume? Even the spin put on this "accomplishment" at the Big Ten's website can't save this from being just plain silly.) reprimanded Coach Paterno for his officiating complaints last season so severely that after this Saturday's game against Ohio State Paterno refused to even comment on the officiating mistakes when asked by reporters at the post-game press conference.

Two calls went against Penn State late in the game that effected the outcome of this contest. The first was a non-call on pass interference. Matt Kranchick was knocked to the ground on a 3rd down play as the Ohio State defender ran through him to get to the ball. No flag. Appalling. The second was a dropped pass by Ohio State's tight end on third down as the Buckeyes were driving for the winning score. The ball was clearly dropped. There was nothing obscuring anyone's view. It was not a judgement call. There were not four other footballs on the field at the same time to confuse the officials. They just blew the most elementary call in the book. And so, on what should have been fourth down, the Buckeyes had a red zone first down.

I can only hope that this Lion team will have the fortitude to draw as much from this defeat as they would have drawn from the victory. If they can't, it will be a tragedy and another signpost on a road that should lead to instant replay in college football.

Debacle#2--Miami goes back to their roots

Thanks to Howard Schnellenberger, Miami was rescued from perennial football obscurity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Miami continued a meteoric rise during the 1980s becoming one of the most successful college football programs in the country under Jimmy Johnson. However, they were also the team people loved to hate. Their antics on the field and questionable judgement off the field solidified their image as the bad boys of college football. One Miami-Notre Dame game from that era was billed as the Catholics vs. the Convicts. During a pre-game press conference leading up to the 1986 Fiesta Bowl, Miami players showed up in army fatigues and spoke disparagingly of their opponents, the Penn State Nittany Lions. Miami was just plain good at being bad. College football fans came to understand this and expect it. Miami's image and its behavior wasn't really acceptable or good for college football, but at least it was up front.

After Jimmy Johnson left Miami, Butch Davis and then Larry Coker tried to "clean up" Miami's image. What is unclear is if either coach actually devised or deployed any substantitive policy changes aimed at making the program better or if they were just concerned with cowing public opinion into believing that Miami was somehow "cleaner" without doing anything to actually make it "clean." It WAS unclear, that is, until this past Saturday. As Miami was buried under 31 points and the Virginia Tech defense, their true nature and their tried and true roots came out. Trash-talking, pushing, fighting, and in general, behaving badly. After 39 straight regular season wins, Miami got spanked, and after their behavior on the field Saturday they deserved to be spanked literally.

This is not a surprise to me, however. I never bought into the "new" Miami, a kinder gentler Miami. They are essentially the same hooligans they always were because they draw their players from the same stock they always have and they treat their football players the same as they always have. Miami's football players are NOT student athletes. They are, in large part, last chance kids that have a talent for football. These are kids that, for one reason or another, have little hope beyond football. They will disappear, be incarcerated, or be dead in 5 years unless they make it in the NFL. This is partly because they have little ambition beyond that, partly because they have no talent beyond that, and partly because schools like Miami offer them litle incentive to make themselves more than that. The sum of these parts is that Miami, more often than not, produces players that will shirk their academic responsibilities to hone their football skills, take classes that are designed to help them pass, and take course schedules that are designed to help them pass three years relatively easily while they wait for the gravy train. Ironically, it is these same players (and players from other similar schools) that will blame the NFL and everyone else for not helping them make the transition back into mainstream America after their playing days are over. What they should be told is: "That is YOUR job, not OURS. If you had taken your studies in college more seriously, you would have a career to fall back on now. You didn't, and we have little inclination to feel sorry for a once-millionaire who pissed away his fortune and now wants sympathy and presumably a hand-out."

Now, does this describe ALL Miami football players? No. But it describes enough to be more important than the exceptions. Miami's behavior on Saturday was not surprising, but it should not be tolerated. Shame on them if it is and shame on us for allowing it and subsidizing it.