A Sunday of Ticket

Last Sunday I had the inestimable pleasure of spending my Sunday in a chair at a friend’s place watching NFL Sunday Ticket on a brand-new Sony HDTV. It was a blast. I don’t think I could do it every week, but if I had more time to spend on football, Sunday Ticket is a pretty sweet way to do it.

Sunday Ticket’s a DirecTV package that lets you watch every NFL game every Sunday. For some reason, the package is still subject to the NFL’s blackout regulations. So, for example, if you live near Oakland, as my friend does, and the team is unable to sell out its home game against the Broncos, as they were earlier this year, you don’t get to watch the game on TV. (Actually, he found it on some other channel, but you’re not supposed to have that option.)

Anyway, Sunday Ticket is mostly just a ton of channels that have NFL games on them. And that’s pretty awesome all by itself, because the NFL was made for television. (I mean, unless it’s the playoffs, aren’t games better at home?) Sunday Ticket adds more, like the Red Zone Channel, which jumps among games depending on what’s happening in them, but which strikes me as a pretty stupid way to watch football. There’s also a Game Mix Channel (possibly two channels according to some website, but we only watched one), which divides the screen into eighths and lets you watch eight games at once, or really seven and the Red Zone Channel.

What’s really cool is the sound: you can highlight any of the up-to-eight games that are on and play its audio, even while watching all these other games.

Sounds awesome, right? Unfortunately it misses on several counts. First, it doesn’t really divide the screen into eighths: there are eight boxes in a four-by-two arrangement, but there are always large swaths of gameless screen above and below the games. One is a constant sponsor’s logo, next to the huge “NFL GAMEMIX” in the center of the top of the screen. (Oh, that’s what I’m watching. Thought this was C-SPAN.) On the bottom’s a ticker. The problem is really one of geometry: you could make the game views taller, but not really any wider, so they’d be the wrong shape for the TV feeds anyway. Of course, you COULD divide the screen into quarters or ninths and they’d all be the right shape, and in the case of quarters much more watchable, but whatever. Another problem is that the screen always has eight squares divided, even if there aren’t eight games on. This leads us to our next issue, which is that the channel wasn’t even working right Sunday morning, because all the squares weren’t filled, but they also weren’t showing all the games. The final disappointment is performance: it’s very laggy switching between audio feeds and sometimes doesn’t seem to want to switch at all. It’s a weird thing to complain about: the setup is practically magic, and nothing on my TV comes even close, but it’s doesn’t seem like it should be much harder to do this well than it is to do it.

So, there’s my litany of complaints. So what. The experience of watching a ton of NFL action is just beyond compare. I got to see Vince Young, so beautifully back at the top of his game, go against the Dolphins, whose Chad Henne seems just awful. I got to see a similar mismatch as the Patriots took on the Buffalo Bills. The Eagles were taking care of the 49ers, which we barely watched because the other games were so much closer. It’s a weird phenomenon: if you’d had this in 2007, would you have watched any more than a few minutes of any Patriots game, or would they just be considered lame because they were blowing everyone out?

In the afternoon we focused primarily on the Denver-Oakland and Green Bay-Pittsburgh games, since my friend and I are Broncos fans and his girlfriend, who’s like the coolest person alive, is a Packers fan. Sadly both teams lost by one point. The Broncos game was fun: lasers, a guy losing his pants, and two near-brawls. Too bad it ended in unbelievable fashion as JaMarcus Russell took them down the field. (I thought the injury to Charlie Frye would’ve saved us.) Speaking of the Broncos, that 8-5 start followed by three losses last year is starting to feel awfully familiar. The Packers game was even worse, and gave me flashbacks to last year’s Super Bowl as Big Ben led a scoring drive in no time flat to pull out a win. I can’t wait to see him back in action in the playoffs, even if he screwed up our Sunday.

The nightcap of Minnesota-Carolina was fun to watch, and it just feels right to settle in to one single game at the end of the day.

What else changes with Sunday Ticket? Well, the highlights in postgame shows are superfluous and kind of funny, a reminder that some people just don’t have an NFL experience as nice as yours. Also, the “wait, why am I watching commercials?” feeling you sometimes get using a DVR is a million times worse when you’re missing live NFL games by not remoting fast enough, rather than just wasting a few minutes.

