FSU, Alabama not giving opener hype.
If we’re lucky, Jim McElwain will get up at his press conference Wednesday and announce Florida’s starting quarterback will be …
“I’m not saying until Jim Harbaugh tells us who is even on his roster. Come on, Jim. What are you worried about?”
Harbaugh’s roster shenanigans aren’t really hampering Florida’s preparations for Michigan. But McElwain griping about them would add even more zest to college football’s second-best season opener.
And hopefully, the people involved in the best season opener would take note.
That’s primarily Jimbo Fisher and Nick Saban, who don’t believe in added zest. Especially for a game like FSU against Alabama.
It isn’t just this season’s best opener. According to the polls,
it’s the Greatest Opener of All Time, a.k.a. GOAT.
The game’s organizers in Atlanta wanted to use an actual goat in promotional material, according the Tallahassee Democrat. The schools nixed that idea, apparently out of some bias against goats.
I’m not necessarily pro-goat, but that decision shows how FSU and Alabama are not doing the GOAT justice when it comes to a key component — hype.
Despite its shady reputation, hype is not a bad thing. It can expand an audience beyond the usual fans (see the impending Mayweather-McGregor heist).
More important, it makes my job easier when things go off-script. My formative years were spent covering characters like Deion Sanders.
Before his final home game, he said Florida’s receivers were scared of him and he was going to put on a tuxedo and hire a limo to take him to the game.
It aggravated Gators and amused Seminoles and raised the temperature on a game that was already smoking. But more important than Sanders saying such things, he was allowed to say such things.
In this message-control era, he’d be drugged before the press conference and be instructed to repeat only his name, rank and GPA.
Well, maybe not his GPA.
I’m not saying FSUAlabama should turn into Mayweather-McGregor. It would be nice, however, if Saban would tell a funny or embarrassing story about his old assistant Jimbo.
Maybe he could emulate Urban Myer and call FSU “That school down south,” or hint that Bobby Bowden couldn’t hold Bear Bryant’s houndstooth hat.
Instead, he’s been in full Saban Grinch Mode. He scoffed at the thought he might even notice Monday’s solar eclipse because the once-in-a-generation event might take him away from film study for two minutes.
Fisher’s always more affable, but he also would rather drink sour goat milk than give opponents anything resembling bulletin board material.
Which brings us back to McElwain.
“We’re going to beat the heck out of Michigan!” he told students at pep rally Sunday at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
It was no big deal, at least on the Joe Namath Scale. But it was downright McGregor-esque for a college football coach. Not even Steve Spurrier in his greatest Darth Visor Days would publicly guarantee a win. Then there’s Harbaugh. His latest wackiness is refusing to release a roster or depth chart, a common practice at just about every school in the world. A New Jersey paper has even filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the notso-top-secret info.
Like Spurrier, Harbaugh doesn’t really care what anybody thinks. He might maintain a prickly silence until kickoff.
Or he might release a depth chart listing Tom Brady as Michigan’s backup QB. Either way, the hope for hype out of Ann Arbor will run high.
The games will ultimately be remembered for what happened on the field. But when it comes to engaging a wider audience, the undercard is on top.
At least until Saban rides in on a goat.