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2015: Sugar Bowl plot and characters

In 2015 Dear Sports Fan will be previewing the biggest sporting event of the year in each of the 50 states in the United States plus the district of Columbia. Follow along with us on our interactive 2015 map.

Louisiana — The Sugar Bowl

College Football — January 1, 2015 — Alabama Crimson Tide vs. Ohio State Buckeyes, 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

The Sugar Bowl is one of three college football bowl games that claims to be the second oldest in the country. It was first played in 1935 and has been played annually in New Orleans or nearby ever since. For its first forty years, it was played at Tulane University’s stadium and was named the Sugar Bowl in honor of Etienne de Bore, the first mayor of New Orleans and a trailblazer in the industrialization of sugar. Since 1975, the game has been played in the New Orleans Superdome, where the New Orleans Saints of the NFL play. This year, the bowl game begins a new chapter in its history when it becomes one of two bowl games to host a semifinal in the first edition of the college football playoffs. The winner of this game will advance to the finals to play the winner of the Rose Bowl for the National Championship. It’s a big game! Let’s dig into its plot and characters.

What’s the plot?

This game doesn’t have the epic good vs. evil implications of the Rose Bowl but it is interesting in its own right. The first place to start is with the conferences. Ohio State is part of the Big Ten and Alabama is a member of the SEC (Southeastern Conference). Both conferences have long and powerful histories but the Big Ten has been seen as waning in power over the past five to ten years while the SEC has waxed to ascendency. If you look at this as simply a high ranked Big Ten school versus a high ranked SEC school, you’d expect the SEC team to win convincingly. As evidence of this bias, all ten Big Ten teams (there are actually 14 Big Ten football teams) that made it to bowl games were underdogs according to Vegas. Of the 12 SEC schools in bowl games, nine were favored to win. So far, the SEC prediction has been mostly true — they are 4-1 — but the Big Ten has been surprisingly successful. They are 2-3 so far. Other than the conference conflict, there’s not much going on from a plot perspective that isn’t character driven. These are two extremely good teams with long histories of winning.

Who are the characters?

The Coaches: Urban Meyer and Nick Saban — The two most compelling, albeit creepy, characters in this game are the two head coaches: Urban Meyer of Ohio State and Nick Saban of Alabama. In many ways, they are mirror images. They’ve both coached at several different colleges before their current one and won National Championhsips — Meyer at Florida and Saban at LSU. They’re both straight-laced and obsessive coaches. A quick Google search pops up articles with headlines like, “Why Alabama’s Nick Saban is Against Texting” and “The Joyless Triumph of Nick Saban” as well as “For Nick Saban and Urban Meyer, no room for satisfaction before college football playoff“. If you ask me, they are prime examples of the type of megalomaniacal, self-aggrandizing, obsessive-compulsive snakes that seem to be attracted to powerful jobs like football coach and President of the United States. Luckily I think we do a better job filtering the worst of them out in politics than in football.

T.J. Yeldon — Yeldon is a running back for the Alabama Crimson Tide and the team’s most dynamic playmaker. In years past, he’d probably be projected as a first round draft pick in this year’s NFL draft, but teams seem to have figured out that because running backs have such short careers and are more interchangeable than other positions in the NFL, it’s not worth drafting them early in the draft. Yeldon will still probably go in the second round. The drama that he brings to this game is in the form of a series of questions: how much, how well, and how will he play? He’s been suffering from an injured ankle and hamstring and the latest news from the Alabama camp is that he will only be used sporadically throughout the game because he’s missed so much practice time. It’s possible that’s true, I’m sure the Alabama staff is thinking about the National Championship game and wanting to protect their best weapon for that game, but it could also be complete bunk — an attempt to deceive Ohio State into not preparing for a full dose of Yeldon.

