It's off season....we got our new coach.......must be time to give my old fashion view on football today. It drives me crazy....absolutely crazy......to watch a couple of guys standing on the sidelines going through all kinds of funky motions.......or holding up a series of numbered signs...one set real, one fake to tell the QB what play to call or in some cases the QB goes over near the sidelines after every play to get the play. I wander how we played football before the coach called all the plays.......it's kind of like two guys playing chess by mail and the players are just pawns. I'm sure the younger generation wouldn't believe QB's use to call their own plays and the players played the game. Yes, players use to have to know the game so they could actually be smart enough to call the plays on both offense and defense.......and many a game was won because one QB and team were smarter than the other team.......I presume since the coach calls all the plays that must mean the QB's and teams today aren't smart enough too. The players today are more like puppets, someone else will do all the thinking, you just react when your strings are pulled. Yes, the coach would send in a substitute once in a while with a play he thought might work in the so-called "good ol' days".....but 90% of the time on offense and defense the players called the plays......I think you would say the players had to think for themselves, not just react when their button was pushed. I guess the biggest difference......pre-ESPN.....was that college football football players were real COLLEGE STUDENTS.......they could actually speak in sentences and went to class like the other college students.....they were actually in college to be in college not just to play football........with that in mind, it may be understandable why the coaches call all the plays.

A lot of thoughts there. I'd like to address the part about a college athlete being a college student first.

Yes, when I played, we had to pass our courses and be on track for a degree - that was the purpose of playing and it has been an enriching and rewarding experience - both the playing and the degree. But today in the age of winning at all costs, that doesn't mean much - just the quick fix of fans that want it all, millionaire coaches on the take and players who are so self centerred that they play for themselves and not the team. I will say this, I don't think TU has traditionally been "that". But you don't have to go very far to see programs, coaches and players that ARE that.

IMO