Fun With College Football Vocabulary
I have serious issues with the Pontiac Game Changing Performance. Well, actually, I just have one issue with it, but it’s a big one. What irks me is this: too often a game winning play gets voted as the game changing play.
Not to take anything away from Michael Crabtree and Texas Tech, because seriously, wow. That was a great play, and a fantastic ending to a football game. But that’s what it was, an ending to a football game. That play did not spark a triumphant comeback, it didn’t knock the wind out of the sails for the opposing team; it simply ended the game. I’m not opposed to calling that a season changing play. In fact, I think that’s a great term to tack onto it. If it weren’t for that play, Texas beats Texas Tech, goes to the Big 12 championship, probably beats Missouri and ends up in the BCS title game.
There were plenty of games that featured a true game changing play. I may be biased here (actually, yeah I am biased,) but did anyone else see the Georgia/Georgia Tech game? The Yellow Jackets came out after halftime with an explosive one play, 60 yard scoring drive on the first play from scrimmage after the ball sailed out of bounds on the kickoff. That play changed the dynamic of the game. After that play, the Bulldogs looked sloppy, they missed tackles, they fumbled a kickoff, they just weren’t the same.
There’s a difference between changing the momentum of a game halfway through, and winning on a last second touchdown, interception, or fumble (I’m talking to you, UNC, and Penn State.) There’s a difference between an upset and a mounting a comeback in a game you should easily win (you hear me, Pete Carroll?) And I don’t buy that the blocked extra point in the Washington game was a game changer. If you want to claim the celebration call, I can give you that, but not the blocked kick.
If we’re going to nominate plays as “game changing,” we should make sure they’re labeled correctly. ESPN has already helped us out here, as have most other college football wrap-up programs, and set up a top ten plays of the day, or week, or other arbitrary time period. Don’t award a scholarship based off the misinterpretation of the word “change,” we’ve already shown that this country is highly susceptible to voting idiotically when that word is thrown around too much.
