Like most people that I have never met, I have been watching a lot of the World Cup - the tournament that everybody that is not an American watches like it is 63 Super Bowls played over a four week time span. But then again, I will watch anything that involves countries playing each other. I even watched the World Cup of Rugby last year. Sports between nations are like mini-wars. You get to get all of that angst out on the field like when the 1980 U.S. Hockey team beat the Soviet Union. While I am not sure we have any problems with Algeria, it was still fun to watch the U.S. beat them in “overtime” on Wednesday.
Having said that, I am the first to admit that I have no idea what is happening in a soccer game. I just know scoring a goal happens about as often as somebody hitting a triple in major league baseball. Soccer is called “The Beautiful Game.” “Beautiful” must translate into the word “subtle” in every other language besides English. Somebody once described American football as an action movie with constant explosions and screaming. Soccer, on the other hand, was described as a suspense film where you are constantly holding your breath while you wait on the one scene where the bad guy finally gets it in the end. While I am a bigger fan of action movies, it is pretty entertaining when somebody actually scores a goal. Almost as exciting is a dramatic save by the goalie. So how do we get more of these moments so that we in the U.S. will tune in? Naturally, as the know-it-all American, I have a few ideas.
1. Give more points for larger margins of victory. In Group Play of the World Cup, teams get three points for a win and one for a tie. To encourage more scoring, make victories by a margin of one only worth two points. If a team wins by a margin of two goals, give them three points. A margin of three gives them four points, and so on. More points means more motivation to keep scoring.
2. Make fouling more costly. I know, I know, yellow cards, red cards; but honestly there are a lot of these little nickel-dime fouls that occur at midfield where the punishment is minimal. Every three fouls should result in a free kick from about thirty yards no matter where it occurred on the field. This would be similar to free throws in basketball after a team goes into the bonus.
3. Give me a break with the off sides calls. Off sides should not exist if the ball is in the box. That area should be a free for all. In other parts of the field, off sides should only be called if the guy is really off sides – like holding in football.
4. De-clutter the box on free kicks. Corner kicks and free kicks are actually pretty entertaining when the team runs some rehearsed play. Some of them are like little football/basketball plays with reverses, give and go’s, and other misdirection. The problem is there are usually so many people in the box that there is barely room for a ball. For free kicks and corner kicks both teams should have to put three players on the other side of the fifty (or half court line or whatever they call it). Once the ball is kicked, they can come sprinting in. Less people means more space and more chances for somebody doing one of those Pele bicycle kicks.
5. Just let them use their hands and knock the crap out of each other. Oh wait, that’s the NBA.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Not A Victory for You
Last week, the powers that be decided that the 2011 schedule needed to be a little tougher. Enter the Midshipmen. The sailors from Annapolis are coming to Columbia on September 17, 2011 and they are bringing football’s version of the Harlem Globetrotter offense with them. But that is not the worst of it – they were invited.
Carolina fans will recall playing Navy Lite twice already this decade - the Wofford Terriers. This is like asking the guy that just beat you by sixty pins in bowling to go double or nothing - and then giving him a million dollars to do it. Most fans will recall that the Gamecocks were a tipped pitch and a fourth and one from losing to Wofford in those two games. Now they have invited a team that runs the same offense with better athletes.
The athletic department said that it was hard to find someone that fit the schedule and that many schools wanted more than the $950,000.00 that Carolina is paying Navy. My question is: Were any of these schools bad at football? If so, pay them the money. The athletic department is further quoted as saying that “it’s going to be a good game.” Personally, I am more interested in winning.
“But we need to schedule somebody good.” This is what I hear from Carolina fans when it comes to scheduling. “Why don’t we try to get a home and home with Southern Cal or Oklahoma?” Why not schedule the Rams while we are at it? Look, I am all for big time match-ups with the great powers of college football, but as a Carolina fan, I would prefer they occur in a bowl game in early January. What really puzzles me is a schedule that features games with Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, etc. is not enough star power for these people. How many top ten teams do we have to play?
