Have Another Hit

Four of the five Pac-12 games this weekend start at 7 p.m. (PT) or later. The Oregon State/Colorado game  in Corvallis is the lone exception.  That one kicks off at 3 p.m.**

This is scheduling designed by TV network moguls, and it is unfortunate. The PAC is strong this year, but with this kind of coverage casual fans who live east of the Mississippi won't have a chance to gauge the conference for themselves.

Most of them will be counting sheep in their sleep rather than counting TDs when some of the PAC's best teams are racking up the points in the wee hours EDT.

Does it matter?  Of course not, but allow me...

I long for the good old days when every game started at 1:30 local time.  During my two years in Eugene while attending Oregon I went to every home game, didn't miss a single one.  There was a pleasant symmetry to college-football Saturdays back then.

Get up, take a toke.  Go to breakfast, take a toke.  Go to the store and buy wine for the bota bag, take a toke.  Walk the footbridge across the Willamette to Autzen, take a toke...

Sit in glorious sunshine (even if it rained) and watch football the way it was meant to be enjoyed (toked up).

Ah...

You could toke up in the stands back then, too.  There weren't very many people at the games.  Security was sort of lax, not like today.

That paper due on Monday?  I spewed it out on Sunday between tokes.

Most easterners will miss what ought to be a fantastic night in Seattle, where Washington State hosts Stanford at CenturyLink Field in a game I think WSU has a realistic chance of winning.

Or am I just high?

Across town, on the edge of Lake Washington, the Huskies of UW host Arizona in a game featuring two of the nation's best running backs, Arizona's Ka'Deem Carey and Washington's Bishop Sankey, both of whom average nearly 150 YPG.

Talk about entertainment...with or without a toke.

Hardcore eastern football fans know about the PAC, but they're usually sleep deprived and so few in number that the sheer mass of the uninformed confirms the rule of ignorance--one of the disadvantages of democracy you could surmise.

Talking sense to the casual east coast fan about college ball is like trying to tell a teabagger convention about truth and justice.

Hopeless.

Many of them had a little taste of Oregon earlier this month when the Ducks went out to Charlottesville and pounded Virginia.

Doesn't matter.  Denial has always been big in the South.

Well, the Ducks weren't playing Florida State, Clemson or Alabama, so the PAC is irrelevant. Right?

They'll be a sorry lot if Cal comes into Autzen and upsets Oregon this weekend, won't they?

Not likely to happen, but if I lived back there and wanted somebody to beat the Ducks I'd be up all night, blurry-eyed, hoping against hope.

But then I'm a hardcore fan like my wasted, toked up brethren in Hoboken, who'll stay up all night to watch a real game.

**I blew the start times on two of these games.  OSU/Colorado starts at noon PT.  UW/Arizona starts at 4 p.m. PT.  Hey, it doesn't completely invalidate my argument.  What if I said all the variant kickoff times simply make fans more confused than ever?  Would you buy that?  Or you could blame it on short-term memory loss.


TS