By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
When I heard late Saturday that Georgia had defeated Florida State, 63-3, in football’s Gator Bowl, I wondered if the game had been played in Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
Pardon my sarcasm, but Wounded Knee came to mind because that was where the last massacre of Native Americans happened. That shameful incident in 1890 claimed the lives of 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Florida State likes to brag about how the Seminole tribe in Florida continues to let the school use Seminole as its athletic mascot, despite outcries about political correctness. After Saturday’s gridiron disaster, the tribe may want to reclaim its name.
Georgia and Florida State, despite having outstanding win-loss records this season, were passed over for the national championship series and ended up in the second level bowl game. When the last player left the field in Miami, both teams went home with sparkling 13-1 records but college football may never be the same.
Coaches, former players, the media, and a handful of politicians began calling for a significant overhaul of the sport. FSU had nearly 20 players refuse to participate in the game for various reasons, leaving the Seminoles with inexperienced players in several key positions.
Anti-trust and monopoly issues are being raised in the face of the impact of the transfer portal, inequitable NIL agreements, the death of the PAC 12 conference to form a mega football conference and the influence of ESPN in game scheduling and other football decisions.
Michigan, Alabama, Washington, and Texas competed on New Year’s Day and the two winners play Jan. 8 for the national championship.
Sadly, the bottom line is that college football has become a smaller version of the National Football League where better players are better paid, where historic allegiances to communities are meaningless, where college athletes may move to the real professional league or another college team at any time, and where everything is for sale.
Case in point – The Chiefs and Bengals played last Sunday on GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.
GEHA? That’s what my grandfather used to yell at his mule.
(Contact Keith at keithkappes@gmail.com.)
