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Column by Pat Forde
ESPN.com
August 9, 2006
It's early August, which means most college football fans
have regressed into 5-year-olds with a week left until
Christmas. The suspense is killing them and the calendar is
moving in cruelly slow motion.
Labor Day weekend seems eternally out of reach, with too
many soul-killing baseball games still to be played between
now and kickoff.
To pass this excruciating time constructively, I say it's
time we get educated. In homage to Bill Maher, whose
schtick is blatantly and unapologetically ripped off here,
I offer the New Rules for College Football Fans, 2006
edition:
New Rule: If the scoreboard says you lost, you lost. That's
not going to change. Take an hour to vent postgame, then
try to regain your sanity. Do not diminish your quality of
life--and the quality of life of those around you--by
spewing for days about the refs who cheated your team, the
flagrant league bias against your team, or the complete
lack of class displayed by the team that beat your team.
Your team l-o-s-t. Try to deal.
New Rule: If you know the tailgate lot at the stadium like
the back of your hand but wouldn't be able to find the
campus library without joining a tour group, reevaluate
your priorities.
New Rule: It's August. Refrain from posting on your team's
message boards that your coach needs to go. At least let
him fall behind by a touchdown in September--or if you
really want to be patient, let him even lose an entire
game--before demanding regime change.
New Rule: Try using your real name on a message board. It
might be a liberating feeling to stand behind your words,
instead of hiding behind the handle "GatrHatr88," or
whatever lame nom de cyberplume you choose.
New Rule: The offensive coordinator has feelings, too. Try
to remember that.
New Rule: Nobody else thinks his or her team gets enough
respect from the media, either. You're encouraged to come
up with a new complaint.
New Rule: If you know the name of the long snapper but
don't know the name of the school president, reevaluate
your priorities.
New Rule: By all means, have a couple of pregame beers if
you want. Try to stop before 12, though.
New Rule: If you didn't stop at 12, remember this: The
people sitting around you in the stadium or standing next
to you at the urinal don't think you're funny. And they
don't want to hold you up when you tip over. Especially at
the urinal.
(Aside: colleges might want to study the new Bengals
initiative: they have instituted a "jerk" hotline for fans
to call to report abusive, profane, and intoxicated louts
in the stadium to authorities. Then again, considering the
arrest record of Marvin Lewis' squad, fans could easily
report a bunch of the guys in uniform.)
New Rule: Yes, Notre Dame is different. Get over it. If
your school were important enough to get its own NBC
contract and thumb its nose at conference affiliation, do
you really think it would decline?
New Rule: If you spend more on face paint, clothes in
school colors, tailgate accessories, and an RV horn that
honks the school fight song than you spend on charity,
reevaluate your priorities.
New Rule: If you insist on smugly condemning the complete
lack of morality and ethics at Rival U when one of its
players gets in trouble, prepare a good defense for when
one of your team's players screws up the next week. Today's
"great kid" could be tomorrow's armed robber.
New Rule: Every other team in America says it had a great
summer in the weight room, too. Every other team in America
had great attendance at "voluntary" summer workouts, too.
Every other team in America says the chemistry and attitude
are better than last year, too. So don't get prematurely
overconfident based on the usual August rhetoric.
New Rule: When the hotshot freshman quarterback isn't
playing yet, rationally consider the possible reasons why.
I mean beyond the fact that the coach is an absolute moron.
Maybe the kid is an absolute moron who cannot learn the
playbook.
New Rule: We know you have a brilliant, unique, surefire
plan for an NCAA football playoff. Your barber, your bank
teller and the kid working the espresso machine at
Starbucks have playoff plans too. And Myles Brand isn't
interested in any of them.
New Rule: USC won a share of the 2003 national title, no
matter what the BCS says about the LSU-Oklahoma Sugar Bowl
being the title game. Quit being greedy, and quit talking
about it three years later.
New Rule: If you're on a voice-recognition basis with a
call-in show producer or have your own call-in show persona
and handle (like "Wolverine Mark"), reevaluate your
priorities.
New Rule: An 0-1 start is not the end of the world,
especially with a 12-game schedule. Unless you start 0-1
with a buy game against what was supposed to be a
guaranteed chump. Then you can pound the panic button.
New Rule: Before your fan message board mounts an e-mail
lobbying campaign to poll voters demanding higher rankings
for your school, consider: Is it effective or obnoxious to
send out 200 e-mails that all parrot the same "talking
points"? And how silly is it for football fans to have
"talking points"? After careful consideration of those
questions, hit the delete button.
New Rule: If you're over the age of, say, 14, beseeching
players as they leave the field for a receiving glove is
unseemly and best avoided. I mean, who other than Michael
Jackson is going to get excited about a single glove?
New Rule: Flying a car flag when your team is 5-0 is easy.
Try it when your team is 0-5.
New Rule: It is understandable and acceptable to wonder
(out loud) why Temple is still playing Division I-A
football.
New Rule: If you turn to a sportswriter for guidance on how
to be a college football fan, reevaluate your priorities.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2544246&type=story
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