https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/39212869/kirby-smart-laments-fsu-opt-outs-georgia-orange-bowl-rout
College football coaches are the worst people on Earth. Can’t believe these shithead kids didn’t risk their futures on a meaningless game!
― papal hotwife (milo z), Sunday, 31 December 2023 11:09 (four months ago) link
College bowl games have very rapidly lost their whole reason for existence. The possible exceptions might be for a few of the smaller Division I college teams from the off brand conferences - most of whose players will never sniff an NFL contract, so that a trip to some place like Chattanooga or Gainesville to play a game in mid-winter sounds like a fun break. The truly small college divisions already get to have a meaningful playoffs.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 31 December 2023 19:19 (four months ago) link
Smart was mostly being a gracious winner in those comments. He isn't calling out the players. He's pointing out how the bowl system is broken and that FSU was a good team this year, whatever the meaningless bowl score.
― Natural Wine • Danny Devito • Virginia (Sufjan Grafton), Sunday, 31 December 2023 19:24 (four months ago) link
We might also treat non-playoff bowl games similar to a pre-season scrimmage. Some fans will still be interestwd. So long as people don't treat the scoreboard as unweighted data about who was actually good this year, it's fine.
― Natural Wine • Danny Devito • Virginia (Sufjan Grafton), Sunday, 31 December 2023 19:28 (four months ago) link
narrator: people continued to treat the scoreboard as unweighted data about who was actually good this year
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Sunday, 31 December 2023 19:36 (four months ago) link
A similar story to the NYT one above about young injuries - the detail about the NFL player (Dave Duerson, mentioned above) who specifically shot himself in the heart so that his brain could be studied wrecked me.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/cte-impact-young-football-players-1234804580/
― Andrew Farrell, Sunday, 31 December 2023 19:38 (four months ago) link