Saturday, September 13, 2003

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Is best understood as a series of exhibitions, each with their own traditions and importance, like today's Notre Dame-Michigan game. It is best not to think of it as a traditional sport with a championships and playoffs, but as a discrete set of events (a "season") that contain individual dramas, with very little of the season-length storylines you find in the pro game. In other words, college football games are self-enclosed dramas, or at least tend towards that, with traditional rivalries being much more important than where one winds up in the overall picture. The drive to make college football more like the pro game--a process that shall be called Hurricanization--runs counter to everything that makes college football distinct. The University of Miami Hurricanes, a team with minimal local support, exist only to make money for their university and command the hearts and minds of very few in the traditional, local way, and should be hated by all college football fans.

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