2024 college football offseason thread

Very well presented. At some point, and you can argue well before the current situation, the game stopped being about a game and became about making money. And kids who have been proclaimed superstars their whole life are going to eventually run into something or someone who is going to knock them on their ass. Whether they get up and learn something from it is a matter of opinion.

Honestly, I'd argue that in many states, high school football is overemphasized compared to any other school activity, which shows our glaring lack of priorities. In a perfect world, the kids who earn National Merit Scholar awards should receive a whole lot more publicity than the one or two athletes who commit to Lenoir Rhyne or Catawba. But we live in an imperfect world.

We pay public school teachers poorly despite their efforts to produce outstanding citizens but watch television shows about rich kids who were born on third base.

Plus, teenagers are dumb. Even if that's the only thing about the article you agree with, 18 year olds aren't mature enough to know better. Heck, I'm 65 and I'm still making stupid decisions on a regular basis.

 

Why is it called Musings from Arledge?

 

MSN copped it from O3. I don't spend any time on O3, but I suspect that he's a columnist there.

 

If you can’t make stupid decisions at 65, what’s the point?

 

Just read in the fine print on my cable bill: "Effective June 30, 2024, Longhorn Network and Pac 12 Network, including Pac 12 Los Angeles and Pac 12 Arizona, will be removed from our lineup."
First I've heard that the Pac 12 Network had two subchannels.

 

There were like five Pac 12 channels, I think.

 

Might have been 7 -- the main one and one for each of the 6 regions.

 

I think there were six subchannels. Bay Area, SoCal, Mountain, Arizona, Washington and Oregon.

 

Makes sense. I had DirecTV and now YouTube TV, so my PAC 12 Network experience is largely limited to sketchy online streams.

 

Mike Riley's wife Dee has died. She had Altheimer's for several years and had been in decline. She was a wonderful person and the most down-to-earth, normal coach's wife I have ever met. No pretense or big-timing whatsoever. They met at Alabama, married for 43 years, two kids. He still lives in Microville.

Mike is the newest member of the CFP board. I'm glad, it will keep him busy during what will be a tough time. He is also as classy as they come.

 

Here in NC, the majority of NC State, UNC, Duke and Wake Forest games weren't even televised in the 90s from my memory. When they played each other it was usually the Raycom Game of the Week. When one of them played Florida State, that usually was on ABC. An early season game against William and Mary was not a big deal and you had to listen on the radio or get tickets. Even as recently as 2004, the State/UNC game wasn't on local or cable TV.

I know I'm speaking in generalities here, but the explosion in popularity has been an overall negative for fandom with all the changes (and more to come) that no one asked for. Maybe small schools got a boost. The sweet spot was maybe 2000-2010.