Tag: College Football

What’s the Matter with the Kansas Plan?

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Image result for football overtime coin toss

The NFL overtime system is broken and it’s easy to see why. I’m not talking about two ties in two weeks, though. The fact that the league has to put its overtime rules on the screen every time a game goes to overtime is all you need to know. I’ve never seen Fox or ESPN have to explain how extra innings or basketball overtime works. Even the NHL with its loser point, 4-on-4, 3-on-3, and shootout formats over the last 20 years is still pretty simple – play five minutes and if no one wins we go to a three-round shootout.

The fact that the NFL has to explain the rules every time a game goes to overtime is ridiculous. That’s arena league stuff. Fortunately, the solution is easy. The NFL will eventually adopt the college football overtime system, the Kansas Plan.

The Kansas Plan won’t be coming to the NFL next year, but it probably will be in the next decade or so. A criticism of the Kansas Plan is that it takes special teams out of the game, with no kickoffs or punts. Pretty soon, though, that’s what regular football could look like. With the NFL moving kickoffs up to the 35-yard line and moving touchbacks out to the 25-yard line, it’s clear that they want fewer kickoffs returned. Same in college football, which now treats any fair catch of a kickoff inside the 25-yard line as a touchback. It may be a while before the kickoff is eliminated entirely but it could happen in our lifetimes, and eliminating it in overtime would be an easy way to start.

The NFL said it shortened regular season overtime from 15 to 10 minutes for player safety reasons. Making the switch to the college football overtime system could easily be justified for that same reason.

And all due respect to punters, but if a game can’t be decided in 60 minutes I don’t mind taking the option to punt off the table for OT. Overtime is intended to force an outcome, one way or another. To force an outcome, game play has to be tweaked a little bit. I don’t mind telling a team they lose the right to punt after 60 minutes of play.

While I don’t believe the current NFL overtime system is unfair, the college overtime system is undoubtedly fairer. The Kansas Plan obviously gives each team an opportunity to possess the football. This eliminates the possibility of another Super Bowl (or any game, really) ending without one side getting an opportunity on offense. If I were a Falcons fan, I’d still be upset that Matt Ryan never got to touch the football in overtime in Super Bowl 51.

Unless the NFL wants to play full 15-minute quarters until the deadlock is broken, which it most certainly does not, it’s time they go back to college and adopt the Kansas Plan. College football overtime isn’t prefect, but it’s simpler, safer and fairer. You could do a lot worse than an overtime system that’s simple, fair and safe.

Sam Darnold Wows Scouts by Throwing at His Pro Day in the Rain. Where Have I Seen This Before?

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ESPN – Given an out, USC quarterback Sam Darnold declined to move up his throwing session at his school’s pro day on Wednesday, choosing instead to throw under a steady rain in front of a throng of NFL decision-makers. “I don’t think it would have been fair to change the schedule with all of the other guys training for the pro day,” Darnold said. “So I just wanted my guys to be comfortable — my teammates — that was first and foremost. “But I also think it was a perfect opportunity to be able to throw in the rain and show these guys I could throw in the rain.”

Look I get it, Darnold has played in sunny and perfect Southern California for the past couple of years so he wants to show the scouts he’s not soft. But this is EXACTLY how the Buffalo Bills became infatuated with that bum EJ Manuel.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Scouts were going nuts because Manuel could grip it and rip it while water was falling from the sky, which is as we know a huge indicator of NFL success.

“Manuel set himself apart from other prospects after impressing coaches when he threw well during a thunderstorm at a private workout with the Bills’ brass in Tallahassee, Fla.”

The Bills play in Orchard Park, NY which is basically a hellhole with winters that would rival Winterfell. So the Bills saw a guy that could play in conditions less than 70 and sunny and thought, HAVE TO HAVE IT. Discounting the fact that he was highly mediocre at Florida State, but hey if he can throw in the rain at a Pro Day then he must be the next Montana.

Welp, in Buffalo he ended up throwing for 3500 yards and 19 TDs in the air with another 320 yards and 4 TDs on the ground…in 4 years.

Let this be a cautionary tale to the NFL scouts with a Top 5 pick in this year’s draft. Select Sam Darnold because you like his body of work, because you think he’s intelligent, hell do it because you think he’s less likely to get arrested than Baker Mayfield. But don’t be the Buffalo Bills and draft a guy because he can throw a tight spiral in a shower.