Anyway, Sunday Ticket is sweet. I don’t think I’ll ever have it, since I’d miss too many games being at church anyway, but if you’re gonna follow the NFL, there’s no better way.

Shanahan to Washington?

I have a plane to catch…in several hours, but anyway, I’m too lazy to write about this. The Denver Post is reporting that Mike Shanahan may well be heading to the Redskins, which is sad because how well did it work for him the last time he had a control-freak owner? (And at least Al Davis knew football.) If anything big happens with this over the weekend, I’ll post some thoughts on Twitter.

Give in to your anger

The BCS sucks. It’s a corrupt piece of garbage that goes against everything pure in sports, foisted upon us by fat cats with no concern for fair play, giving the fans what they want, or letting anyone win the title on the field. If it weren’t for big-money conferences, it wouldn’t exist.

We all know this. Everyone puts up with it, though, which makes me sick.

This year the BCS matchups are particularly stupid: Alabama, which just dominated the vaunted Florida Gators, will be playing Texas, which tried valiantly to lose to Nebraska last week, for the national championship. Left out of a shot at the championship are undefeated TCU, Cincinnati, and Boise State.

The great things about college football are the same things that are great about America. There’s all the pageantry, the spectacle,  the youthful and regional pride, but most importantly, sports are a meritocracy. You want to know which of your state’s big schools has the best team? Let them figure it out, on the field, in front of thousands of screaming maniacs and watch as young men make amazing things happen under intense pressure with the threat of pain and suffering built into every down. The scoreboard doesn’t care what your facilities look like back home, or who your daddy was, or that fourth-quarter comeback you sparked with an interception last week. All that matters is what you can do right now—whose best beats whose best try.

The bad things about the BCS are all the things bad about America: small, powerful groups wielding unfair influence over everyone, all thanks to a taller stack of dollars. And their propaganda tactics are absurd: for years they pretended to have their hands tied by the sinister computer formulas, until one day we all realized that computers are our friends. Now they make patronizing allowances to smaller schools but refuse to invite them to the main event. We love to say socialism is a threat to the American way, but what about when the rich are so rich they can afford to stop trying?

That’s what happened with this year’s bowl matchups: the cowards in charge put TCU and Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl to spare the big-money teams the shame of losing they way they’ve lost to Boise State and Utah lately. It’s infuriating that the matchup between two undefeated teams will inevitably be billed as a sort of Junior National Championship, especially considering the Horned Frogs took it to their ranked competition so much better than the Longhorns ever did.

I’m not saying Texas doesn’t deserve to be there. Well, actually, I am, because no one “deserves” a spot in an arbitrary championship game just because they had a good regular season. But whatever. I don’t know who is the best out of Texas, TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati, or, for that matter, Alabama. The sad thing? No one will ever know. Sure, you can study it, break down the numbers, and come to a solid conclusion, but you can’t say anyone deserved that crystal football when just two teams were blessed with a chance to play for it. The World’s Shortest Tournament, we’ll call it. It’s not that a normal playoff system is perfect, or that the best team always wins (just ask Tom Brady). It’s just that real contenders all get a real shot, so nobody cares.

The most devastating part of it all is the aftermath, when BCS apologists (read: those with a financial stake in extending the current BS) rush out to cry: All is well! Perhaps Alabama wins in spectacular fashion over Texas, and the pundits agree that Alabama would have beaten anyone this year. You know, it might even be true. It’s just completely unfair to all the schools, including Alabama. Don’t you think Crimson Tide fans would want to savor a few more weeks of dominance in a playoff system? And shouldn’t the team get a chance to put all doubts to rest?

Actually, the real most devastating part is what we’re all missing, which is the joy we’d get from, say, a 16-team tournament. I get giddy just thinking about it. College football playoffs? Are you kidding me? I want to race to every sports website the morning after the committee makes it picks, printing out brackets and rifling through analysis until I find something I already agreed with. I want to sign into eight different places so I can lose bracket challenges to everyone I know. I want to know that a No. 13 upset a No. 4 in seven of the last ten years. I’ve never been to a bowl game, but I’d want to a lot more if that Liberty Bowl had an SEC team with a Pro Bowler behind center and a seven-game winning streak that I thought could win it all. See, I have nothing against big conferences. I like college football. I just wish I could love it.