Cardale Jones — Quarterback is by far the most important single position in football. Great quarterbacks are extremely rare and even functional ones are difficult to find. Teams that lose their starting quarterback to a long term injury very rarely have an acceptable backup who can maintain the level of play at a high enough level for the team to succeed. Teams that lose their first and second string quarterback are almost always dead in the water. We’re seeing that now in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals whose play has declined dramatically as they descended from Carson Palmer to Drew Stanton to Ryan Lindley. Ohio State has been through the exact same series of injuries this year but each time they lose a quarterback, a new one steps in and the team doesn’t miss a beat. Cardale Jones is the third quarterback up for Ohio State and in his first game as a starter, he led the Ohio State team to a 59-0 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship game. Now he’s had a couple weeks to rest, practice, and learn, which is good, but he’s also had a couple weeks to be bombarded by well-intentioned but ultimately questionable adulation and pressure from friends, family, and fans. Jones has an almost stereotypically hard-luck back-story and I certainly hope that he beats the odds to play well in this game.

Who’s going to win?

Alabama is favored by nine points and I’ve got to agree with that assessment. Everything points towards Alabama winning this game. The biggest mystery is whether Cardale Jones collapses in his second start or if he plays well, but even if he plays well, I don’t see it being enough to help Ohio State win.

Rep your school this holiday season

For fans of college sports, December is not just the holiday season, it’s also the time when college football enters into its postseason bowl games and when college basketball starts its regular season in earnest. It’s a great time to pick up something sports related as a gift for yourself or the college sports fan in your life. There are a trillion and a half (exact number) things that you can buy that have your college’s team logo slapped on them somewhat randomly. Many of them are pretty tacky. My philosophy is that tacky is okay but only if the object in question is something used primarily in a sports situation like attending a game, tailgating, or watching at home. If the product is something you would ever use or see in a non-sports situation, like a shirt or a framed piece of artwork, then the bar is higher for tastefulness. Here are a few college sports related gifts that fit those requirements.

Faux Vintage College T-Shirt

These shirts are just over the line in my mind from tacky into classy. I don’t like that they are artificially distressed, I think a good college shirt should earn that look from years of misuse. But, I do like the look, and the fact that there are no words, only a logo, on these shirts makes me like them enough to feature in this post.

Logo Grill Covers

Barbecuing isn’t a sport, it’s just cooking outside, but for sports fans, the two activities have somehow become inextricably linked. Throwing a college logo onto a grill cover is a low-cost, unobtrusive way to honor that link.

Barbecue Set

While you’re out there barbecuing, you will have removed the cover. I hope you do, anyway, otherwise the smell of all that burning plastic is definitely going to attract some unwanted attention from your neighbors and possibly the police or an environmental protection agency. Anyway, with the cover, you’re removing your ability to rep your school. Not to worry! Use these grill tools. I particularly like the subtle embossing of the logo on the spatula. That and the team color on the handle last long after those stickers have fallen off.

Old-School Wall Bottle Openers

Other than cooking outside, drinking beer is another activity closely related to watching sports. I’m a sucker for these type of bottle opener that hangs on your wall or doorframe. For some reason, I find opening a bottle on an opener like this 1,000 times more satisfying than using a handheld opener.

Tailgating Table

Okay, I’ll admit that this folding table is firmly on the tacky side of the fence. There’s just something about it that I like. I think maybe, particularly with the Clemson paw print on it, it looks very soft and cozy to sit at. In any event, used solely for tailgating at games, I see no reasonable objection to owning one!

The Best JELL-O Mold

I cannot imagine a better gift for a sports fan than these JELL-O molds. Look at them. They are so retro, so kitchy, so hysterical. If they had my team, I would totally buy a few of them and enjoy eating jiggly, delicious little college logos on game day.

What is a pick and roll in basketball?

Dear Sports Fan,

What is a pick and roll in basketball? I hear about it all the time when I watch NBA games but I don’t think that I understand it 100%. Can you help?

Thanks,
Rosie

Dear Rosie,

The pick and roll is a two-person basketball play which seeks to create a little room between one of the offensive players and the defensive player who is guarding them. The pick and roll is one of the foundational tactics in basketball. Understand it once and you’ll begin to see it and variations of it all over the place. Or, at least, you’ll see it a lot in basketball games. Maybe once in a while at the grocery store or in the subway too. The principles of the pick and roll are the same principles that underly a lot of other tactical decisions in basketball, so understanding the pick and roll will help you make sense out of basketball in general. Let’s get down to business. We’ll start with the principles that underly the pick and roll.