Johnny Manziel to Throw at University of San Diego Pro Day

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PFT– According to Bruce Feldman of Sports Illustrated, Manziel will be the quarterback throwing to receivers at the pro day workouts at the University of San Diego on Thursday morning.

One quick thing to address off the bat: please note the use of Mr. Manziel’s government name in this headline rather than his “Football” moniker. We here at The 300s are known to practice Journalism and I feel that is often forgotten.

Now that that is out of the way we can kind of sort through what is going on here.

It’s fairly important to first understand how a lot of these pre-draft showcases/work outs are structured and run before really looking at the opportunity Johnny Football (FUCK) has in front of him. In case you aren’t read up on your pageantry, have no fear friend, your pal Joey B has you covered. I used to be a draft nerd and I suppose I still am one to an extent as much like being a fan of anything pop culture or sports related, once you’re in, and it continues to exist, you’re always going to be sort of drawn to it. So let’s get down to brass tacks.

A Pro Day is sort of like an athletic program’s NFL Combine, the event where every player declared for the draft and deemed noteworthy by the league (they fuck that part up a lot) is, in front of a slew of pro scouts from every team and at a central location, run through both a standard set of drills and then another subset based on their position(s). At a pro day, in front of a group of scouts that choose to attend for specific players, players from the same football program can run through a very similar if not exact set of drills that they performed at the Combine but at their college athletic program’s facilities. This gives players a second chance to show what they can do but in a familiar environment (e.g they can run the 40 on the same track they always run on) while being directed by coaches they are comfortable with and working through the drills with fellow participants they know. There are exceptions of course. For instance, a lot of smaller schools’ players will work out at the Pro Day held by a larger school. I wish I could tell you how, for instance, Tuskegee players have the option to attend Troy’s pro day but I actually have no idea. Also, not all players involved in these drills are familiar with each other, both because of the aforementioned school inclusions and because of eligibility rules, which is where our Mr. Manziel (“J”) comes in.

For wide receivers, they obviously have to run routes and show off their speed, separation ability, change of direction, etc. They also need to show they can catch the ball, and so someone has to throw it to them. The problem is that their most recent starting QB might still have eligibility left, in which case he is not allowed to participate, the rest of his QBs might not yet be ready for the tasks and thus may make him look bad, or, in some cases, there simply may just not be anyone around. In the case of the University of San Diego in the year of our Lord 2018, they needed someone to toss the rock to the WRs participating in their pro day and have called in Johnny Manziel (::brushes shoulder off::) from the bullpen.

I personally think this is a great idea for the former first round pick. Why? Two big reasons in particular.

First, it’s a controlled environment. He is there for the receivers looking to enter the league so there will be nothing inhibiting what he is doing. There will be no pass rush, no motion or rolling out of any sort, and he will probably know the routes he will be throwing ahead of time. To elaborate on that last point, even if the routes aren’t disclosed to him it’s more than likely just the basic full WR route tree. He’s been through this before.

The second reason, and the reason I like this move the most and think it is sly and savvy as fuck, is that it shows humility. It’s humbling. Those two words would have not been within a paragraph of Johnny Manziel’s (I’m too respected by this point so I’m done with the jokes) name a few years or even months ago. At pro days, you never know who the QBs are. Their names are never mentioned. Once in awhile it will be a grad assistant or something from that school who was a starting QB a few years past so they bring it up for nostalgia sake (Hey! Look who’s tossin passes, it’s Tyler Palko!) but that’s about it. They’re the men behind the curtain. But in order to get out there and get seen and let it be known that he’ll do those two things by any means necessary, Manziel is willing to put on that cloak of anonymity and take on this fairly thankless role on Thursday. It’s brilliant.

Everyone loves a good comeback story. We’re seeing it with Tiger Woods this year. I think this is a legit step for Johnny Manziel to truly, surely prove he is serious about getting back in the league in any capacity. I’ll be waiting to hear how he looks Thursday, if we even do.

