August 12, 2020

College football, we hardly knew ye

Yesterday, the Big Ten and Pac 12 conferences announced they were putting their football seasons on hiatus until spring, keeping their fingers crossed all the while as they were saying it. Technically, of course, the decision applies to all fall sports, not just football, but you and I both know they were just the fine print. The other three major conferences may or may not follow suit, and we may or may not find out their decisions this week, or next week, or next month.

There are a lot of angles to this story, but the one we're interested in today has to do, not surprisingly, with television. In case you haven't noticed, there's a lot of college football on television; thanks to the miracles of streaming, the lucky viewer can feast of football Thursday nights, Friday nights, all day and most of the night Saturdays, and occasionally Tuesdays and Wednesdays. You don't need to be an expert in broadcast journalism to know that no football (or less football, depending on what those other conferences decide) is going to create a scheduling gap big enough to drive a Mack truck through. The NFL, if they're able to play, can be expected to fill some of the empty space, but, based on past experience, the rest of the time will likely be taken up with replays of "classic" football games—and, seeing as how this is a classic television website, one ought to have something to say about it.

As I wrote here a few weeks ago, it's nonsense to suggest there's not enough TV to go around, and that goes for sports as well as any other kind of programming. Unfortunately, the problem with classic sports, as is often the case when we talk about classic television, is that the definition of classic doesn't mean what it used to. Unless I miss my guess, the classic games we'll be seeing on ESPN, Fox, ABC, CBS, and various college conference networks will probably be, oh, three or four years old. Very few of them will be classic in the historical sense, and even fewer in the vintage sense. In fact, if they weren't originally aired in HD, they probably don't have much of a chance at all.

And it's a shame, if not a surprise. The history of college football is replete with games that thrilled viewers watching them on the collective edges of their living room seats—rivalry games, games that decided national championships, games that ended in last-second hystronics, games that caused heart palpitations, even games that resulted in baby-booms nine months later. What's more, a surprising number of these games still exist, at least on YouTube: the various Games of the Century (Notre Dame-Michigan State in 1966, USC-UCLA in 1967, Nebraska-Oklahoma in 1971, Notre Dame-Alabama in 1973, Miami-Nebraska in 1984, Texas-USC in 2006), last-minute heroics (Doug Flutie's Hail Mary pass), and what have you. Fans whose sense of history barely reaches farther back than last week might enjoy seeing O.J. Simpson when all he did was play football, or Miami before they were a national powerhouse, or when a single college football game attracted more attention than the Super Bowl.

Now, nobody's pretending that there are enough of these games to replace an entire college football season, and certainly there are games from the past twenty or so years that merit another look or three; the Kick Six between Auburn and Alabama in 2013 is a prime example. And then there's the sticky matter of rebroadcast rights. But you can't tell me that Disney can't make some of these things happen; they practically own the entertainment industry as it is. Sad to say, too often, the games we'll be shown will be little more than run-of-the-mill games between familiar teams, games that we've already seen, oh, last year. I know there are probably logical reasons why this can't be done, but I wonder if the thought process has even gotten that far?

When a writers' strike once threatened to delay television's Fall Season, TV Guide suggested that the networks dip into their reservoir of series that hadn't been given a chance to succeed or might have simply been ahead of their day. Sadly, with the exception of one or two shows (He & She being most prominent), the idea went unfulfilled; I suspect it will be the case with college football this year. We shouldn't be surprised, after all, since the average television viewer might as well have season tickets to Short Attention-Span Theater. Still, you'd think by now we'd tired of being sold chopped beef and told it's prime rib, wouldn't you? TV  

6 comments:

  1. I worked for a media preservation company a few years ago. I digitized all sorts of film and video in all sorts of formats. One of the things I looked forward to was digitizing the old 16mm college football games and team practices. I ran film from the 1940s through the 1980s. It was fascinating to see the game grow and develop from just a tactical point-of-view. I'm not a fan of college sports in general and American football in particular, but if the networks wanted to show the development and history of the sport by running OLD games, I might be tempted to turn on the telly on a Saturday afternoon. They're a lot of fun to watch!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are, and if somehow you don't know the outcome, or at least don't know some of the details, they can be very exciting.

      Delete
  2. Great points regarding the current state of “classic” sports re-air programming on TV, but there is a growing collection of fabulous content on YouTube... FYI, the classic Miami-Nebraska Orange Bowl was played on 1/2/1984, not 1981.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stupid fingers always get in the way! Fixed, thanks!

      Delete
  3. ESPN has run the 1966 Notre Dame/Michigan State game in recent years. I wonder if complete tapes of some other games even exist, like the 1969 Texas/Oklahoma game, the 1971 Nebraska/Oklahoma, etc.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Those two specifically do; they're on YouTube, and I think I've seen them on ESPN as well. YouTube also has the rarely-mentioned 1972 Oklahoma-Nebraska game, a Thanksgiving rematch at Lincoln that gave Oklahoma a chance for revenge. It's not as well-known as the 1971 game, but well worth watching.

      Delete

Thanks for writing! Drive safely!