Principle 1: It’s very hard to get away from a defender in basketball. Basketball courts are not that big and, at least in high-quality leagues like the NBA, WNBA, FIBA, and college basketball, opponents are of relative equality in terms of athletic ability. Sometimes, if there’s a scramble on one end of the court and the defense gets the ball and is able to quickly transition to offense, you will see players running on offense free of a defender, but most of the time, defensive players are never more than a step from an offensive player.

Principle 2: It’s hard to score if a defender is close by. This is true at all levels of basketball. In my own rec-league basketball experience, I get almost totally paralyzed trying to shoot if a defender is near me. Even professionals find it much more difficult to score with a defender close to them. Even if the defender doesn’t block the shot, they will likely be able to “alter” the shot (force you to shoot at an angle you’re not comfortable with) by “contesting it” by sticking their hand in your face or near the natural release point of your shot as you’re shooting.

One natural conclusion from these two principles is that any tactic that creates even a little bit of separation between an offensive player and her defender is a valuable one. The pick and roll does this through creating an obstacle on the court that defenders have to run around. The play involves two attackers and two defenders. One attacker has the ball and one does not. The offensive player without the ball stands still (basketball rules prohibit intentionally getting in someone’s way unless you’re standing still.) The player with the ball dribbles quickly towards the player who has transformed into an obstacle and passes very, very close to him or her, on the side farthest from the basket they are trying to score on. This is the first half of the play. The player on offense without the ball has just executed a pick by standing still and allowing the ball-handler to run around him. Before we move on to the second half, let’s examine what this first half has done.

The first half of the pick and roll puts the defender who is marking the player with the ball in quite a pickle. If he follows the player with the ball around the obstacle of the player setting the pick, this motion will likely put him a step behind the player with the ball instead of a step ahead, with his body between the player with the ball and the basket he is defending. This is called going “over” the pick. If she chooses to go “under” the pick, this means that instead of chasing the player with the ball, she’s sliding to the other side of the pick and hopes to catch up to the player with the ball on the other side. This is risky because in that second it takes to regain coverage of the player with the ball, the ball-handler may be able to shoot or pass the ball or change direction or pace and drive to the basket unopposed. The last option is for the defenders to switch which player they are guarding. The defender following the ball-handler takes the player setting the pick while the defender on the player setting the pick slides off of that assignment and onto guarding the ball-handler as they come around the pick. The potential downside of this is that usually the picking player is a bigger player than the one handling the ball and therefore has a bigger defender. Switching often gives the offense a mismatch (or two, really) with a bigger, slower player guarding a small, fast one and a smaller player trying to match the physicality of a bigger player.

Now that you understand the plight a good pick puts a basketball defense in, we can move on to the second half of the pick and roll, the roll. As the ball-handler goes around the player setting the pick, the player setting the pick turns and runs towards the basket. That’s the roll. This serves to turn up the pressure on the defense even farther and opens up an easy option to score for the offense. The rolling motion forces a defender to go with the picking player, who, until recently was just a static obstacle. That way, regardless of what the defense does, but particularly if the defense switches, there’s a good chance that the player who just set the pick will be open for a pass that leads him towards the basket for an easy layout.

If you want to see how these options work in real, three dimension life, this instructional video filmed by the 1980s Boston Celtics is an awesome way to learn:

Finally, why is it called a pick and roll? According to the Online Etymology Dictionary this use of the word pick could come from its meaning of “a blow with a pointed instrument.” In basketball terms, the pointed instrument is the player setting the pick and the blow is the easy basket that often follows. As for the roll? Well, that’s the motion of the player who sets a pick and then rolls their body towards the basket.

Thanks,
Ezra Fischer

What does it mean to throw the ball away in football?

Dear Sports Fan,

What does it mean to throw the ball away in football? I’ve been watching some football and I’m not totally ignorant about the game, but this phrase has always confused me. I know there’s a foul for intentional grounding. How can throwing the ball away be a good thing if there’s a foul for it?