So how do we fix this absolutely-broken system? It’s daunting, but simple: we have to stop putting up with it. There’s so much that could be done, from ignoring college football entirely to pressuring your local congressman into some good ol'-fashioned regulatory intervention. My plan this year is to pass on every BCS game but the Fiesta Bowl, and while I’m not ready to commit to it, I’m about ready to ignore the rest of the bowl games entirely. (I mean, come on, they’re stupid anyway: play all year just to get into one last ceremonial game?)

I could definitely watch the MAACO Bowl without any threat to my conscience, as BYU is the only non-BCS team in more than fifty years to win a national championship. And I’d watch Colorado if they were in a bowl, but that’s no problem this year. Anyway, that’s where I choose to draw the line. I know some of you won’t want to give up the national championship game, such as it is. That’s fine. But I call on everyone this year to do something to call attention to or challenge this grave injustice. Let’s stop acting like the current situation is anything short of a disaster.

Supersonic gone & took my soul

My heart broke Monday when I read the apology that BYU quarterback Max Hall issued after some comments he made following Saturday’s 26-23 win over the Utah Utes.

Let’s start with the apology:

‘I want to take the opportunity to clarify and apologize for a few of my remarks after the game yesterday,’ Hall said in a statement Sunday, according to the Deseret News of Salt Lake City. ‘Last year at [Rice-Eccles Stadium], my family was spit on, had beer dumped on them and were physically assaulted on several occasions. They had to endure extremely vile comments personally attacking my wife, my mother, other family members and our religion. They had to be escorted to their car by local police.

‘As a result of what happened to my family last year, this rivalry became personal, and in the heat of the moment yesterday, I made comments toward the entire university that were really directed specifically at those fans in RES. It was not intended to be directed at the entire organization and all of their fans, and I apologize that it came out that way.’

Okay, so some fans were jerks last year, and he got carried away. Considering his need to say all this to defend himself, what he said must have been pretty awful, right?

‘I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, their fans. I hate everything,’ Hall said Saturday. ‘It felt really good to send those guys home.’

And:

‘I think the whole university and their fans and the organization is classless,’ Hall continued. ‘They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don't respect them and they deserved to lose.’

I guess I feel like I’m still waiting for Hall to cross the line. So he hates Utah. And he doesn’t respect them. So what?

Personally I hate the University of Utah, too, and thought Hall’s comments were awesome, so I was disappointed when he didn’t stand by them. I know some Utah fans that I don’t hate but everything else he said, I’m down with.

Fans of the U have never done anything to my family, but I hate the school just the same. In my year at BYU I attended the rivalry football game and the basketball game in Provo. Both times I left incensed, and not only because Utah won. At football some BYU fan ran out onto the field and got taken down by a Utah cheerleader, who kept punching the guy well after taking him to the ground. I was kinda more upset that no one helped the kid, but come on. He’s down. The basketball game was a disaster; BYU didn’t hit a field goal (and perhaps they didn’t score, I’m not sure) over the last seven-plus minutes. Rick Majerus, then Utah’s coach, spent literally the entire game on the court. I don’t mean in the coaching box, I mean on the court, as in several steps in, as though to prevent three-pointers from the left side, where he planted himself on the wing. I don’t know why, but the refs completely ignored it. Of course, I was more annoyed that no one set up for a three deep in the corner and then, when getting back on D, lowered a shoulder and laid Majerus the freak out, but still. I mean, after a few minutes of watching him that was literally all I cared about. Get your butt off the court, man. Wouldn’t laying the opposing coach out, and making it look like an accident, of course, be so satisfying?

Surely this apology was forced out of Hall by the same losers who like to respond, whenever someone says they hate something, that hate is a strong word. Oh, my bad! It’s a strong word, you say? I meant to go through life saying only weak things, showing more care not to upset idiots. (I had a home-teaching companion at the Y who refused to root against Utah basketball because he had too much respect for Majerus. That’s BYU for you. Can you imagine what would have happened to a CU student back in the day who said, “I hope we win, but I can’t pull for the Huskers to lose because I have too much respect for Coach Osborne”?)

It's just a feeling, why isn't he allowed to express it?

I am so sick of the complete sissification of society and don’t see any problem whatsoever with Max Hall hating Utah. He didn’t say anything insulting, he didn’t incite mob violence, and while it’s not the greatest sportsmanship of all time he’s not even setting an horrific example for the young’ns. Anyone who has a problem with what Hall said really needs to grow up.