Enough will Never Be Enough [The Third Half]

J. Andrew Lockwood
Senior Editor / Columnist

Whatever happened to the old adage from the movie Angels in the Outfield when the Angels announcer tells Ranch Wilder ‘Less is more’? Collegiate and professional sports teams are big businesses in today’s market, jockeying for sponsorship contracts and television deals. The trend that seems to be the most alarming is the rate at which new stadiums are being built. In the past decade, 14 NFL teams, nearly half of the league, have christened new fields.

Most recently Dallas Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones decided to really spend on a new home for his team. For an estimated $1.2 billion, Jones built the Taj Mahal of football with a new 100,000 seat dome in Arlington. In addition, the center video display is 160 feet wide and 72 feet tall, easily making it the world’s largest. Guess everything really is bigger in Texas.

When is enough, enough? Many college football teams choose to continue to play in less than ideal stadiums, adding on and renovating when necessary. Like the game itself, stadiums are a part of the team’s history and shouldn’t be easily discarded whenever possible. The past 50 years, every team except the Green Bay Packers has jumped ship to a better, brighter, and shinier new stadium (preferably with a nice corporate name…ala Enron Field). More and more games are now played in climate controlled dooms with artificial grass turf. Wasn’t football supposed to be played in the natural weather?

What the NFL and its owners have lost in the past few years are key elements to the game. Not every matchup should be a 48-42 ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ result. Football is about getting away from the normalities of life. Who lives in a place where the weather is perfect all the time? Who works and plays in a pristine environment with a removable roof all day?

I liked my football like it was. I enjoyed the mud slop fests up north and the rain soaked games in Florida. That’s the outdoors….that’s natural. In turn, I believe that’s a major reason the college football game has grown so much in the past twenty years and has somewhat surpassed the viewership of the NFL.

When it comes to football stadiums, sometimes Less is More. Circumstances shouldn’t always be ideal. My favorite memory of attending a game was a snowy December night when I witnessed Delaware drum Colgate 41-0 for the I-AA national title. It was freezing, the field was chewed up and I had to thaw out for a good half hour when I returned home, but I remember thinking, ‘Now that was football.’

There’s plenty of football to play this coming weekend and despite my 3-5 prediction record in the previous issue of the Cluster, I’m sticking with these picks. After all, I correctly predicted a BYU upset over Oklahoma in Week 1 as well as a narrow Michigan win over Notre Dame and a UCLA upset over Tennessee.

J. Andrew’s Bold Predictions:

Thursday, September 24
Mississippi 21, South Carolina 24

Saturday, September 26
South Florida 31, Florida State 34
North Carolina 23, Georgia Tech 14
Michigan State 44, Wisconsin 24
Fresno State 31, Cincinnati 13
Miami (FL) 20, Virginia Tech 21
Arizona State 16, Georgia 45

Upset Special of the Week:
TCU 35, Clemson 38