Friday’s First Edition: Kansas Duo vs. Mark May; To Kickoff or Not To Kickoff

A negative aura exists around sports culture. It was evident Wednesday night when losers posing as fans in Vancouver used the Canucks’ Stanley Cup loss to riot. To a much lesser extent radio, TV and the blogosphere seemingly build on deconstruction. Anything, everything and everyone sucks.

To wit, as addressed in a post Wednesday here at SaturdayBlitz.com, Kansas receivers Daymond Patterson and AJ Steward introduced the first in an upcoming series of web videos that captured sports’ most fundamental essence: fun. Of course, someone was their to opine on how much DP & AJ Take On KU sucked. That someone was ESPN analyst Mark May, who may or may not have been schticking it up. The Jayhawk duo responded with another entertaining video.

It would take an extra strength flavor of jaded to not love what these two are doing. Dear readers, think back to your earliest memories of playing and/or watching sports, before recruiting violations, million dollar contracts and stats were anywhere near your consciousness. It all started with pure, unbridled joy. And every once in a while, we need someone to remind us of that.

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On a more serious note, Mark Richt has joined Rutgers’ Greg Schiano in calling for an end to kickoffs. For Schiano, the crusade is a personal one. While on kickoff coverage, Eric LeGrand suffered a spinal injury last season that has left him confined to a wheelchair. He’s shown signs of improvement, and conveys a genuinely touching and inspirational attitude. Highly recommend following him at twitter.com/BigE52_RU.

Richt and Schiano have a very valid criticism. The physicality of football makes it an inherently dangerous game, but only on special teams are these athletes who go in the upper-200-pound range hurtling themselves down fields at high speeds, in opposite directions. When President Roosevelt called for college football reform at the turn of the century, the forefront of public criticism was injury sustained in high impact, opposite end collisions. The Wedge was made illegal on plays from scrimmage, but it took nearly a century for the Wedge to disappear from kickoffs.

Tackling isn’t the cause of special teams concern, it’s the head-on collisions that ensue. Two cars collide with 10 and 20 feet of road with which to build momentum, one car coming at an angle. Those cars will sustain far less damage than two colliding directly into each other, after building momentum from 40 and 60 feet. As you can see, there’s a reason I didn’t excel in Physics but if the analogy isn’t too convoluted, imagine special teams coverage thusly. Then, the Richt/Schiano point is much easier to understand.

Unfortunately, the proposal of starting all offensive possessions from the 18-yard line isn’t feasible. Special teams are an integral part of any football game — I have yet to interview a coach who when talking special teams, didn’t take care to emphasize special teams equally to or more than offense and defense. Take the onside kick, a vital facet of the end to any close game.

Improving how kickoffs and punts are played is the answer. “How” is a discussion for football minds far greater than mine, but it’s more realistic than completing eliminating 1/3 of the sport.

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TSA power tripping has found its way into the college football world. New Mexico safety Deshon Marman was already going through something no young man his age should, attending the funeral of a murdered friend. Then upon trying to return to Albuquerque, was arrested. For his pants.

Seriously.

Marman’s boxer shorts being visible prompted an indecent exposure complaint to police. Could Marman have hiked up his jeans when confronted? Absolutely. But in one of the more ridiculous instances of punishment not fitting the crime, Marman faced trespassing charges and was actually jailed. JAILED! It’s such an absurd reaction, it’s nearly beyond comprehension. California is a state with serious detention system problems, and overextended police forces. And here are resources being wasted on this. It’s shameful.