The Arrow's Path

NCAA.com put out an interesting editorial about the evolution of the football helmet that can be found here . This is in part due in my estimation to the current buzz (one might go so far as to describe it as hysteria) about concussions in contact sports, particularly football. I have always found this an interesting evolution. Long gone are the days of strapping on your leather helmet: In the 50's and 60's, the helmet evolved into, basically becoming a metal then hard plastic version of the leather helmet with the addition of a rudimentary face mask (which was really just a bar at first): Gradually, the helmet's face mask itself began to evolve: Combines with new space age style lightweight plastics and foams, the helmet mask ultimately became a type of full, goalie style face mask (This little number costs just under $1000 to purchase new): Ironically, being a military history major, the football helmet evolution followed the pattern of design that helmets worn...

There's a very interesting piece of sports writing here  by Michael Rosenberg concerning Violence in Football that is worthy of a read. CNNSI is a little paranoid about quotes and plagiarism, so I won't quote it directly. However, the basic gist of the article, as I understand it, is to pose a moral and ethical question of when does a sport (in this instance football) become too violent to watch as a fan in good conscience? That is an interesting question that I have wrestled with off and on for many years. I don't particularly like hockey because all out fist fights are a common part of that game, and players are seldomly ejected. They go to the penalty box, but usually they get back into the game at some point. If hockey would immediately eject any players fighting, then I would be more likely to get into hockey. I like the actual game itself, at least if I can watch it live. (Watching hockey on TV is another matter entirely.) Having said that, I don't think fisti...

Tonight, the college football crown will (likely) be placed upon the collective heads of either Oklahoma or Florida. This is one of the few intriguing match ups of an otherwise fairly uninteresting bowl season.  There were some interesting bowl games, but they were interesting despite the BCS' best efforts at pairing seemingly mismatched teams. For instance, the Clemson/Nebraska and Texas/Ohio State bowl games were really quite entertaining in the end, although neither looked like much on paper.  I count only one New Year's Day or later bowl game that was decided by 3 points or less (Texas/Ohio State), and only two more that were 7 points or less (aforementioned Nebraska/Clemson and the major heavyweight match up that was Eastern Carolina/Kentucky (?!?!), which was only played after New Year's Day because no one would have watched it otherwise as there were 11 losses between the two team. There were a few surprises, albeit largely blowouts: Ole Miss smacking Texas Tech and ...

So, the first weekend+ of college football gluttony has ended. I find myself somewhere in between happy (for the Huskers) and disgruntled (for the Vols). I'll start with the bad news and work towards a happy note. I went to the Huskers game against Western Michigan. The Huskers won pretty handily, but they were certainly improved. They were not perfect by any stretch. Here are my impressions of Ye Olde Huskers. First, the good: The tackling for the Huskers was much improved, as they were doing full tackles and swarming and not the arm tackling garbage of yesteryear. Also, the offensive line did not have a single false start the entire game. That's phenomenal for a first game of the season. Next, the bad: I was a bit concerned about the lack of a running game, considering Western Michigan's defensive front was not all that great. They supposedly were going to be running more this year with a good running back. Maybe they were just using the opportunity to test the readiness ...

A comment left via Facebook on my previous blog entry concerning my Preseason Football commentary noted, correctly, that I had neglected to talk about Nebraska. I had touched on Nebraska in a previous entry, and was talking only about bona fide top 25 teams in the previous preseason musings. I guess I should devote more quality commentary about Ye Olde Huskers; so, here goes.. It is hard to tell at this point how exactly the regime change in the University of Nebraska football department is going to play out this season. I do think they made a good hire with Pelini. I thought they should have hired Pelini after the interim bowl win he posted before the Callahan experimental disaster fiasco unfolded. While having never been a full time head coach, the man has one of the more impressive resumes for an assistant I have seen in a while. He's coached under some excellent college and professional head coaches, and his defenses have always been very impressive. Of course, this is probabl...

The time has arrived, albeit unbelievably, to make my prognostications for the upcoming college football season, complete with my Top Ten List. I have to admit that there are a lot of question marks going into this season as to whom the legitimate front runners are. It has been trendy here in the MidWest for sports columnists to pick Missouri as the Preseason No. 1. Seeing as Missouri has an ongoing penchant for choking, I remain unconvinced about Missouri. A good, solid Top Ten team, yes. No. 1? I don't think so. I am told by my sources that the trendy pick in the South is the Georgia Bulldogs. I do have to admit they looked really good in their bowl game. I certainly will put them in the preseason top 3, but they have a killer schedule. They play Alabama, Tennessee, @LSU, and Florida in the span of a little over a month, with two back to back goodies at the end of the season being @Auburn and Georgia Tech, both of which could be Top 20+ teams in their own right. Georgia certainl...

Its been a while since I have commented on college football. I had considered running my usual pre-bowl game break downs, but considering I was in England and missed the entire season, I would have been completely doing that blind. I did enter a bowl prediction contest that my hometown newspaper ran. I was not up to my usual par, but still in the 75 percentile. It was mostly the nickel and dime bowls (Troy v. Rice? Utah v. Tulsa?) that screwed up my batting average. Now that I have a break from GOEs today, and all the SEC teams have played their bowls, except for Florida who will likely win the national championship against a much over-rated Ohio State, the time for commentary has arrived. I think the SEC faired pretty well in the bowls, but was not as stellar as I had hoped. The SEC did win its big BCS game (the national title remains to be seen). LSU thumped Notre Dame (no real shock there) in the Sugar Bowl. Notre Dame hasn't won a bowl game since I was in college. I still can...