Why college football is better than the NFL (plus hoops)

This past weekend, the NFL featured four really close games, one of which was otherworldly in its twists and turns, and still I sat there, breathing a big sigh of meh. That's when it fully hit me, a truth that I really did know all along, but which largely escaped verbalizing for me: I just do not give a crap about the NFL. On top of all of the homogenization, and the fact that you're rooting for employees of a corporation instead of kids representing a university, the games just don't offer that excitement or tantalization that the college game has in spades. If the four games over the weekend were played, with the exact same scores occurring, but the games featured Georgia and Florida, Texas and Oklahoma, OSU and Michigan, and Miami and Florida State, I would have been spellbound. As it was, I was whelmed. Not "overwhelmed" or "underwhelmed," but just whelmed. There, I created a word.

Bonus link which was funny at first and became a helluva lot funnier after yesterday: Lil' Ronnie really wanted the Colts to win. Poor kid. (Caution: watch out for the sound. It came up really loud on my computer when the page opened. But sit back and feel the vibe. You could get lost in that groove.)

Also on the weekend sports front, the Buckeye hoopsters lost a painfully predictable game with Michigan State yesterday. I say that because the game was predictable in outcome, if not intricacies. For instance, MSU is hailed as a pretty good team on the glass, which matches up ricockulously poorly for us, since our main, glaring weakness is rebounding; however, yesterday the Spartans only outboarded us 40-38 (and we pounded them on the offensive boards 13-6. WTF, mate?). Secondly, the Bucks had been living and dying - but mostly winning - with the three-pointer this year, but on this day we shot a measly 19% on triples (and 32% for the game. As Wonk would no doubt say, ye gods). Third, Je'Kel Foster and Maurice Ager, a couple of solid scoring guards who came in averaging an aggregate of about 37 points per game, went for 8 and 2 points, respectively. But, as I said, for all the anomalies each team exhibited, the outcome was fairly predictable: the Bucks would lose a close one. The two teams, when watching the game and looking at the stats afterward - and I have no tempo-free info, since Wonk is taking the day off - really appear to be as equal as you can get. The difference is that the Buckeyes are stupid, as Todd and I discussed yesterday after the game. The shot selection from the admittedly hot-shooting (normally) guards is about as poor as you can get. And with the fantastic position that Dials gets down low, the number of relatively easy baskets he misses is positively infuriating. To do all that work in getting to the point where he has a nice four-foot bunny of a shot, and then miss them as often as he does, just drives me crazygonuts. Seriously, it's getting me frustrated just thinking about it.

Thankfully, we have our other bitches, the West Virginia Fighting Pittsnogles, to help us get over it. They cranked out a Big East-record 20 three-pointers in their 104-85 drubbing of Marquette. Hurray for the 'Snogles hurray.

Edited to add: This humorous link, which was pointed out to me yesterday by a friend of theblog.net. Enjoy.