(The following owes a great deal to a conversation with Robert Mays before his recent post on Grantland.)
In some sense, the outcome of Stanford's game against Oregon earlier this month was moot.
Few games have had a larger impact on this season of college football, with two highly ranked teams (Nos. 3 and 6 in the AP poll) battling it out for an inside track to the conference title game and, perhaps, the national championship game. (It didn't end up being as meaningful as we thought at the time, with Oregon losing to USC a week later. Then again, neither did The Game of the Century.)
There are also the points that Robert Mays smartly addressed in his Grantland post -- that this was the historical apex of Stanford football, higher even than the days of John Elway, and could stay that way even down the line. The game could have implications for the university's recruiting, for its national reputation and exposure, for its position in next season's preseason poll, which, as others have pointed out, carries an inordinate amount of weight.
For all that was made of this game and its potential impact on the legacy of Andrew Luck, however, this game, I imagine, matters very little.
College football is a funny thing. It bears a striking resemblance to the pro game, with a few mostly minor exceptions, and yet its experience -- the fanaticism, the fanfare, the narrative -- would suggest it to be an entirely different sport altogether. Despite the crossover of players from one to the other, the threads tracing the histories of the two leagues (to take the word broadly) exist almost entirely separately. There is college football and pro football, collegians and professionals. Rarely -- in the imagined world of the fan, the way the audience perceives the overarching story of Sport, writ large -- do they overlap.
Yet it is that crossover of talent -- or perhaps pipeline would be a more apt description -- that makes the separation of the narratives so interesting. For the most part, we remember players as professionals or collegians, one or the other, though thousands played at both levels. Matt Leinart, for instance, will always be under center at USC, with Reggie Bush his "former USC star" compatriot.* Peyton Manning, despite his wildly successful college career at Tennessee (39 wins, 11,201 passing yards), is a Colt first, second and third.
In the cases of the supremely talented, the truly elite players, the NFL legacy wins out -- Manning, for instance, or Marshall Faulk, a Ram, and even Colt, before an Aztec. But even a number of players who had little (or a negative) impact at the professional level aren't remembered for their successes at the university level -- but we recall with great clarity their subsequent flameouts. Lawrence Phillips, Brian Bosworth, Akili Smith and Cade McNown all fit the bill, with Ryan Leaf perhaps their posterchild. Even though he played more seasons at LSU than in Oakland, JaMarcus Russell is more Raider than Tiger. The mere expectation of pro success was enough to outshine and usurp their contributions as amateurs.
Partly we can attribute this to the relative audiences of the two games, with the NFL possessing a larger and more mainstream audience and a firmer hold on the national consciousness. Partly we can attribute this to the very nature of college football -- that it is seen as a stepping stone, by players, teams and even some fans, to the ranks of the paid. Partly we can attribute this to the segregation of football's audience, that a fan can quite easily follow either college football or pro football alone, without ever checking up on the other. (Indeed, one can sense something resembling resentment from some fans just for the effort of trying to engage in both, as if that somehow lessens that individual's "true fandom.")
But there is no perfect explanation, either, as the other sport with an extremely popular college version (basketball), which similarly operates as a minor league to the pros and has a largely separate audience, does a much better job of integrating the narratives.** Kareem is a Laker (and Buck) as well as a Bruin. Jordan himself exists both as Bull and Heel. And the same goes for the busts, taken at large: Len Bias lives on in the minds of both Celtics and Terrapins fans.
Quick: Can you name the Heisman winners who are also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame?
It's a bit of trivia that I enjoy trotting out from time to time, and I think it does a good job of illustrating the point. In chronological order: SMU Mustang Doak Walker, Notre Dame's Paul Hornung, Dallas Cowboy Roger Staubach, Buffalo Bill O.J. Simpson, Dallas Cowboy Tony Dorsett, Houston Oiler Earl Campbell, Oakland Raider Marcus Allen and Detroit Lion Barry Sanders. Did you break them down like I did? Can you even name the corresponding college or pro team with each player? To my mind, the only one who has a legitimate stake in both worlds is Simpson ... and his status in each is outshined by his legal travails. Allen, in fact, is probably known as a Chief before Trojan comes to mind. And this is the group that is supposed to represent the best of both worlds! (Interestingly, the two that I think of as college players, Walker and Hornung, were finished playing by the first Super Bowl***, the era when the pro game began to take off.)
Because of the expectations for Luck, he hasn't truly been a college player for the last two seasons. Just look at the way commentators talk about him during Stanford's games: "future No. 1 overall pick." Even should he disappoint at the next level, by poor play or, more likely, injury, he will be remembered more as a bust than a stellar college quarterback. Nothing about that game with Oregon will change his story, which has already started being written.
I hate to end with an aside, but I feel it is worth mentioning. Had Stanford beaten Oregon and ended its season with anything less than a national championship (or perhaps even then), the Cardinal's signature win, 10 years down the line, may still have been against USC, despite its postseason ban and loss to Arizona State (in the midst of a "down" era for the team). The cultural cachet that comes with knocking off the Trojans, I suspect, trumps even a victory over a championship contender. Unless Oregon can sustain its recent success -- doubtful, and perhaps even then -- then a win in that game may not have meant all that much long term.
Such is the business of writing the narrative of Sport -- building teams up and tearing them down, using the future to justify an interpretation of the past (and vice versa), bending reality to fit interpretation -- where legacy can mean more than anything.
Footnotes
* -- These are important cases to note -- that, clearly, the usurpation is only guaranteed for the great, whereas at the lower levels of the spectrum, the construction of the narrative is, to some degree, anyway, based on merit -- to dismiss the possibility that any player that moves on to the NFL is thought of as a pro first. Vince Young, who interestingly enough fits fairly well with the busts mentioned later, seems, to my mind, still thought of more as a collegian, for instance, though I wonder if he might be one whose narrative is revised down the line, once we forget how exciting his Longhorns were.
** -- I should note that I mean this historically. The era of straight-to-the-pros and one-and-done has changed this somewhat.
*** -- Hornung was injured early in the season and did not see action in the game. He attempted a comeback in training camp with the Saints but never played again.
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