HACKING THE GAME, COLLEGE EDITION

The NFL edition of this is only semi-serious (though we think the three downs rule is a real, live idea,) but the college edition would include much of the same up to and including the three downs rule and two forward passes on a single play. We thought about working in some of the A-11's more choice installations, but frankly the A-11 may be a step too far for even our chaos tooth's unending hunger for disorder and madness, since once you start monkeying around with the eligibility rules re: linemen and receivers, we may be straining the definition of the word "football"* itself.

*Soccer fans would argue we're already doing this, and that is a fair point.

Like all of you we just want to see what Mike Leach or Dana Holgorsen would do with the opportunity to throw two passes per play. The officiating discussion is entirely separate, of course, but while we're at it the most noxious rule in college football will kick in next year so get ready to get very, very tired of discussing it already: the celebration penalty that will result in touchdowns being called back, a violation of both logic and style. Messing around with the game is fine, but it's the height of stupidity to suggest that play on the field should be evaluated based on nebulous aesthetics that referees will have to determine in the course of live action on the field. 

Realistically, this will probably only happen three or four times in the course of the entire season. Hopefully it will be with a huge game on the line on an iffy call made by a middle-aged white referee calling the twitch of a young African-American kid's arm on a long TD run. The odds, by major conference, of this happening HAHAH IT'S GOING TO BE THE SEC. The Pac-10, which has not used a rule book in over 50 years due to a Western resistance to East Coast authority and conformity, will continue to just make shit up as it goes, while the Big Ten will flag smiles, eyebrow raises, and other extravagant displays of attention-hogging emotion.