Today is a post in my semi-irregular series, This (Non) Sporting Life, a blog post about sports written by a guy who doesn't know a lot about sports. Today's post is about football of which I know very little indeed. Specifically college football of which I know even less.
As I have posted in this space a few times over the last nearly 3 years, I do tend to follow college basketball and in particular, the Duke Blue Devils because 1) it is a superior sports program and 2) it ticks off the easily disoriented
Carolina Tarheel fans who surround me. But as good as Duke has been as a basketball powerhouse, it's football team has not enjoyed the same level of success which is a major understatement. Duke football sucked and sucked very badly. The main purpose of Duke football was to make Duke fans even more anxious for basketball to start up.
Until recently. Over the last few years, Duke football has advanced from embarrassment to not half-bad to being a contender with the big boys on a national stage. So its been a bit surreal for Duke fans to have something to cheer about before basketball starts.
This year, Duke has been enjoying another good year on the gridiron (which I understand is a device for taking the wrinkles out of football uniforms) with the Blue Devils (3 - 0 in conference play) heading into a match up with the Miami Hurricanes.
The Hurricanes have not been having a good time of late. In the past week:
- The Hurricanes sustained the worst loss ever in their entire history. (Prior to that, the worst loss was to the Schultz College Peanuts when quarterback Lucius "Lucy" Van Pelt kept stealing the ball.)
- The head coach got fired.
- The starting quarterback got a concussion.
- A defensive tackle was charged in a domestic violence incident. (Save it for the NFL, you stupid bastard!)
This was a beaten and battered team that stumbled into Durham Saturday to play the Duke Blue Devils on their home field.
Anyway, to make a long story short because the long version bores me, Miami did better than expected given their troubles but Duke showed why their so damn good these days as they battled back and took a 27-24 lead with only six seconds...yes, count'em: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 seconds...left in the game. Stick a fork into this roasted pig because it is done! I mean, what the hell can Miami do in 6 seconds?
Win the game, 30 to 27, that's what.
What the hell?!
Now I've seen teams down with mere seconds to go in basketball but the very nature of the game is continuous action and a lot can can happen in the smallest ticks of the clock. But football? To get from one end of a football field to another and score a touchdown? Do you know how far that is? It's the length of a football field, that's how far it is!
DID THAT JUST HAPPEN? On final play, Miami uses 8 laterals to score TD on play you must see to believe. #MIAvsDUKE
Over the course of those 6 seconds of game time, there were eight laterals, 46 seconds of real time, 75 yards of statistical movement, a couple of hundred yards of actual motion and a seemingly eternal officiating review. Do you know what that means?
Really, do you? Because I don't! It's right there at the top of the post, people: this is a blog post about sports written by a guy who doesn't know a lot about sports. I have no idea what any of that means! I am clueless!
Also clueless apparently were the game officials who made a lot of really questionable, confounding and outright stupid calls that permitted that whatever it was that happened. And this not just the opinion of armchair quarterbacks either. (Seriously, I'm not sure how you can play any position in football from armchairs. I just don't get it.)
The Atlantic Coast Conference has suspended the officiating crew that worked the Miami-Duke game for two league games for “a series of errors” on the final play.
For more on this, click here.
So what have I learned from this? That the Miami Hurricanes have a quarterback named Corn Elder. I've never heard of someone named "Corn" before. What kind of sports headlines does a name like that produce?
- "Corn Gets Creamed In Loss"
- "Ah Shucks! Corn Wins Again"
- "Corn Finds Kernel of Hope Despite Loss"
- "Corn Suffers Injury To His Niblets"
- "Negative Press Reaches Ear of Corn"
- "Corn Gets Buttered By Glowing Reviews"
- "Defenses Pop Corn In Tackle"
Ultimately, I really have no idea how football is supposed to work. And apparently not these guys either.
- referee Jerry "Myopic" Magallanes
- umpire "Turned Around" Terrence Ramsay
- linesman "Mixed Up" Mike Owens
- line judge Jim "Blind Jimmy" Slayton
- back judge Robert "Bobby Bad Call" Luklan
- field judge "Baffling" Bill Dolbow
- side judge Michael "The Muddler" McCarthy
- center judge Tracy "Lost Track" Lynch
ACC Officials, as a guy who doesn't know a lot about sports, I salute you, my kindred spirits.
That's that for today. Thanks for popping by and I'll be back with another post tomorrow. Until then, remember to be good to one another.
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