UCF is Claiming to Have Won the National Championship Despite Not Making the Playoffs and Finishing the Year Ranked 12th in the Country

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ESPN – UCF athletic director Danny White said Wednesday that the program has decided to claim a national championship and will place a championship banner inside Spectrum Stadium to recognize its undefeated 2017 season. The Knights beat Auburn 34-27 in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl to cap a 13-0 season, finishing as the only undefeated team in college football. But because UCF doesn’t play in a Power 5 conference, it entered the bowl game ranked No. 12 by the College Football Playoff selection committee and was not given an opportunity to play for the national championship. Since the victory on New Year’s Day, UCF football has changed its Twitter display name to “2017 National Champions” with a logo designed to match.

I love this move. Undefeated Season? Check. Big bowl game win? Check. Opportunity to compete for a championship in the College Football Playoffs? Nope. “Welp, fuck this then we’ll just declare ourselves National Champs.”

This is the problem you inevitably run into with College Football. Sure, is the current 4 team playoff format better than the BCS computer ranking system of the AP Polls? Of course. But there will still be teams like this in the top 10, 15, 20 that feel like they got shafted. And going undefeated but not being given a chance to play against the big boys like Bama and Clemson is tough to swallow.

The NCAA commissioner smacked UCF down real quick though basically saying they’re schedule was too soft to rank them in the Top 4 despite their undefeated season. He’s not wrong. You wanna make the playoffs? Play a harder schedule and don’t beat up on teams like Eastern Carolina, Austin Peay, UConn, and Temple. You cannot sit here with a straight face and tell me you could even find AUSTIN PEAY on a map. Murderers Row that is not.

But UCF knew all of this and still said “nope we are the champions.” That is the ultimate George Costanza move and you have to respect it. Its like the time the Jerk Store bombed and it wasn’t until he was driving home later that a killer comeback hit him.

Respect the utter refusal to accept things as they are. Keep doing you, UCF.

*According to ESPN Stats & Information, UCF is the 10th team in the BCS era (since 1998) to finish the season undefeated and not win the national title.

Lee Corso Just Scared the Shit Out of the JMU Bulldog with his Completely Fresh Mascot Head Gimmick

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So in the still fresh, completely unrepetitive College Gameday skit of donning the mascot head, Lee Corso just scared the shit out of the real live JMU bulldog.

First off fuck this guy thats pushing the dog back towards that nutbag Corso.

Ya know how they always say dogs can tell you a lot about people by how they act around them? Yea, well this bulldog is saying get me the fuck away from this crazy old man. Wants no part of your zany ESPN bit. So maybe let the bulldog go back to his biscuits and sideline chilling.

The Orangemen Upsets No. 2 Clemson. Errybody’s Getting Laid in Syracuse Tonight

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Clemson strolled into the Carrier Dome as a 3 touchdown favorite in what was supposed to be a cakewalk for the Tigers. Well, about that. Syracuse was not fucking around tonight as they hung around, and they hung around, and they hung around until they ended up stealing a 27-24 win over the No. 2 team in the country. Yea, Clemson QB Kelly Bryant got hurt, but even the 3rd-string QB on Clemson should be better than the starter on Syracuse. And just like that, errybody is getting laid in Syracuse tonight. The freezing cold desolate wasteland known as upstate New York is gonna be like Woodstock tonight in what is Syracuse’s biggest win in probably 20 years. Enjoy it boys.

Division III Football Player Cut by Team for Kneeling During National Anthem

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ESPN – A Division III football player has been dismissed from his team for kneeling during the national anthem before a game last weekend. Gyree Durante, a backup quarterback at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, was kicked off the team after he knelt by himself during the national anthem before last Saturday’s 41-6 loss to Delaware Valley University.An Albright College spokeswoman said in a statement that the team’s leadership council, which consists of 24 players, voted to kneel during the coin toss and stand during the national anthem. Durante then decided to kneel during the national anthem on his own.

Alright, why don’t we just pump the fucking breaks here, Albright College. You’re a D-III liberal arts school; not the goddamn Dallas Cowboys. Its one thing for a multi-billion dollar industry to start getting pissy when players kneeling is screwing with their advertisers. Its another thing entirely for this football factory in Reading, Pennsylvania to start cutting teenagers for protesting. Not to mention this is college. A Liberal Arts college. What the hell do kids do in college besides drink and shackle themselves with a lifetime worth of debt if they’re not able to protest? Kids protest legitimately everything in college. Its supposed to be a learning environment. Not a place you should cut a kid for standing up (no pun intended) for what he believes in.

