Now that we have gone around the SEC and looked at the national games of interest, there is only one game remaining which requires our attention. I am, of course, referring to the national game of disinterest.
For the uninitiated, the national game of disinterest is the one game each week about which I cannot compel myself to care. Although I pride myself on my ability to find a rooting interest or a reason for being intrigued in virtually any college football contest, there is one game each week so lacking in any redeeming feature that I cannot bring myself to make a pick one way or the other. This is the national game of disinterest.
This week’s national game of disinterest is . . .
If you disagree with that choice, you need to re-evaluate your entire outlook, because it is not Y2K compliant. Yes, I know, neither is ESPN, apparently, since the network has scheduled this abomination in prime time on Labor Day night, but the 1982 Georgia-Clemson game it ain’t. (Besides, the Worldwide Leader probably arranged this game for this time in the hope of discovering the next Jenn Sterger in the crowd.)
When you get past the onetime marquee names and actually look at the here and now, what you see is that teams that once dominated the ACC and the Big East, respectively, now are mere also-rans in a league they were expected to rule outright.
The cold cruel reality is that Bobby Bowden has lost it, Randy Shannon never had it, and these two programs have combined for 43 losses in the past four seasons, after combining for 40 losses in the entire decade of the 1990s. The most either squad can boast in the last three years is a Champs Sports Bowl win.
Don’t kid yourselves, people. Monday night’s Sunshine State showdown will be a clash of spent volcanoes that is more sad than significant. Watching it would be like watching a latter-day rematch between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks. Please, don’t do that to your memories of this once-proud series. Do yourself a favor and read a Percy Shelley sonnet instead.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen: Miami’s trip to Tallahassee to take on Florida State is the national game of disinterest. I’m not picking it because I can’t bring myself to care.
Go ‘Dawgs!