College Football is Over

Cecil and Cam Newton share a hug after the title game. Photo/Opelika-Auburn News

Say what you will about the BCS Champion Auburn Tigers and their exiting quarterback, Cam Newton.  The SEC champions are also winners of the BCS trophy.  With that, college football is over.  Not because of Cam’s season which was clouded with speculation over his father, Cecil Newton’s pay for play scandal with Mississippi State, but because it is technically in the books which is a giant relief, at least for my wife.

Football is the clear runaway sport in terms of television ratings and advertising revenue in this country, and it’s not even close.  With all the coverage of 30 plus bowl games, postseason awards and my own unhealthy obsession with my favorite team the stimulation from it all is staggering.

Cam Newton is on his way to the NFL, which in terms of ratings, money and fan support is becoming a giant among midgets in the sports world.  Last weekend the NFL Wildcard playoffs were watched by over 30 million viewers and overall, the NFL brought in over 200 million unique viewers over the course of the season.  The World Series this year lost out to a rerun of Will and Grace.

Not that I mind, I love watching the NFL.  And by all practical purposes, football is a built for television sport.  Of course going to the game is an “experience” but it’s almost better to watch on your couch than at the top of the stadium while you get rain/snow/beer spilled on you.  Baseball is all about going to the stadium, which shows why it struggles to even come near the NFL in terms of viewership.  The model is great in the pros, but will division 1-A ever take a page out of their book?

It almost makes you wonder where the breaking point is with amateur football.  How long before people stage some sort of boycott with the college game (FBS, specifically) because of incidents like Cam Newton?  Or just because not having a playoff makes the sport a total joke?  But how can there be any change with the status quo when more people show up to games and tune in to games in record numbers year over year?  Even during the last couple years when the economy was in the tank?

The fact is that we’ll never see a playoff in college football.  At least not like it is in the NFL or any other level of college football, which for the record is way more exciting.  People in charge of college ball and media pundits act like creating a playoff system is like splitting the atom, when any Joe sports fan has constructed a playoff with his buddies on a Saturday afternoon at the bar on a cocktail napkin.  And you know what?  It would probably work.

Auburn will go down in the history books as the 2010 national champion (well, until the NCAA takes it away in four or five years, along with Cam’s Heisman), but everyone knows it will always be a mythical national championship.  And the teams that came before the Tigers have the same claim.  Until a team like TCU or Ohio State can play Auburn next in a plus one system or have a full on postseason playoff, it’s all an exhibition.

A Wrap

Bo Pelini and company close out the year with a win.

With the 2009 season in the books and all the Big 12 North teams seasons ending as of Missouri’s 35-13 loss to the Navy Midshipmen, it’s not too early to begin looking to 2010 to see how the division, and the conference, will shake out.  Nebraska loses Ndamukong Suh, defensive end Barry Turner and both starting safeties in Larry Asante and Matt O’Hanlon, but it’s not hard to imagine taking head coach Bo Pelini’s word that the squad could be better.

The Huskers return depth on both sides of the ball and will return most every skill position play on the offensive side of the ball.  The special teams stay the same too.  And with Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Colorado all packing their bags for Lincoln, it’s hard to imagine the Huskers not being picked to with the North.  However, look no further than Kansas from this year being picked as a favorite too.

The media seems to have it in their mind that Nebraska will be a preseason top 10 to start 2010.  That’s fine, but there are some tough games on the slate.  Idaho, which is a better warm up opponent than you think.  Traveling to Seattle to play the Washington Huskies and a returning Jake Locker might not be a slam dunk win either.  The good thing is returning quarterback Zac Lee will be road tested as opposed to this year where he had to make his bones sometimes painfully (see Iowa State).

But should some key games and things fall their way, I would certainly expect to see the Huskers back in the Big 12 title game in December.  But before we really dig in to next season and break some things down by position, let’s reflect a bit on 2009.  It’s easy to sit back and wonder what could have been.  Not giving up a late touchdown to Virginia Tech, not turning the ball over eight times at home to the Cyclones and not kicking a ball out of bounds against Texas.  However, a 10 win season, a division title and a dominant win in a semi-major bowl against a worthy opponent (who defeated USC, Stanford and took Oregon to the wire) is another step in the right direction after wandering in the Bill Callahan wilderness midway through the decade.