The bottom line is that college football seasons are judged by six criteria: national championship, conference championship, division championship, victories against rivals, number of wins, and bowl game. There is no NCAA tournament to get to, no College World Series or Sweet Sixteen. For most teams the evaluation comes down to how many wins and did the team go to bowl. Adding Navy to a schedule that features eight SEC teams and Clemson does nothing to meet that end.
As an example, look at Mississippi State last year. The Bulldogs went 3-5 in conference – same as Carolina. However, the Bulldogs stayed home for the holidays because of their 5-7 record overall. On the other hand, Carolina went on to play in a January bowl game after finishing 7-5. The difference was the non-conference schedule. Carolina went 4-0 with the Bulldogs finishing 2-2. Mississippi State caved to the “why can’t we play anybody good” pressure and scheduled Georgia Tech and Houston in their non-conference. Fans got what they asked for – somebody good and two losses. Carolina fans need only look to Orangeland and ask the Tigers how it felt to pay TCU one million dollars to beat them last year.
Look, if Carolina was in the Mountain West and going undefeated every year only to get shut out of the BCS, I would be the first to say bring on the Longhorns. But when you battle in the SEC for eight games and you have to look at Clemson at the end of the year every year, you need to take all the opportunities that you can to find opponents you can handle. Additionally, the Newberry’s and Presbyterian’s of the world come a lot cheaper. Oh well, I will be there regardless – sweating through a game where Carolina has nothing to gain and everything to lose. I wonder what Boise State would cost?
Carolina fans will recall playing Navy Lite twice already this decade - the Wofford Terriers. This is like asking the guy that just beat you by sixty pins in bowling to go double or nothing - and then giving him a million dollars to do it. Most fans will recall that the Gamecocks were a tipped pitch and a fourth and one from losing to Wofford in those two games. Now they have invited a team that runs the same offense with better athletes.
The athletic department said that it was hard to find someone that fit the schedule and that many schools wanted more than the $950,000.00 that Carolina is paying Navy. My question is: Were any of these schools bad at football? If so, pay them the money. The athletic department is further quoted as saying that “it’s going to be a good game.” Personally, I am more interested in winning.
“But we need to schedule somebody good.” This is what I hear from Carolina fans when it comes to scheduling. “Why don’t we try to get a home and home with Southern Cal or Oklahoma?” Why not schedule the Rams while we are at it? Look, I am all for big time match-ups with the great powers of college football, but as a Carolina fan, I would prefer they occur in a bowl game in early January. What really puzzles me is a schedule that features games with Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, etc. is not enough star power for these people. How many top ten teams do we have to play?
The bottom line is that college football seasons are judged by six criteria: national championship, conference championship, division championship, victories against rivals, number of wins, and bowl game. There is no NCAA tournament to get to, no College World Series or Sweet Sixteen. For most teams the evaluation comes down to how many wins and did the team go to bowl. Adding Navy to a schedule that features eight SEC teams and Clemson does nothing to meet that end.
As an example, look at Mississippi State last year. The Bulldogs went 3-5 in conference – same as Carolina. However, the Bulldogs stayed home for the holidays because of their 5-7 record overall. On the other hand, Carolina went on to play in a January bowl game after finishing 7-5. The difference was the non-conference schedule. Carolina went 4-0 with the Bulldogs finishing 2-2. Mississippi State caved to the “why can’t we play anybody good” pressure and scheduled Georgia Tech and Houston in their non-conference. Fans got what they asked for – somebody good and two losses. Carolina fans need only look to Orangeland and ask the Tigers how it felt to pay TCU one million dollars to beat them last year.
Look, if Carolina was in the Mountain West and going undefeated every year only to get shut out of the BCS, I would be the first to say bring on the Longhorns. But when you battle in the SEC for eight games and you have to look at Clemson at the end of the year every year, you need to take all the opportunities that you can to find opponents you can handle. Additionally, the Newberry’s and Presbyterian’s of the world come a lot cheaper. Oh well, I will be there regardless – sweating through a game where Carolina has nothing to gain and everything to lose. I wonder what Boise State would cost?
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