COLUMN: A lesson in Football 101

By: By Gary Edwards | SCNow
Published: November 24, 2007

They tell me this is a big football weekend around here. There were some big high school playoff games last night, and Clemson takes on South Carolina tonight. So I guess I should talk about football.

The problem is I don’t know anything about football. But as my wife often tells me, a lack of knowledge has never stopped me from commenting on a subject before.

I don’t even understand the name. In most parts of the world, football is a game played with a foot and a round ball. Here in America, we call that soccer and really don’t have much interest in it.

We love our football, though, even though the rules have evolved so that the foot and the ball rarely come in contact with each other. The kickers and punters are the only players who experience the joy of foot on pigskin.

Speaking of pigskin, is the ball really made of pigskin? I thought it was leather. And the last time I looked, leather doesn’t come from pigs. Maybe the ball itself looks like a little pig.

A football is not round. Can you think of one other ball that is not round? A ball by its very nature is round. But a football is more of a sphere, an oblong object, perhaps a squashed ball.

I have heard television commentators say, “He is carrying the ball like it’s a loaf of bread.” I have never carried a loaf of bread the way I see football players carry the pigskin sphere.

They carry it the way you would cradle a baby. You never hear anyone say, “He is carrying it like a baby.” Probably wouldn’t fit the macho image of the sport.

You would think I would know more about football. When I was an assistant basketball coach at Hofstra University, I lived with the football coach. He would come home talking about down linemen and I would suggest he get them counseling for their depression.

I do understand that a quarterback is more valuable than a nickelback. I would give a dollar, though, just to know what is going on when a defense goes into a dime formation.

I don’t know how football players remember all the formations and plays. Sometimes the quarterbacks have cheat sheets taped to their arms.

This is an actual play from a college football team: Ram Sell Zap 76 Z Drive H Hook. Are you joking me? My basketball players can’t even remember to take the ball out of bounds.

I won’t be able to watch the Clemson and South Carolina run with that squashed ball tonight because we have a home game against Newberry at 7:30 p.m. But I will make a prediction.

The team that touches the most downs will win. I think.