Pageantry of College Football / College Draft
Pageantry is defined by Webster as an elaborate display or ceremony. College football with pep rallies, speeches, parades, bands, alumni clubs, expensive club seats, homecoming, media, and endless hype has morphed into a winners’ and losers’ industry at all levels (fortunately or unfortunately). There is no comparable sport; and although money, social and sports media hype every first down, the sport is exciting and unpredictable. Teams must play well to win. A caromed pass with a team in the Red Zone that is picked and run back is a startling 14 – point turnaround. This makes the sport (unpredictability).  Is there a parade, loud music, dance after the game, and alumni parking lot bragging rights? Yes, and that will never change. Oil barons will use tax write-offs to support 2nd place, a rivalry defeat, or a Bluebonnet Bowl win. Fall splendor, expensive tickets, visiting dorm and frat friends, beer, and an escape chance to act unruly for 3 hours will salvage my life. The pageantry began along the sidelines November 1869 at the Rutgers (sister school to Queens in England) field v Princeton. Why isn’t Rutgers or Princeton an Ohio State? 



 

Academics, money, culture, and priority matter. A slippage of any of these factors leads to a loss, hate mail, losing players and coaches, alums slamming their alma mater, and divorces. Despite the implicit American game contest of having winners, each contest has a loser. Adding those losses consecutively leads to clinical forlorn looks, melancholy, and CPR for the program. Somebody must lose (roughly 2000 NCAA games in FBS yearly = 1000 losses). Somebody bears the loss; and it is not divided equally (communism). Yet, they still play loudly “Eye in the Sky” by Alan Parsons at Nebraska games as the band and team enter the stadium. The players/coaches, band, and music provide hope of a win. We will risk a loss and a couple days of depression before acceptance of a football loss. Pageantry is part of every college football game – even if it begins with a sorority powder puff battle. 



 

The NCAA has divided college football into FBS (Football Bowl Series – 136 schools – like Alabama) and FCS (Football Championship Series – 129 schools - like Delaware). The playoff system began in lesser conferences and leagues; and has led to a FCS national championship on television (regional interest). The larger notorious schools with better athletes and more NIL money and now portal movement finally have arrived at a decent playoff system with 12 nationally ranked schools playing (4 with first round byes). I would go to 16 with no byes. FBS system of lesser prominent D1 schools have a playoff with 24 teams and 8 first round byes. Again, I would make that 32 schools with no byes. There is substantial interest in playoffs through all American sports. Culturally, Americans cannot have a European tie (soccer). 



 

Teams fight until 0400 (NHL playoffs) to declare a winner. The winners are a 24/7 program with tangential global nexuses of recruiting, gamesmanship, and real money behind the fading sacred NCAA. Since the 2.6-billion-dollar settlement to back-pay former NCAA athletes and awarding a 23 % gate to athletes, college sports (face it – pigskin and hoops) have gone de facto pro. We must never mind the set tradition of $300,000 cost of an NCAA athlete with meals/dorm/books/transportation/ monthly pay allotments/ coaches/trainers/media/stadiums/ tuition/ compliance. A student athlete footballer can obtain an engineering degree (may take 7 years) and acknowledge that his chances of the NFL are 3% (practice squad maybe). It goes on; schools like Creighton pay foreign athletes (no taxes or citizenship) with a free 6 - figure soccer ride; yet a lower socioeconomic student from Harlan, Iowa must mount 6-figure college debt and play intramurals (fair?). We must win for the school, alumni, and culture. 

 


Winning is established as a cultural realm and goal surrounding the pageantry of college pigskin. Winning football is culturally engrained like hamburgers, stop signs, and birth control pills. Thus, as a kid riding my bike for a Fall football pickup game (tackle without pads or 2-hand touch), I entered Putnam Park. We had a half-filled football (Brady), no kicking tees, trees as out of bounds, and the goal line the neighbor’s fence. We played until the supper cowbell 3 blocks away sounded – because leaving 3 players on a football team led to a marked imbalance of teams and darkness. Extra points were debated (no replay) as blood gushed from someone’s mouth. Scores were 38-37 and games were equal. Bystanders (girls) and occasionally parents received a game day pass for free. We started each contest by picking sides with a designated captain (QB). That is why the games were competitive – acknowledging someone would lose – but it would be close because we “picked sides.” 



 

Segue into modern college football appears if we performed the preseason lineups in Brodhead, Wisconsin as college teams’ structure modernly, one of our teams in Brodhead, Wisconsin would receive 6 picks and then the second team maybe 2. The second round would have our Brodhead, Wi. youth team receiving 4 for the “good” team and one for the other team. No kid would have dealt with this disparity in talent without a real fight, walking away, or ridiculously taking on the challenge. This disparity is what is happening in college football. Nick Saban received multiple first round offensive linemen picks (ESPN player ratings) while the few remaining teams struggled with straggling yet motivated 3-star guys. Is this really a competitive game? College football has culturally cheered on these winning trouncing programs by saying just recruit better. Losers do not work and cry, so, do not admonish winners.  When Kevin Durant was a hot NBA commodity (still is). Durant said every NBA team has a chance to choose from the 4 billion males on earth – I am just one. True, but picking sides with NIL deals, aggressive alums, and death threats for .500 coaches is where college football (and hoops) has entered a new phase. Picking teams has become fierce, players change allegiances yearly, and money a affords a girl and a new car for a pigskin student athlete. These crushing teams that win weekly on weaker campuses say there is more competition in practice trying to escalate the depth chart. The pageantry still exists because nobody has protested the marching band into the stadium. Remembering that a 74 – 17 trouncing still has parking lot alums serotonin levels rising with craft beer, the crusade will never stop until we….

 


Demand a college draft. Big time college sports are now pro – just another real football league. College football is disguised because it is on campus like a frat game on the quadrangle (teams are generally equal, coeds watch and cheer, and competitive games and heroes erupt yearly). Down the street in a packed 100,000 seat stadium is a disparity in talent. Bach v a college frosh music student (who wins?). Bill Gates v a startup IT researcher (who wins?). A Heisman 5-star QB junior waiting for the NFL draft v a D 3 transfer 2nd string QB (who wins?). Life is not fair. I did not know until I hit college that players outside of a state could play on a different state team. I thought Iowa was all Iowa guys. Now players are global on college pigskin teams. Money, alums, popular winning coaches, and culture bring the best talent to a team. Is this fair? Undoubtedly no. The push to win had the University of Michigan filming and playing Halloween with like team garb stealing sideline signals for years (fair?). Yet Michigan with a head coach on the sidelines for 1/3 of its games won an NCAA championship (me with an asterisk). Settling the dust and moving on in the spirit of competitiveness and fairness, I propose a draft every year on New Years Eve. We do 500 players, no swaps, and even the score. Teams have one minute between player picks; and if they do not pick, the next best player by ratings is assigned their team. Let us end this imbalance in college football forever. Solution College Draft Day!  Let us pick teams fairly as we did as kids at Putnam Park in Brodhead, Wisconsin.