Monday night’s college national championship game is why we like football.
It’s why we like watching these games.
People who don’t like football, and don’t watch it, think we’re wasting our time. Surely we can find more productive to do.
More productive? Yes, we could find something more productive to do. But you have to have fun in this life, and for a football fan, what could possibly be more fun than watching former Browns defensive coordinator Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide roar back to defeat Georgia 26-23 in overtime victory?
There were no losers in that game, only winners. And those of us who watched it were winners, too, because of what we saw.
This was not some contrived situation, like placing people on an island and seeing if they can survive.
No, this wasn’t a realty show. It was just reality.
No script. For that matter, if you had submitted the script of that game for review, it would have been rejected out of hand.
Too trite. Too unbelievable. Too everything.
There aren’t games like that, are there?
Well, yes, there are. We know that.
There was drama.
There were more twists and turns than in your best mystery book.
There were heroes and even bigger heroes.
There were potential goats who were saved from the horrible fate of having cost their team the game.
There was great play – and even greater play – all around. Georgia didn’t lose because it played poorly. It lost because Alabama simply played better when it counted the most.
Two years in a row, the national title game has been decided on the last play. Alabama made that play as Monday night turned into Tuesday morning. It came a year after Saban and his guys watched Clemson do it.
So the next time someone asks you, “Why are you watching football,” just reply, “Why are you not?
