Football Eve 2009

In case you are unawares, the day before the kickoff off to the college football season is now officially known as Football Eve. Modeled after Christmas Eve, this holiday rings in joy (and pain) for a solid five months of the year. With football in some form on Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday you have games 5 nights a week for 5 months, equaling roughly 100 days of entertainment. Football Eve is the day before all that goes down.

Yeah, it’s a real holiday; and it’s awe-some.

I should know; I invented it.

Every holiday has to have traditions; Festivus has feats of strength and airing of grievances, Football Eve has the annual rule/policy change proposals. Gather 'round kids, they're so much fun!

1.Encourage Coach Melt-Downs:

Men, there’s nothing more cathartic than blasting a 120 pound, bespectacled reporter for asking some asinine question right after bleeding through your eyeballs and still losing the heartbreaker. You are hereby directed to just let ‘em have it. No really, you have our blessing.



2.Cheerleaders: more of ‘em.

3.Mascot Battle Royale:

Sometimes when the game is out of hand the interaction between the opposing teams bird or beast is the most interesting thing to watch. Some of the best sports TV ever filmed is of mascots getting genuinely irked and throwing down on each other. Its wrong to promote violence but this has to be an exception. I think we should encourage it (alcohol, whispered taunts). In addition to the charged up sideline antics we could pit mascot vs. mascot at centerfield to start the game. When the feathers and fake fur settle the victor gets the ball first (you will see how this relates to my kicker clause in proposal #10).



4.Gladiator Style Games at Halftime:

Similar in principle to #3 this proposal aims to take it up a notch. No more lip-syncing Ashley Simpson “musical” renditions, no more marching bands (sorry to those band fans). Instead the opposing team's equipment managers, athletic trainers and water boys/girls duke it out in tests of strength, speed and cunning. Again, weapons would make things more interesting, but we do want to keep things family friendly.

If the marching bands want to get back into the action I say make both take the field at the same time and battle for musical supremacy. May the baddest muther of a Sousaphone player survive (and play his/her band's tribute to Michael Jackson)!

5.Did I mention cheerleaders? Stack ‘em high. I like my cheerleaders in complex geometric shapes. Instead of the traditional towers and pyramids coulda a brother get a trapezoid?

6.Play the Final Jeopardy music when the ref is reviewing a play “under the hood”. Nothing to really be gained here, I just think it would be funny.

7.Actually keep the backup quarterback in a glass case, with the familiar “In case of emergency break glass” sign on the front. It would be so dramatic - the starter hobbles off, crowd is hushed, the trainers are looking at his knee, they shake their head "no" to the coach who turns and gives the nod to the equipment manager (the only one to survive halftime) who takes the little mallet, tells QB2 to shield his eyes and then literally breaks the glass because this is an emergency. Drama I tell ya, damn near pageantry.

8.Somebody round up Terrel Owens, Jerry Jones and his Jumbo Dumbatron, Ocho Cinco, Favre, Tony Kornheizer, Phil McGwire, Michael Vick, Gene Chizik and even John Madden and set them a drift in the Indian Ocean. Could we do that? I think they would be relatively safe, even sharks have standards.

9. More Erin Andrews please.



10. Eliminate kickers: I mean get rid of them altogether. Fire the kickoffs out of a mini cannon that could be pulled off the field (or not?) after the kick. That would add a certain something to the gameday experience I’d say.



Extra points are out too; there’s just something very unfootballish about kicking a little extra point. Oooo, PUFF! (that’s the sound the ball makes when its kicked) we got a whole extra point! Yea Team!

B.S.

Either make touchdowns 7 points or require the team to go for two every time.
Just pull down the goal posts, ‘cuz we don’t need ‘em anymore. Field goal?! Don’t get me started. We have a whole nuther sport for kickers, it’s called soccer.

Punting would also have to go. Either make teams go for it every time or see previous provision for mini-cannon.

So, that’s my 10. I haven’t heard back from the leagues yet, but I’m sure they're just trying to sort and process all the badassness that was just conferred upon them.

FOOTBALL EVE!