The Overreactive Subculture of Sports and Society

Today I am writing tired. Not physically tired, mind you. I have been getting my 6 hours or so of sleep each night like a good little boy. I am mentally tired, though. Why, you ask, am i mentally tired? Must be from the juggling of two jobs and school and the relentless pursuit of fitness, right? NOPE!!!! It's from the constant and consistent overreaction to every minor detail of every football game that has happened over the past two weeks. That's right, I'll say it. We are two weeks into football season and I am already over it. I understand I am may be a little more sensitive to this than most after years of working in bars which caused me to make small talk with complete strangers and having a lot of that talk be sports related. I am probably overly optimistic when it comes to my teams and honestly, at the root of things, I just want to be entertained and if my team wins, even better.

Fair warning, this is going to be my rant blog tonight so if you don't want to read me be super grumpy, stop reading now because here goes nothing:

• The Longhorns are not the worst team that has ever played football. Yes, they sucked real hard Saturday night and deserved to lose and, in all honesty, Manny Diaz deserved to lose his job. Whatever he has been doing since his arrival has been subpar and a change needed to be made. What pisses me off to no end, though, is the endless stream of comments I've read railing against David Ash, UT's quarterback. Did he have the best game ever? No. Did he cost the Longhorns the game with a lack of effort and excess turnovers? HELL NO! While his defense was allowing a school record 550+ yards rushing, David was a modest 19 of 34 for 251 yards through the air and two touchdowns with no turnovers. He also ran for 34 yards before leaving the game in the 4th quarter with a concussion. Was he the problem? Not even remotely. Did I still have to read on my Facebook wall about how much McCoy should be in and not him and then listen to it all morning at the bar Sunday? You know it. 
• Another topic that burns me up is this notion that every kid in the state of Texas wants to come play football here and that Mack Brown has done a lousy job of getting talent to this school. A lousy job of developing the talent? I could stand to be persuaded that that is the truth. The fact that there isn't talent here is asinine to think. People can bitch all they want about RG3 or Andrew Luck not coming here but you know what? When they were being recruited, we had the number 1 recruit in the nation on the way to play quarterback in Garrett Gilbert. He is from Austin, was winning championships, son of a former NFL QB, running our offense and the consensus number one QB recruit in the nation. Every school in America wanted him and if you think i'm lying, you're kidding yourself. So, is it out of the question at that point to offer smallish track star RG3 a scholarship as a wide receiver?  I would think not. Same with Luck. These guys all want to play in the NFL so why would one top recruit follow another top recruit to a school when another school is offering him a chance to play right away? Johnny Football? Yeah, we didn't offer him a scholarship, but it doesn't surprise me either after the fact. Mack Brown is, and always has been, a man that teaches respect of others and, as the story is told, he had issues with Johnny's personality so he didn't offer him a scholarship. Should he have? Would you date a girl/guy with a shitty mindset that treated people poorly just because they were hot or wealthy? Same story. We have 85 total scholarships to give to members of the football team. 85. In 2011, the state of Texas produced 345 division 1 football players of the 161,000 kids that participated in High School football. Put simply, if Texas, A&M, Baylor, Tech, and TCU took 25 each of these kids, that's 220 for the rest of the nation to choose from. My point is that sometimes you're gonna hit, and sometimes you're gonna miss. Also, and not to pick on Johnny Football, but if he was such a great recruit, wouldn't the likes of Baylor or TCU have offered him a scholarship? At the time, they were better off football-wise than the Aggies so it's not like they wouldn't have tried to get him, right?
• Now onto the Cowboys. I love Tony Romo. I think he's downright awesome and it was such a wonderful and welcomed sight watching him not have to completely run for his life last night and get to work in the pocket. I'm sure it was as alarming to him as it was to me. I am sick and tired of listening to people say that this team will never win with him at quarterback. There are so many points to be made that I don't feel like typing right now because it makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills that I am seeing this while everyone else misses it. It has gotten so bad for me that last night, when his right tackle Doug Free got bum-rushed and pushed on his fat ass, and then Tony got leveled and stayed down and eventually was pulled from the game that I wished he would be hurt for the whole season. I wished this not because I think anyone else could do better, quite the contrary, actually. I wished that so that people who cheer for this team can see just what he means to this team and learn to respect the job he has done year in and year out with the substandard support staff that has been provided to him. I would forfeit the whole season just so Tony could get the respect he deserves.

I'm done, I have so much more to say but don't want to get too worked up before bed. Have fun out there. Hate what I said or love it, I don't care, just pay attention to what you're watching. It should be fun. It should be a respite from a long day's work, or a time to meet and hang with friends.