If you're like Michael Weinreb, the best days of the year are Saturdays watching your favorite college football team play. If they're not playing that day, watching other college games is a close second. If it's the off-season, you can watch your favorite games on YouTube, DVR, or even on an old VHS tape. If you're like Weinreb, some of your best childhood memories are going to a college football stadium, taking in the pageantry, the crowd, and, of course, the game. If you're like Weinreb, you will really like his new book, Season of Saturdays: A History of College Football in 14 Games.
Weinreb grew up in State College, Pennsylvania, where he became a fan of Penn State. As he selects, for this book, the 14 games that best encapsulate the key moments in college football history, he tends to lean toward Penn State and Big 10 games. I won't fault him his bias; he makes a good case for each of the games covered. Each of them are important games, and most of them had a role in altering the game in key ways. It's actually a very clever and interesting way to track the history of college football.
As he points out, college football is at a turning point. The BCS has given way to the playoff. Paying players--legally--looks to be a real possibility. Programs are bigger and more professional than ever. The "haves" (the Power 5 teams) and "have nots" (all the rest), seem to be separating more each year. Weinreb shows that these trends are not new, although they are coming together in an unprecedented way.
As a true college football fan, Weinreb much prefers Saturday to Sunday. Even as a child, watching college football in his parents' basement, he began "to buy completely into the irrational faith that college football engenders." College football is full of underdogs and unpredictable plays: "Sometimes, crazy sh-- happens, . . . and the best team doesn't win at all, and it's bizarre and glorious. . . . It's not that we're pining for the upset; it's that we're pining for the possibility." The difference between the NFL and college football is paralleled in the video game world. Madden's NFL game "is for hyperactive perfectionists, just like the NFL." EA's NCAA video game "is for sentimental nostalgists who still believe in the flukish potential of the double reverse and the triple option." It's true that college football has unique pageantry and atmosphere, and the fan base, being made up largely of students and alumni, is more secure and dedicated than that of a professional team. But Weinreb emphasizes this larger distinction of possibility and unpredictability as that which most sets college football apart.
Weinreb's enthusiasm is infectious, so much so that I can forgive him for his tendency toward hyperbole. Examples: "Other than the automobile, [the forward pass] was the single most important American invention of the early twentieth century." After Miami beat Notre Dame 58-7 in 1985, "college football never looked quite the same again." The end of the 1982 Cal-Stanford game--"The Play"--was "the most unforeseeable single moment in the history of American sports." The missed field goal run back by Auburn against Alabama last year "is the most holy-sh-- touchdown in the long history of holy-sh-- touchdowns. . . . the most surprising sequence in the history of college football." I know a lot of sports writers get caught up in the moment and make these sorts of comments. As he points out, "no sport has repeatedly co-opted the term 'Game of the Century' like college football."
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Season of Saturdays for the reminders of memorable games, bits and pieces of college football history, and the perspective Weinreb brings to the current state of impending change in college football. Now to hunt down videos of some of these historic matchups on YouTube. . . .
(Baylor fan note: I know that despite their recent success, Baylor's football program does not have the same historical significance as programs like Penn State, USC, and Alabama, so I wasn't surprised that Weinreb didn't feature any Baylor games. The Bears did make a cameo appearance, however. It seems Arkansas coach Frank Boyles earned the nickname "Pooch Kick Frank" in the 1960s because of a Baylor game. Tied 0-0 near the end of the game, Coach Broyles called a pooch kick. The center snapped the ball over the punter's head and Baylor picked it up and scored a TD, winning the game 7-0. Sic 'em Bears!)
Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!
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