The final is 34-28.
It’s fitting the numbers are what you might see on the scoreboard at the end of a football game. I posed a very simple question on social media:
If you could watch football on just one day, either Saturday or Sunday, which would you choose?
Of course, I had to amend that in anticipation of the wiseguys saying they’d merely watch all the college games on Sunday, too. (As the voice-over from “The Six Million Dollar Man” used to say, “We have the technology!”) What we’re really looking for here is if you had to give up college football or the NFL, which would it be?
Maybe the fact that so many of the folks I interact with on social media live in Hawaii, where we have no NFL team, has something to do with it. But Saturday and college won, by two field goals.
If the University of Hawaii team had a better record than 3-6, I’m certain even more would have picked Saturday. If that (technically) pro team in San Francisco was still the 49ers rather than the 0-and-9ers, there’d be a few more picking Sunday instead.
It was a pleasant surprise that hardly anyone mentioned player protests as a reason for eschewing Sunday.
Putting aside all work obligations, if I had to choose I’d pick the college game over the pros. But it wasn’t always that way.
When I was 11 and lived in Chicago, I got to see Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus play at Soldier Field. The first time I went to a college game was a couple of years later when we lived in South Carolina. Appalachian State and Furman didn’t quite measure up to the Monsters of the Midway, even if they weren’t so monstrous at the time.
By the time we’d moved back to Hawaii, the New England Patriots were my favorite team — partly because my dad was from Boston and partly because Russ Francis and Mosi Tatupu played for them.
Eventually the NFL took a backseat and college football got to ride shotgun next to me — and I think the formation by that name had something to do with it. Yes, some NFL teams put their quarterback behind center instead of under center at times, and yes, you still had your repetitious (but winning) wishbone and other ground-pounding offenses. But the college game also featured more wide-open, exciting offenses than the NFL.
It’s simple numbers. Four times as many major college teams than NFL (aka the copycat league) teams means more variety. And yes, of course the NFL teams play better football than the college teams … but you see as many if not more great plays on Saturday as Sunday — again, because of sheer numbers. Don’t forget, the guys making highlights in the NFL made them in college, too.
I agree with my friend Charley King who prefers the college game because it is “more unpredictable and exciting.”
Really, who could have imagined an unranked team with three losses, Iowa, scoring 55 points against Ohio State and winning by 31 last Saturday?
Yes, there are upsets in the NFL, too. They’re just not usually as impactful.
The Patriots lost two of their first four games this season. Some were calling it the beginning of the end of a dynasty. But the Brady Bunch got back on track and has won four in a row.
Try having two losses in college football. Any national championship hopes are probably gone, if they weren’t after one.
That’s not to say college football’s four-team playoff is ideal. I’m a firm advocate of an eight-team system to determine the national champion, ASAP. If you win all of your regular-season games, and/or you’re champion of a Power Five conference, you deserve a shot at the natty.
Several fans just couldn’t pick between Saturday (UH) and Sunday (Marcus Mariota). And there’s one who finds it hard to watch on either day.
“Watching on Saturday is like watching my kid play. I’m too busy pointing out fundamental mistakes to enjoy the game and it’s too painful when they lose (especially Hawaii),” said Carlos Anderson, the former UH football player. “Watching on Sunday is like listening to the radio and hearing a song that reminds you of your ex, who hurt you and broke up with you too soon.
“I guess that’s why I’m looking forward to baseball spring training already,” said Anderson, who was also a Rainbows outfielder for two seasons.
Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quickreads Opens in a new tab.
