The Evolution of College Football

When I was in college 60 years ago, I was a fanatical fan. I was lucky enough to attend a school that had good sports teams. In fact, they won their only National football championship while I was there. And while they have not repeated that feat, they have had National championships in both basketball and track and field (both men’s & women’s).

How has the sport changed since those days? In the 60’s, you wore a coat and tie to the game and only celebrated when your team scored. Players only had a restrained celebration after a touchdown. Now, many fans wear costumes and celebrate after every decent play, both offensive and defensive. The players do likewise and signal first downs for the refs. In my day, if a player made a good play, he hurried back to his position, getting ready for the next play. Good plays were the job, not a reason to celebrate. My high school coach once benched a player for getting too excited. He said, don’t act like you are something special. Yes, you made a nice play, but act as if you do it all the time.  

In those times, teams played 10 league games and hoped for an invitation to one of the 9  bowl games if they had an outstanding record. Top 4 bowls: The Rose Bowl in Los Angeles, the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, and the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The other 5: The Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, the Sun Bowl in El Paso, the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando & the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston. Notice that 1/3 of the bowls were in Texas, and it was the time when the Southwest was a power conference, even though it was in reality the “Texas” conference plus Arkansas.

T-20 Cricket

Having lived in New Zealand from 2000 to 2009, I was forced to examine this sport. The classic version is “Test Cricket” where both teams don all white uniforms and spend up to 5 days playing, where in the end it is possible for there to be “no result”. I had trouble with this. I found the ODI (a 50-over limited one day International) version more tolerable, but 8 hours is still too long for my taste. That said, I was impressed with the athleticism displayed in the field where I witnessed many fantastic, bare-handed catches of the cricket ball, which is about the same size as a baseball and just as hard.

Since I departed NZ in 2009, a new version has been introduced. The T-20 version limits each side to 20 overs. An over is 6 balls thrown by a bowler. This version encourages more offensive action (higher runs per over) and typically lasts about 3 hours. It has become very popular.

I was in Mumbai recently for a couple of weeks during the 2026 T-20 World Cup. The TV coverage was of all the matches and also included repetitive highlights of each. I enjoyed them. I had plenty of time to watch it as well as some Olympic Coverage (via Peacock). I was there to have my new teeth installed after going 7 months without them.

Update. After New Zealand demolished South Africa and India, winning a close one over England, they met in the World Cup final. I was David (NZ) up against Goliath (India). In India Cricket is King, but in NZ Rugby is King followed closely by Americas cup sailing. Cricket is a distant 3rd in importance. The telling factor is that India has 500 times as many people!

However, this time Goliath was the victor.