But you and I probably AGREE on more even on this issue than we DISAGREE.
selmaborntidefan, you and I will just have to agree to disagree. I agree with GMac. For today's players, I think it's more about NIL and promoting their individual status and the transfer portal than about being part of a team and learning the basics and playing with class. Today it seems to be more about "me" and less about the "team."
THIS!!
This right here is what I was talking about with team chemistry.
THERE IS NONE!!
Okay, "none" is a strong word.
But Greg McElroy not one time ever could have had the thought in his mind, "You know, Julio is already a millionaire, and I'm the quarterback of the flagship university, and I can barely keep my eyes open." And let's not get into literalism because somebody is going to say something like, "McElroy's family is rich." Not really the point - pick a player, any player. You now have an entire team or a great portion of it that is getting paid and the lesser paid will always view the better paid with envy. That's not a reflection on anything except their humanity.
And I don't think the quality of play is better.
The overall quality of football played by every single player in CFB is SUBSTANTIALLY better than it was a century ago is what I'm talking about. It changes so quickly that Tom Osborne himself said when asked in 1983 - and he was the OC of that school - that his 1983 team would absolutely demolish Devaney's 1971 team. His 1995 team - 12 years later just like 83 vs 71 - would have absolutely murdered his 1983 team, and
not just because Lawrence Phillips was the backfield slasher.
It is indisputable that the quality of play goes up over time. That doesn't mean "the 2022 Georgia team is the greatest ever" because it happens in small increments, so small it cannot be seen. There's a rather large difference between the 2015 Alabama team (and how they won) and the 2020 team (and how they won), but most improvement is almost unnoticeable until the bigger picture.
So - NO - I'm NOT saying, "The 2023 Alabama team would massacre the 2016 team by 40 points," because they wouldn't. It would be reasonably close, 16 might even win.
Undisciplined mistakes, pre-snap penalties, taunting and smack talking is not a better quality than what we had back in "the good old days."
As opposed to Alabama and Mississippi State recording 17 fumbles in the 1981 game because both ran wishbones?
A number of those things have always happened or pretty much always. Larry Bird was one of the biggest trash talkers of all-time. But there was a key difference that the 1980s Miami Hurricanes pretended didn't actually exist:
Bird confined his trash talk to the playing field and only the opposition heard him.
In the days leading up to the 1993 Sugar Bowl, there was a ton of emphasis on "you know, Alabama talks trash, too." Yes - if one thinks there's a moral equivalence between Eric Curry telling Gino Torretta "I'm gonna be in your face all night" and Lamar Thomas setting his two national title rings before the interview stand saying, "The third ring will the icing on the cake" and questioning whether Alabama's secondary are even actual men....then yes, Alabama and Miami were one and the same. One is on the field that only the players hear and understood to be psychological, and the other is intended to demean, mock, and discredit BEFORE THE GAME is even played.
And btw - a lot of rules have now been put into place thanks to the juvenile delinquents that Jimmy Johnson unleashed on the world.
What happened to "win with class?" Why should we have to put up with taunting and "shushing" the opposing fans?
Might want to read how some of the very same musings on this board attempting to discredit Georgia's back-to-back are exactly the same verbiage with names changed that discredited Alabama. We can always name a team that an opponent didn't beat - that's not the same thing as "they're skeered," but it goes on on every board in the world including this one, which is one of the classier ones.
"Clemson never plays nobody."
"Georgia never plays nobody."
"If (name a team) played in the West, they wouldn't be national champions."
If I were a Georgia fan - and trust me, my handicap parking decal wasn't purchased with a diploma from Athens - I'd just say, "You're right. We didn't play anybody. We are the worst back-to-back national champions in CFB history. I'll take that over being the best team to not win every day of the year."
The players may be physically superior. No doubt they are bigger and stronger and faster. But that doesn't necessarily result in a superior product.
Again, we disagree here simply based on the evolution of sports over time - and I'm okay with that.
I grew up watching Coach Bryant's teams win national championships. They won by playing fundamentally sound football. They understood the basics and didn't make a ton of stupid mistakes. They played with class. They didn't taunt and trash talk their opponents.
I will concede that the quality of talent is significantly better. But the quality of play is not.
I'm not going to argue something I only caught the tail end of here, and we've stated our polite disagreement on one point out of three.
Thank you for being classy, and I hope my response is as well.
