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| Greatest Tackle in the History of Mankind |
Well this was the first day of the 2012 college football season and instead of talking about all of the action from today I am going to focus on some of the games that meant most to me. As a lifelong fan of the Naval Academy it was heart breaking get destroyed in Ireland against Notre Dame. Oddly it seemed like Navy was the Irish and Notre Dame were the British. Penn State played its first game under new head coach Bill O'Brien and although they started off hot, they were just not able to finish. Meanwhile, the Gettysburg Bullets started their season off on a high note with a score that was just a little lopsided.
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| Ricky Dobbs |
Navy's performance in their 50-10 loss was surprising to me, since my grandfather went their and my Dad went to Penn State but hated Joe Paterno, I always rooted for Navy and I just must have been lucky the past few years. Craig Candeto was the first Navy quarterback that I deeply remembered and that was because of his performance in an Army-Navy game quite a few a years ago and then he was followed by the solid but not quite Candeto Aaron Polanco, he was the quarterback on some of the more successful Navy teams but it wasn't because of him. After that there was Lamar Owens who had real ability and a real team behind him. He later got in trouble with the law for an unspeakable good, but no one wants to think of one of their child hood idles as a sinner, so I have no problem forgetting about it and just looking at his accomplishments as quarterback. After Lamar there was the Hawaiian that will be known as Kaipo-Noa, who I spent some of the best Saturdays of my childhood idolizing. His back-ups name was Bryant and that is all I remember about him except for that he would come in late in games when Kaipo was tired and do alright, he was such an asset they had him play slotback and even return punts. Ricky Dobbs was next in line and he was the most skilled of the bunch, the one problem was that his team wasn't as good as previous incarnations and coach Paul Johnson left the new coach just wasn't able to do the job.
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| Craig Candeto |
But coaches and quarterbacks weren't the only assets on the Navy teams during those years. Fullbacks such as Kyle Eckel, Adam Ballard, and Eric Kettani were such stalwarts in the backfield that it really helped the quarterback use the option offense to the best of their abilities. Slotbacks like Reggie Campbell and the current senior Gee Gee Greene will always have a place in my heart. I watched them play so many games and I might not remember all of them but I do remember them losing to Notre Dame on a last second field goal even though they blocked the kick. I remember when they sacked Jimmy Claussen for that one win (as well as Ram Vela diving for that tackle). I also remember them beating Mizzouri and losing to Texas Tech. I also remember their first lost to a service academy in 4 years last year (I think it was last year) and I will always remember this game against Notre Dame. They no longer had that swagger about them like they use to, no matter what the score was they would try to kill the ball carrier on each play but it just doesn't look like the same team. The kids use to be hungry and now they are always outmatched. Sure, they were always slower and weaker, but now they don't even look like they compete. Notre Dame may be a good team, but no Navy team I ever loved would lose like that.
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| Bill O'Brien |
Off to Penn State now, since now half of me is a Penn State fan, I didn't get to watch much of the game but I'm sure the score doesn't tell the whole story. Penn State still has heart and talent, they just only have 30 minutes of it. There is no doubt that Penn State's starting 22 is better than Ohio's 22, its just that in football you need about 22 guys on each side of the ball to win the game. PSU just couldn't rotate their defensive line and that ended up hurting them in the second half (almost as much as the fact that their quarterback sucks). This might be a long year for Penn State fans but at least the kids are trying and the school may have gotten the short end of the stick not just on the punishment they were handed but on the people they chose to trust, the same thing could of happened to Bobby Bowden but it didn't.
Off to my true team, the Gettysburg Bullets. The only way to describe going to a Gettysburg College football game is to watch alumni talk about how much money their parents spent to send them there. Seriously, that is what this school is famous for, sure we are all going to have jobs when we graduate because this is a really good school, but everyone here is either upper middle class or upper middle class. Now the game was a blowout because it was Misericordia's first football game ever. I give the kids credit just for going out there every play they were getting stomped on. My floormate/middle linebacker Kodie had a great day (I'm sure kids at Penn State could say they live on the same floor as a football player). The score was 43-0 at halftime which I left at then watched the soccer team win 2-0.
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| Yes, we have really ugly uniforms |
It is now safe to say that I am a Gettysburg fan and a Penn State observer, I don't think that I will be rooting for Navy anymore just because they are not the team that I use to root for. I don't know how Gettysburg season will shape up but now I am a part of that upper middle class G-Burg tradition, so I will root for them the whole way. Penn State will just be interesting to watch and I still think I will root for Navy when they play on the 15th, I just don't think I'll watch them play another game all year.
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