Julie Kendall
We’re a couple weeks into the football season, and while there haven’t been any major stories apart from Stanford’s upset of USC and the return of Peyton Manning in a Broncos uniform, there are a few things worth talking about. Here’s a short collection of thoughts on the football season so far.
The NFL’s Replacement Refs: To be sure, the NFL referee lockout creates a frustrating situation, for teams and for spectators alike. The inexperience of the replacement corps slows down the game, and there have been some quasi-significant errors made. Monday night’s six-minute skirmish to determine possession following a Bronco fumble really brought the problem to the forefront of debate, but it’s important to direct your criticisms to the right place; the replacement refs are trying their best with limited resources behind them, while the league is sitting on piles of money during a dispute with a unionized labor force. This needs to be resolved soon, lest corporate interests threaten to impact the outcome of a professional sporting event.
Ohio State: For a year that was expected to be one of rocky rebuilding, it’s easy to get excited about a 3-0 start and the emergence of Braxton Miller as one of the top quarterbacks in the country. But Miller is carrying the offense on his back, while the Buckeyes’ defense has been giving up a concerning number of yards. They won’t be playing in a bowl game this year because of an NCAA probation, but so far, they’ve been exciting to watch.
The Rookies: Number one draft pick Andrew Luck put up what some people have been calling a “heroic” performance against the Vikings last week, putting together a late-game drive to set up a game-winning field goal. Similarly, RG3 has lived up to expectations, putting up some stats to please his fantasy owners. Brandon Weeden, however, looked like a typical Browns quarterback from before the first snap, what with getting caught in the American flag during pre-game festivities. He had modest improvement in week two, but I’m going to hold out on upping my confidence level just yet. Trent Richardson, on the other hand, rushed for 109 yards and scored two touchdowns in his second pro game, prompting former Browns legend Jim Brown to backtrack on his previous comments that he was “ordinary.”
Woo vs. Witt: Rivalries are an interesting phenomenon. They are natural products of competition, ritualized over time, which add emphasis to the importance of a particular victory. Wooster’s football team takes on their nemesis from Wittenberg this Saturday under the lights. But have you ever wondered why the Tigers are our most hated adversaries? It likely stems from the schools’ 19th-century origins. Wittenberg University actually began operations in Wooster, where a faction of Lutherans split from their German brethren to create an English-speaking college. They later moved west to Springfield, Ohio to be closer to Lutheran congregations in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and southern Ohio. About twenty years later, a group of Presbyterian synods sought to establish a college in Springfield, but, believing the town could not support two schools, they returned to the original site of Wittenberg, which became the College of Wooster. The school’s foundings proved fertile grounds for an athletic rivalry game, which, for the record, the Tigers have won 31 times since 1956.