A laboratory of overtimes
I covered the Thunder game Sunday night, then drove home while listening to Giants-Panthers on the radio. I got home just as regulation ended.
That means I got to watch the overtime, which was a doozy. Giants win the toss but punt. Carolina threatens but punts, and R.W. McQuarters drops the ball and almost gives the game to the Panthers but corrals the precious jewel. Finally, Derek Ward said enough is enough and rambles 51 yards into field-goal territory, then carried even more, 82 yards on the drive alone, to set up Brandon Jacobs’ winning touchdown.
Heck of a game. Then I thought, well, I’ll watch SportsCenter, which I like on Sundays but really not any other day. I flipped over, and lo and behold the New Orleans Bowl still was in progress.
Southern Miss-Troy. It was tied late in the game, Troy had the ball about midfield, so I said great. I watched Troy gak up its last possession, forcing my second overtime of the young night.
And I got a perfect picture contrasting the NFL and college OTs. The college system stinks. No field position. No kicking game. No strategy, really. It’s football’s version of hockey’s shoot-out.
Southern Miss didn’t do much and had to kick a field goal. Troy didn’t do much and had its field goal blocked. Southern Miss.
Good for the Golden Eagles. Good for old pal Larry Fedora, the Mad Hatter. Good for fans of college football who like bowl games, of which I am one, because this was an entertaining game.
But the overtime was not good. The overtime was unsatisfactory. It wasn’t real football.
For real football in overtime, you have to go to the NFL.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Good points! I don’t like much about the NFL, but I’ve got to admit–their overtime system is MUCH better than what the NCAA uses.
The big argument I always hear in favor of the college system is that both teams have an equal chance. Well, strangely enough, the team that wins the coin toss wins a higher percentage of the time in college OT than in the NFL version.
The trouble with college overtime is that it doesn’t need to exist at all. As long as the two-point conversion has been around, college teams have had the option of playing for the win that way. Tie games were a rarity. For years, overtime for the NFL made sense because they didn’t have the two-pointers as an option. They had a lot more tie games. When the NCAA instituted overtime, they were fixing a wheel that wasn’t broken, and — by and large — hurting the product they already had. Which had the better ending: the 7-overtime marathon that Ole Miss and Arkansas once played, or the Nebraska-Miami Orange Bowl after the 1983 season?