At Least There's Shade

*Blows some dust off the keyboard*

It’s been a while.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m still doing here.

Time for another season of college football, and here I am, writing a blog about a bunch of teenagers I have never met playing for a university that probably forgets I exist (still waiting on a shout out in that alumni magazine, WHAT'S A GUY GOTTA DO?!?!?!), all for about 11.7 loyal readers of whatever interminable dross I can come up with.

Look, let’s call it straight: it is WEIRD that I am still writing about this crap. Are my takes in any way unique? Are my angles interesting anymore? Probably not.

This is an addiction to a ridiculous sport that, in a vacuum, stands for everything I hate.

Management shutting out labor from billions in profits, and actively vilifying any poor soul who seeks to improve their lot.

A violent sport played by poor kids legally bound to one boss, who almost always happens to be old and white and has the freedom to move as he sees fit without repercussion.

A governing body that turns the other cheek when it comes to abuse of women (sexual, physical or mental), off-the-field violence toward fellow men and animals, or possession of battlefield weapons technology…and yet sees a kid receiving a free washing machine as an affront to civilization.

Call me soft. Maybe I possess a weak constitution. Maybe I'm just a smug West Coast Lib, as *ahem* a family member who shall remain unnamed alluded to in a Facebook post earlier this summer.  

Whatever it is, as much as every single piece of college football offends me on an intellectual level…

I love this dang sport.

And I'm not part of the solution, so I'm part of the problem. This will take years of therapy to work out at some point down the road, and I'm at peace with that. So in the meantime, I am just going to ignore the issue and embrace the symptoms!

So, what’s new this season?

Everything!

A new coaching staff! A good quarterback! New uniforms that don’t suck (eventually)!

This year we have a stadium that everyone is glowing about because of renovations!

 Guess what, people. It’s still a miserable suckhole of a stadium experience. It is a shopping mall with a football field inside of it, an excuse for the giant chinstrap beard that is Fort Lauderdale to make their way out to the offsite LIV location for a few hours of getting so drunk that they vomit in the backseat of their XTerra as they leave.

Oh, and they renamed it after Hard Rock Casino. A shady casino / restaurant chain that peaked in the 90s. Couldn’t be more South Florida if it tried. Be careful or this stadium will try and defraud you out of your Medicare check.

The best part about our program (anyone under ten might not believe this, but we used to be good) used to be that the West End Zone was filled with people from the inner city. Oftentimes, even wearing Miami gear, it was scary walking around in that section for a moron college kid like me. Imagine being an opponent!

The team represented the city, not just the enrollment of 10,000 Northeasterners and private school South Floridians.

In return, the city showed up to support the team and made it the most unique home field advantage in all of sports.

So what did we do? We committed the football equivalent of White Flight, taking our team up to the suburbs and completely stripping away anything that made it cool, unique or edgy.

So yes, you still have to drive an hour away from Miami to enjoy a game at a crappy stadium that only ever fills to half-capacity…but at least now there is some shade.

But the defense is going to be fast and aggressive and play with “unrelenting effort and unwavering violence!”

First of all, that quote came from our new defensive coordinator, the son of a former crooked mayor of Miami who got fired from Texas for, essentially, installing so many crazy blitzes that his players had no clue what was going on.

Also, our best defensive end and our best linebacker both got kicked off the team a week before the season starts.

For what, you ask? Free rental cars from a business allegedly attached to a sports agency.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Anyway, we might still be mediocre, but at least we are going to be fun to watch again!

We have a coaching staff that plans to lean in this whole concept of “team speed”. Go figure.

The quarterback is awesome, and this year we should get to see him in position to win some big games for us, rather than the typical Al Golden “let’s try to run 8 minutes off the clock and then punt” system of football. Pillars, you know?

The defense will probably suck against good teams but also might put some opposing quarterbacks in the hospital---this is the school of thought that says it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. And die on our feet we shall!

Long story short, the coaches have said ALL of the right things in the offseason as far as I’m concerned. Fast break offense, aggressive defense, freshmen playing early…all of it.

It’s gotten to the point that I think these coaches are reading my message board and then spouting off whatever they think will placate the masses. I’m smarter than most fans, I know exactly what is going on, and I am all in on it. Screw it.

This sport is simple. I want to watch my team win a trophy and then get to be smug to everyone I work with / talk to for the next decade.

Barring that, I just want to have fun watching the team. If we can’t be dominant, let’s just create chaos on a regular basis. Chaos is fun, if imperfect. Chaos is what this team seems to be built for.

*****

This is usually the part of my first post of the season where I say if everything breaks right, “why not us?”

I’ve been burned too many times. I don’t have a prediction for the season. I just want to beat FSU.

We could be really good, or we could really suck. Both are VERY MUCH in play.

I’ll be watching, and I’ll be emotionally invested, and I will probably write about it in this space.

Because even if I wanted to stop, I don’t know if I could.

So let's get through this together.