Suh was the obvious star picking up every major defensive award and being named the Associated Press player of the year.  The first exclusive defensive player to ever win the award.  With Suh finishing fourth in the Heisman voting juxtaposed against the laundry list of other defensive and overall player awards, it’s becoming apparent the Heisman is now a sham.  I didn’t think Suh was the clear cut choice, I probably would have voted for Stanford running back Toby Gerhart, who statistically was better than winner Mark Ingram.  No doubt his performance over Florida in the SEC championship game cemented his win.

Nine wins last year with a Gator Bowl win over Clemson was great the year after being embarrassed on a regular basis.  Only a couple times last year did the Huskers get throttled on defense.  This year they were arguably the best defense in the country.  Not a bad turn around Bo.  So despite the shortcomings, this is a ton to be happy about from this year and much to be excited for on the horizon.

Suh-per Huskers

Ndamukong Suh made a huge statement yesterday on the field helping the Huskers to a 26-21 win over the Clemson Tigers. Now, Husker fans are awaiting to hear a statement from him that could impact the 2009 season. Suh will feel out what is draft stock is, however he has stated multiple times that he is coming back to get his degree at Nebraska. We can only hope.

Suh aided the Blackshirts (and yes, after yesterday they deserve that title) held the vaunted Clemson rushing attatck to four yards on the ground. Yes, that’s right. Four. All we heard about for the last several weeks was how home run hitting C.J. Spiller and the thundering James Davis were going to rip our weak Big XII defense to shreds. Maybe the offenses in the Big XII really are that good. Although in the first half the vastley more athletic and speedy Clemson D kept Shawn Watson and Joe Ganz in check.

Yesterday marked the first win in a New Year’s Day bowl game for the Huskers in nine years. You have to go back to the Fiesta Bowl from the 1999-2000 season when Nebraska defeated Tennessee 31-21. What does this win mean for the program under first year head coach Bo Pelini? For starters, the mythical standard of wins in a season has been reached with nine. Why is this number so important?

Since the Tom Osborne era began in Lincoln, and before Bill Callahan stepped off a plane freshly being fired from his head coaching job in Oakland for Al Davis, Nebraska had only won less than nine games one time from 1969 until 2003. We all know what happened next, 2004 and Callahan come along and we miss our first bowl game since the ’68 season, then miss another bowl in ’07, one year removed from winning the Big XII North.

Could this victory help position the Huskers for a spot in the Big XII Championship in 2009? It certainly seems plausible, and it is possible, but I’m still skeptical. Our road games in the division include a trip to Columbia where we haven’t won since Eric Crouch and his 97 yard Heisman moment scamper to pay dirt, and a drive down to Lawrence where we gave up 76 in 2007. Also, the same Colorado team that needed to be put to sleep with a miracle field goal when we were 17+ point favorites will welcome us to Boulder as well. If we win the North next year, we clearly deserve it.

I know a lot of people will be riding high after the Gator bowl win, and they should. Turning a 5-7 team into a 9-4 team is a big deal. More than ESPN will let on in their bowl week coverage. However, the excitement should be tempered with a does of reality heading into next season. Despite having some great young talent, and a lot of returning defensive starters including defensive tackle man-child Ndamukong Suh, we should be able to slow some of the conference offenses down a bit. However, our offense takes a bit of a hit.

First and foremost, Joe Ganz will graduate and take Nate Swift and Todd Peterson with him. These three helped us to our solid record this year in a way that will be felt when the new players and probably starters take the field in the spring and next fall that most probably won’t expect. Roy Helu will be back. So will Gator Bowl unsung hero Quentin Castille. Marlon Lucky will be gone, but his role was diminshed as the season went on. Hopefully Niles Paul, who made some boneheaded moves yesterday, Menelik Holt and Chris Brooks are ready to step up.

The offense live will also need to fill some holes, although the line turned out to be a bit of a question mark this year. There was a lot of hype surounding Lydon Murtha and Matt Slauson going into the season, but they showed that they are just human and not the superstars that the Lincoln Journal-Star would have you believe.

So I would enjoy the transition year to the Bo Pelini era. He showed that these kids were talented enough to beat they teams they were supposed to most of the time, and that they were still far from competing with the big boys. He has them on the right track, and with national signging day just a little more than a month away seems to be closing the year out strong.