Stop watching college football. Right now. Yes, this is one of THOSE columns, where a self-styled sportswriter implores you to NOT watch a sport. I’ve read so many variations of those columns over the years — the majority of them written by Mike Lupica — that I already hate myself for writing one of my own.
Every smarmy liberal dickhead who ever said WELL THAT’S IT FOR ME AND THE NFL was either lying or a hilarious drop in a very large bucket. I’m still watching the NFL. I can make up all the excuses I like, but really it comes down to the fact that I just ... want to. I’m like a gun rights activist that way.
College football is different. I played college football. I’ve watched college football for my entire adult life, despite knowing that the NCAA headquarters should be blown up from outer space. Like every other college football fan, I know precisely where I was when the Kick Six happened, among a dozen other legendary plays. Again, I watched it all because I wanted to.
I no longer do.
I did a soft boycott of college football to start out this season. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I lingered on an LSU-Mississippi State game that ended up as LSU’s first loss in more than a year. The week after, I lingered even longer on a Texas A&M-Florida game in College Station that had more back-and-forth than a s—tty Aaron Sorkin drama. It was a good game. The stands at Kyle Field were more crowded than I would have preferred, but at least the ROTC chuds were all wearing masks. The masks all matched, too! Adorable.
The A&M Aggies won that game. Bully for them. The fallout from Florida’s loss is a microcosm for why college football as a whole needs to die right this instant, and why you should actively boycott it to help speed the process along.
First, Gators head coach Dan Mullen blamed Florida’s loss on A&M’s crowd. He demanded his team’s fans pack their own stadium TO CAPACITY to give them a similar advantage. The University of Florida is legally allowed to fill its stadium because the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, is a deranged, genocidal asshole who wipes his nose immediately after high-fiving dozens of Trump supporters.
Shortly after Mullen made his demand, the university’s own student newspaper revealed that 19 Gators had tested positive for the virus. As a result, Florida had to suspend its game against LSU because it legit didn’t have enough healthy players to take the field. And then, on Saturday, Mullen himself revealed that he had tested positive for COVID-19. Mullen thanked everyone for all of their support, which is support he clearly doesn’t deserve. Florida’s next scheduled game is in Gainesville on Halloween against Missouri. Roughly 17,000 fans will be allowed to attend. All of them should stay the f—k home and play Animal Crossing instead, as should you.
Because this is repulsive. Before this college football season began, it was in mortal jeopardy. The Big Ten, wise at the time, canceled its own season. The Pac-12 did likewise, perhaps with a small nudge from college football players who had publicly voiced their opposition to participating. There was the threat — no wait, call it the hope — that college athletes could bring down the sport from within. They did not, and you are currently bearing witness to coaches, administrators and politicians punishing those players for their insubordination. Fans and sponsors are all invited to the mucus bath.
Fans in the student section cheer as the Mississippi State Bulldogs take the field prior to a game against the Arkansas Razorbacks at Davis Wade Stadium on Oct. 03, 2020, in Starkville, Miss.
Jonathan Bachman/Getty ImagesWhat else can you call this season but a miserable exercise in sadism? Despite upsetting LSU, Mississippi State coach Mike Leach has already publicly threatened to “purge” (his word) the team of “malcontents” (also his word). Football players are being forced to stand for “The Eyes of Texas,” a song that isn’t even the National Anthem and a song that the Longhorns, prior to the season, had explicitly requested not be played AT ALL because it’s racist. But no, they gotta stand. Do what you're told. Shut up. Obey. Maybe if you’re lucky the NCAA will offer their equivalent of Marco Rubio demanding thoughts and prayers after a preschool has been grenaded.
I know the pandemic has blown everything to s—t here SPECIFICALLY because leaders and corporate interests have abdicated any responsibility and deemed virus prevention the domain of sole individuals, same as they have with global warming and a million other crises. It’s on us. It’s always on us. It’s never on them. That’s backwards of course, but since it’s the current dynamic, I reserve the right to tell you that if you actively support college football right now, you’re an asshole.
This country’s alarming preponderance of assholes is the reason why both the Big Ten and the Pac-12 hung a U-turn and decided to play their respective seasons after all. The Big Ten arrives this weekend during a third spike in the pandemic, with the hot zones concentrated in states where many, many Big Ten schools do their business. The Pac-12 returns in November.
Both leagues are back because MONEY, naturally, but also in no small part because of pressure brought upon them by the Trump administration and its attendant horde of mouth-breathing supporters. Trump has already bragged about “saving college football” thanks to the reversals and is offering his Hitler Youth a free football for their patronage.
There wasn’t enough collective pressure from players and from fans to stop any of this. As a result, college football has become a de facto arm of the Trump campaign. Colleges are being exploited, and the people running the show have reacted the only way they know how: by in turn exploiting their own players more than they already have.
I’m not watching this s—t anymore. I didn’t watch college football this past weekend, when Georgia got crushed by an Alabama team coached by Nick Saban after Saban had a positive COVID test turn out to be false. There have been a LOT of false positives in both the NFL and college football. I know our national testing infrastructure is, uh, a bit of a mess. But if any industry had an incentive to declare every legit positive COVID test a miraculous error, well, you’re watching it. And you still are.
Ratings for college football are down across the board, same as they are in every other pandemic-afflicted sport (with two notable exceptions: the WNBA and … golf). But millions of people are still tuning in and propping up a sport whose principals should all be remanded to a f—king supermax.
At least with the old corruption, you got enjoyable football games out of it. But what the f—k are you even watching when you tune in now? The teams are shorthanded and the schedules are more tentative than your brother-in-law’s upcoming wedding date. The Virginia Tech Hokies had over a dozen players sit out against Boston College on Saturday with possible COVID-19 infections, which they won anyway, and that number was DOWN from their season-opening tally against NC State. (Their originally scheduled season opener against Virginia was postponed until December.) The ACC has done nothing to punish them. LSU coach Ed Orgeron told the press in September that “most” of his team has been infected; his only punishment was for his AD to mildly castigate him for being TOO transparent. Racist-ass Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, who demanded the Big 12 resume play on schedule to bring money into the state, is currently unbeaten. And Mullen still has his job even though he SUCKS.
Nothing about these games feels legitimate. NOBODY AIN’T PLAYED NOBODY. You’re not even getting decent football out of your moral compromise this time around. All you’re getting is a bag of wet sand. In the meantime, coaches and ADs are still raking in their precious dough, players are getting bullied and infected, and the TV networks don’t give half a s—t.
I have ethical reasons to ignore this. But the critical “I just wanna watch it anyway” factor has also faded away. I have no incentive, not even from a diversion standpoint, to help college football perpetuate itself, and neither do you. Knock it off. Get a life. And if you still want something to do with college football in its current vampiric state, well then I don’t want a f—king thing to do with you.
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