Now I’m pretty sure D-III schools don’t give out scholarships so its not like they ruined the kid’s life or anything, but come on. If we’re being honest, intentionally getting cut was probably half the reason he did it. Why am I practicing and going to film sessions and waking up early to wreck my knees and get CTE when I’m in college and should be funneling vodka cokes and blacking out on a Tuesday afternoon.

And we can all cut the crap about how he made his team look bad by being the only guy kneeling. Except for Captain America here:

Josh Powell, a freshman defensive end from Tampa, told NBC 10 that Durante broke his teammates’ trust by taking a knee during the national anthem. “We trusted him throughout the week, after time and time again he told us he would stand,” Powell said, according to NBC 10. “When you can’t have a player on a team that you can trust, he’s got to go.”

This guy just sounds like a Grade-A dickhead, a real practice hero. The guy who’s laying the hit stick on teammates during walkthroughs.

Look, I wouldn’t kneel during the anthem myself as I’d feel uncomfortable doing so, but thats the point. Thats what a lot of people are missing. Its supposed to make people feel uncomfortable, otherwise it wouldn’t get attention. It wouldn’t be a worthwhile protest if it wasn’t pissing people off. Now the next step is to articulate why you’re protesting and work towards having intelligent discussions about what everyone can do to impact change. Is every single player kneeling able to intelligently articulate the exact reasons why they’re kneeling and what it means to them? Probably not, but there’s plenty who are able to do just that so trying to ban kneeling or forcing players to stand will only create more divisiveness and ultimately other forms of protest.

Its supposed to start a conversation and make everyone take a look at the world we live in, for better or for worse, and try to understand the way others see the world from their perspective. Its called empathy. Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re not, but the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle. So by outright dismissing the protest because you don’t agree with the method, you’re missing the boat.

FIRE FLAMES JERSEY ALERT: Florida to Wear “Alligator” Unis This Weekend

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ESPN – Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is popularly known as The Swamp. And now the Florida Gators will look the part. For Saturday’s football game against Texas A&M, Florida will wear a new uniform designed to evoke the look and feel of an alligator. The uniform, which was under development for two years and was unveiled Monday night, features a “swamp green” jersey with an alligator-skin pattern. The helmet, pants and socks are rendered in the same color, but without the gator-skin treatment.

OH MY. What have we here? I feel like the wild jersey reveals have slowed down the last year or two. You used to see every school rocking wild combos of camo and chrome and neon and it was AWESOME. Feel like theres been less and less of that lately. Enter, the University of Florida.

You wanna be a Gator? Like the actual ferocious goddamn water dinosaur that is an alligator? Well, don’t talk about it. Be about it.

Fire flames, 10/10.

I’ve Somehow Developed a College Football Addiction in Boston

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Maybe its just Baker Mayfield being like Johnny Football-lite and filling the massive Manziel void in my life, but I’ve recently developed a college football addiction.

Not a ton of people around here are big college football guys, probably because we’ve had ONE good year of college football in Boston since the 80s. Back in 2007 Matt Ryan was at Boston College and they got as high as No. 2 in the AP Poll.

That was fun as hell because it was the first time BC had been ANY good since the days of Doug Flutie. After Matty Ice moved on to the NFL though BC went right back into the tank.

So its hard to have a lot of love for a sport thats basically nonexistent in your market. With legitimately every major team in this city being so good (all having won a title since 2008) theres no time for shitty teams, especially shitty teams that have no intention of bringing in the players necessary to be any good. Kind of like being a Mets fan.

If I wanted to get in my car and drive to a big time college football game, I think the closest team would be Penn State; a cool 7 hour drive from Boston. Fuck you, UConn and UMass do not count, neither does Syracuse. I’m talking BIG TIME college football where they sell out 70,000+ seat arenas. It just does not exist up here.

So not long after BC went back into hibernation I declared myself a free agent and started looking for a team to call my own. I was looking for a team that was fun to watch, played fast, scored a ton of points, spread out the field, threw it a lot, recruited mobile QBs, and of course had some fire flames unis. Basically I was looking for a team that played the same style as me in Madden. Now what team matches that description to a T? The Oregon Ducks of course.

