Since I started watching football more regularly in the last few years, the amount of college football was still considerably less than the hours of NFL. Well, I wasn’t in the mood for any DVDs or TCM, so I decided to watch the Pac-12 Championship Game between the Utah Utes and the USC Trojans, or should I say, the Ketchup and Napkins and the BBQ Sauce and Mustard. The first half of the game featured the Trojans’ demonstrating their offensive razzle-dazzle, and then the third quarter happened. Whereas the first and second quarters had the Trojans in the lead, by the top of the fourth quarter, the Utes took the lead with 27 to 17.
The Trojans were not about to let last years’s Pac-12 winner out-score them, so they answered with a touchdown to shrink the score gap to 27 to 24. The Utes were not amused, retorting with another TD and then an interception upon the Trojan’s next possession. Utes running back Ja’Quinden Jackson got the ball into the end zone, giving his team an even greater lead in the middle of the fourth quarter, 40 to 24 (the extra point was no good). With under two minutes left in the game, the Utes found their way to another TD, courtesy of running back Micah Bernard. 47 to 24. Final score.
Get game summary, stats, and play-by-play here.
As the third quarter gave way to the fourth, and USC did what it could to reclaim some offensive chops, I noticed that the look on a player’s face when he makes an interception, a touchdown (to make or break a tie), a sack or catches a pass way down the field conveys focused energy that might otherwise run amok or fester without a socially sanctioned outlet. Yes, concussions are real and have life-long repercussions that do not manifest immediately, but where else can these young men throw all of their mental and physical momentum and frustration into accomplishing a task that they believe they can achieve (and often do)?
Unsportsman-like conduct occurs from time to time, reminding us spectators that even within the parameters of permissible violence within the game, there are unacceptable ways of expressing disdain for one’s own mistake or for a referee’s ruling on the field regarding a complete or incomplete pass or if the player had control of the ball as he broke the plane. These specific players who struggle to comprehend the idea that there are right and wrong ways to react to an athletic or attitude “oops” just might partake in more harmful ways of dealing with failure without a team sport that requires an amount of brusqueness-under-grace to be successful.
It’s beyond happiness or satisfaction in the shoulders and faces of these players when they do something to help their team; it’s like a pressure valve releasing a week or a season’s worth of pent-up energy. It has to go somewhere; it might as well go into the end zone or sacking the other team’s quarterback.
Sitting Pugs: Sports Movies 