Thanks,
Diane

Dear Diane,

Throwing the ball away in football is what a smart quarterback does when he scans the field and realizes that none of his wide receivers or tight ends are far enough from a defender to safely throw the ball to. The cost of an unsafe throw can be very big. If a defender catches the ball (called an interception,) the quarterback’s team loses possession of the ball. On the other hand, throwing the ball where no one can get it simply results in an incompletion. It wastes one of the offensive team’s downs (or chances they have to advance the ball) but that’s usually not a big loss. The trick is, as you mentioned, that sometimes simply throwing the ball to no one is illegal and the cost for being caught intentionally grounding the ball is severe. Let’s go over the rule and then look at ways that football team’s skirt the rule so that they can throw the ball away without being penalized.

The intentional grounding rule reads as follows:

Intentional grounding will be called when a passer, facing an imminent loss of yardage due to pressure from the defense, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion.
Intentional grounding will not be called when a passer, while out of the pocket and facing an imminent loss of yardage, throws a pass that lands at or beyond the line of scrimmage, even if no offensive player(s) have a realistic chance to catch the ball (including if the ball lands out of bounds over the sideline or end line).

So, what does all that mean? First of all, it establishes the rule as subjective. It’s up to the referees to decide whether or not a pass has a “realistic chance of completion.” This is a funny thing when you think about it, because football players make catches routinely that have fans leaping out of their chairs and screaming in disbelief. One of the reasons to watch football is to see great athletes doing things that seem unrealistic. The subjectivity is necessary because the intent of the rule is to penalize quarterbacks for intentionally throwing the ball where no one can get it. So, we assume that football refs are used to what players can and can’t do, and we move on. The second thing this rule does is that it carves out a scenario where it’s legal for a quarterback to throw the ball fifty yards up into the stands if they feel like it. If the quarterback is “out of the pocket” he’s allowed to do this. The pocket is defined as an area starting where the offensive line lines up for a play and extending back from the left tackle’s left butt cheek and the right tackle’s right butt cheek into infinity. All a quarterback needs to do to be within his legal rights to throw the ball away is to run outside of that area and make sure he throws it past where the ball was when the play started. This keeps him from throwing it straight into the ground but it’s not much of a safeguard because quarterbacks can almost always reach the sidelines with a throw, even if they are actively being mugged.

Nonetheless, you’ll hear commentators complementing quarterbacks who throw the ball away from the pocket or chiding those who don’t all the time. This is because it’s totally common and accepted for a quarterback to throw the ball far enough from a receiver that it’s going to be safely incomplete 99.5% of the time but near enough to a receiver to establish the plausible deniability needed to avoid a penalty. As you watch football, you’ll learn to identify these times. A common scenario is a screen pass where the offensive team pretends to block as if they were protecting the quarterback but do it poorly enough to invite the defenders to overextend towards him. Then the quarterback is supposed to flip the ball over to a running back lurking several yards to the side, hopefully unnoticed by the defense. If any defenders catch on to this or “sniff it out” in football talk, the quarterback is in a tough spot because he’s about to get smashed by defenders who have been intentionally allowed a clear path to him but he has nowhere to safely throw the ball. Quarterbacks in this situation routinely throw the ball hard into the ground near the running back’s feet. Everyone knows he meant to do this but everyone also accepts that he won’t be penalized for it because the running back, acting as a potential pass receiver, was in the area where the ball hit the ground.

There’s a sports cliche that suggests that “if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” Throwing the ball away lives in that murky grey area between legal and illegal. It’s an area that leaves fans of a quarterback who throws the ball away feeling proud of him without qualms, even while fans of their opponents are righteously indignant. Or at least they would be if they even thought about it anymore. Most fans have long ago stopped worrying about this inherently unfair aspect of football.

If you enjoyed this post, you might find value in my Guide to Football for the Curious. Get a copy here!

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer

Thanksgiving is coming. Can't you smell the… football?