It was right at the start of the Chip Kelly era too so it was perfect timing to get into and follow a team that was actually good at playing football unlike BC. Not to mention a couple of trips (read: losses) to the National Championship and then Marcus Mariota later wins the Heisman in 2014 and I’m pretty invested in the Ducks. I still wasn’t about to sit down and watch college football all afternoon though.

But I think I reached that turning point this past Saturday. It was the first big weekend of the year with some prime matchups. I know CFB kicked off the week before, but this past Saturday we had Oregon vs Nebraska, Louisville at UNC, Georgia at Notre Dame, Auburn at Clemson, Oklahoma at Ohio State, Stanford at USC, and if you’re a real night owl type degenerate, the triple OT #Pac12AfterDark thriller in Boise St at Washington St.

Long story short, I found myself watching college football on the couch for 8 hours straight. There’s so many great characters this year led first and foremost by Baker Mayfield, who took down Ohio State almost singlehandedly on Saturday.

Maybe its something that is just fresh in my mind after a particularly lousy Week 1 in the NFL, but the majority of these college games are always exciting with the added benefit of projecting who would be a good fit where in the NFL. Sam Darnold or Josh Rosen on the Jets is not something I look forward to.

But also, just getting to watch the Heisman Race from Day 1 and witnessing all the big signature moments these guys need in an effort to win the trophy is exciting as hell.

You got comeback bids with insane catches.

You got former NFL quarterback dopplegangers.

Baker Mayfield just putting Urban Meyer right to bed.

College football, I get it now. Which is a problem since I also just spent 10+ hours watching NFL Football on Sunday, getting my money’s worth from Sunday Ticket. So this could devolve into an incredibly sedentary lifestyle quick.

Clemson’s $55 Million Football Facility Has Its Very Own Nap Room

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Yahoo – “[Dabo Swinney] celebrated the school’s first national title in 35 years by moving his team into a palatial football facility that’s both the envy of college football and a grandiose shrine to its excesses. The 142,500-square-foot expanse includes a nine-hole mini-golf course, turf Wiffle Ball field and every kind of pool imaginable. There’s a 30-yard cold tub, a lap pool, pool tables, pools with underwater treadmills and even an outdoor wading pool.. Clemson’s facility is a $55 million homage to extravagance, as impressive in recruiting circles as it is divisive in academic circles. Amid the Tiger Paw carpet, second-floor slide and barber shop – credit cards accepted! – is one nuance that can’t be written off as a superfluous overindulgence. Clemson’s nap room is the single best asset of its new facility, a common-sense addition to DaboLand that even the fussy pants at the Knight Commission couldn’t twist their britches about. Clemson hails the Nap/Recovery room as “first of its kind” in an athletic facility, but the reality is that it’s long overdue.”

I literally can’t imagine a better life than to be a 19-year old college football player on a top tier program. In between playing in pressure packed games on national TV you get to live your days in Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory.

Clemson won its first National Championship in 35 years, which no doubt brought in absurd sums of money for the school, so they celebrate by building a $55 million football mega-complex. Its got pools, pool tables, a whiffle ball field, underwater treadmills, basketball courts, mini golf, and even a barbershop.

Not to mention a 30-yard long icing pool in case the whole team wants to get a soak in at the same exact time.

But the icing on the cake has got to be the NAP ROOM. That is so gloriously excessive that you have to respect it.

Full disclosure, I think paying student athletes a stipend for the semester is a great idea to put a little coin in their pockets and then let the really good players make money off their own likeness. But I am absolutely not going to shed any tears for these teenagers who get to work out in world class facilities, are treated like rock stars, and play mini golf, then curl up in their very own nap room. Nothing like crushing a good nap.

Dabo Swinney is like the Chip Kelly of the south. An elite college coach, who’s obsessed with the minutia of football and is absolutely maniacal about nutrition and mental health. Chip had guys pissing in cups to test and rank each player’s hydration levels. Dabo’s calling guys out for not sleeping enough.

Man college really is fake life. I had to peel my ass outta bed to get to work on time today after staying up past midnight to watch the Pats last night. In college I would’ve rolled over and said man fuck that class with zero repercussions. Do that shit in your late 20’s and you’ll be working at McDonalds before the end of the month. If I could say one thing to these Clemson athletes, it’d be this: