Amid sea of changes, essence of football remains the same
The thing about change is it changes. One minute college football is trying to figure out how to keep players from dying during games. The next minute 18-yearold quarterbacks are collecting major coin for peddling natural health drinks.
Current hot topics are name, image and likeness, conference alliance and instant transfers. Throw COVID-19 in there and you have sea change the size of the Pacific.
But the impact of the changes is not without precedent. Banning the flying wedge in the early 20th century saved lives. Introduction of the face mask saved noses, or at least kept them from taking 90-degree turns. The forward pass? That was pretty big when legalized in 1906.
The flu pandemic of 1918 changed football schedules — sound familiar? — even as it changed medicine. And don't forget that for decades freshmen were ineligible to play varsity.
Not every change made huge headlines, but each one impacted someone or something in some vital way. That's how it works. As Steve Jobs once put it, “Things don't have to change the world to be important.”
Sure, distractions are everywhere. Are they vaccinated or not? Will NIL ruin locker room culture? But how is that much different from this:
• The first televised college game was between Fordham and Waynesburg on Sept. 30, 1939. NBC broadcast it on W2XBS.
You think TV network contracts are big news now? Think about when games first went from in-person only to inhome? Fans at the time had to be thinking, “When do the aliens arrive?”
• The first use of college instant replay came in 1963 during the Army-navy game. Talk about mind-blowing. “You mean we get to see that again?” Game officials still curse that day.
• The first Associated Press rankings appeared in 1939, forever affecting the way fans compare and contrast one overrated team to another.
• The “point spread” associated with sports betting arrived during the 1940s, changing gambling forever. Before the point spread, most bookies would look for evenly-matched games to decrease the risk of huge losses. The spread allowed them to offer any game because the line reflected differences between the strengths and weaknesses of the two teams and helped attract business on both sides of a game.
If we’re being honest, the history of college football is a beautiful mess of myopic leadership, rules “misunderstandings” and ridiculous money. Mythical national titles made way for computer-generated rankings, which in turn made way for a committee of 13 playoff pooh-bahs who essentially perform the same task the poll voters did the previous 75 years.
But don’t focus on the mess. Instead, concentrate on the beauty, because for all the change that has happened — and keeps happening on almost a weekly
basis, thanks to Texas, Oklahoma and court cases that will continue into infinity — the one thing that remains the same is the game itself.
Blocking and tackling. Touchdowns and fumbles. Winning and losing. When you get right down to it, the “it” matters most.
As Ohio State opens its 131st season Thursday at Minnesota, it brings a kind of security blanket comfort knowing the game remains 11 against 11.
Those 18-year-olds receiving new trucks from Columbus dealers? They still compete on a green rectangle, hitting each other with the ferocity of two brothers wrestling in a shared bedroom. And though football science is different from when the Buckeyes took the field in the 1930s, when playbooks and film study were non-existent, to borrow liberally from former Ohio State coach Francis Schmidt, “We still put our pants on one leg at a time, just like they did in 1934.”
There may be more noise than ever, but tradition and pageantry still trump
social media hew and cry. College football may not be as romantic as it was when sports writer Grantland Rice poeticized the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame:
“Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore, they were known as Death, Destruction, Pestilence, and Famine. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.”
But while much has changed since Rice penned that 1924 tribute, the main thing remains the main thing: boys become men as they run, catch, hit and hurt. It can be challenging, but best to pay attention to what matters. roller@dispatch.com @rollercd