The turkey’s in the oven. Your family has descended on the house like a horde of benevolent Vikings. The table is set, even the kids on down at the end of the room. Everything is under control. It’s time to take a deep breath, pour yourself a drink, and go visit with your loved ones. Thanksgiving is underway.

Wait, what is this? Everyone is gathered around the television. They’re watching football! Chomping away on pretzels, yammering about third downs, fantasy points, and encroachment. Gah! Every year this happens. It’s not that you hate football, it’s just that you’ve never understand what’s so special about it. Why do people like it so much? How does it work anyway?

Most years, you’d simply slip out and go smoke a cigar on the roof with Aunt Erma or talk gardening with Cousin Salvador. This year is different. This year, you have a secret weapon, an ace up your sleeve. This year, you read the special Thanksgiving 2014 edition of Dear Sports Fan’s Guide to Football for the Curious. You start out slow, with a few nods and grunts of agreement. Then you break out some technical talk about going for it on fourth down or whether you like the over or under in the game. Pretty soon you’re identifying defensive formations and making accurate predictions about whether you’re seeing a run play or a pass play developing. Your family is impressed.

Stay and watch or leave to enjoy some down time with a book and that pecan pie. You don’t need to watch football on Thanksgiving but it’s a big part of the holiday for some of the people you love and now you know all about it. Of course if you’re the sports fan in your family, you may not need this guide. Now that you understand a little bit of how it might feel to be a non-sports fan at your family gathering, it’s your responsibility to (kindly and thoughtfully) help include them.

For a free copy of the Guide to Football for the Curious with bonus Thanksgiving 2014 content, subscribe to the email newsletter here.

What Makes College Basketball Different?

Dear Sports Fan,

I’ve been watching March Madness and College Basketball looks really different from the NBA Basketball that my sister usually watches. Can you tell me what some of the differences are?

Thanks,
Patricia

Dear Patricia,

One of the reasons why people love college basketball is exactly what you’ve identified — that it is very different from the NBA. The NBA for the most part, is dominated by a single strategy, the pick-and-roll. Critics of the professional game will say that teams just run eighteen variations on the pick and roll from different spots on the floor. I love the college offensive schemes:

Dribble drive – a really quick guy beats his guy off the dribble, but he’s not talented enough to finish, so he kicks it out to someone whose defender is collapsing to contain the drive, except HE’S a 17 percent three point shooter, so he drives, draws more defense, kicks out, etc etc – until the whole offensive side of the court collapses in on itself like a dying star and it’s a mad scrum around the offensive glass (Memphis, Kentucky, kind of Syracuse and Michigan)
Motion – pass around the perimeter, set half-ass, off-ball screens and hope that a defender gets confused, goes the wrong way and leaves someone open for a three-pointer or a back-cut; if the defense is disciplined enough not to make a mistake, wait til 5 seconds are left and pass to your one on one offensive threat and let him take a bad shot (Pitt)
“I have an athletic big guy” – a team lucks into a really really tall/wide guy who’s athletic and can therefore dominate since that’s so rare in college ball, so they just give him the fucking ball (Kind of Miami/Indiana)
Tom Izzo – run, throw the ball up on the glass, go get it and mug anyone who gets in your way (Michigan State)
Wisconsin – motion + tall white coaches sons who can shoot with improbable range (Wisconsin)
Flex – the only offense where success is measured not by the number of points scored but by the number of picks set in a given possession (Gonzaga)
Coach K – one of the few offenses based solely on moral superiority/smugness (Duke)
Zone attack – when facing the 2-3 zone, pass the ball around the perimeter repeatedly and have one player flash into the the “soft spot” (essentially at the foul line, behind the 2 and in front of the 3) – get him the ball, then watch him panic as the entire zone collapses on him and hope he makes the right pass (anyone playing Syracuse)
Transition – RUN!!!!!!! (VCU)
Three point – Whatever happens, shoot three pointers. Miss them, get long rebounds, shoot more three pointers. Pull up in transition, shoot them contested, shoot on the move…just keep shooting. Defender in your face? No worries – step back as far as you need to.

Enjoy the Final Four games tonight,
Dean Russell Bell