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Chew on these things...
I was sorry to see Ohio State lose to Texas last night, but by no means ashamed. The Buckeyes were an underdog going into the game, especially after losing so disastrously in the last two National Championship games and having to hear about how Ohio State--nay, the entire Big 10--is too slow to compete with, well, anyone who's any good, I thought this good, exciting game would put that kind of talk to rest.
After all, during the first half, the Ohio State defense looked fast enough to hold a big offense to just a field goal. Beanie Wells looked fast enough to average 6.6 yards per carry (he didn't look tough enough to do it the whole game, but that's another issue), compared to 3.8 yards/carry for each of the Texas running backs. That's not to denigrate the Texas team, mind you--their receivers (especially Crosby) showed that they were plenty quick, but my point is that Ohio State wasn't so slow that they couldn't hang with Texas. They didn't lose for lack of speed, so I thought I might have at least a 24-hour period in which I didn't have to hear about Ohio State's--or even the Big 10's--lack of speed. But no, I have to read some joker over at CBS Sportsline talking about the "tortoise-slow" Ohio State team.
The whole issue, though, has me thinking about something else though: why must we play every bowl game in a warm state? Why does USC basically get a home game every time they're in the Rose Bowl? Think of the most famous games in NFL history: "The Ice Bowl" at Lombardi field, the playoff game between the Patriots and Raiders (famous for "the tuck rule" and the close game in blizzard conditions), or "The Freezer Bowl"between Cincinnati and San Diego. Even outside of these act-of-god-level winter weather emergencies, many of the most famous NFL playoff games have been in cold weather, and aside from the tight score and the importance of the game at the time, isn't one of the things we admire about the athletes who played in those games their toughness? Those games would not have been the same in souther California or played inside of a dome, regardless of whether the outcome had been the same or not.
Getting back to my point, though: it seems pretty evident that playing football games in domes or in warm-weather venues tends to favor a particular style of play based on speed and quickness. In the NFL, the most famous example was probably St. Louis's "Greatest Show on Turf." This is most true of the teams playing on synthetic fields, but the same thing applies, I think, to teams that simply play all the time in excellent weather conditions. Often, such teams rely on a precision passing attack--often the first thing to go in inclement weather! So why is it that post-season college football games favor one type of team rather than another? A power running game with a solid defense is a good formula for winning football games, but this becomes even more true when the going gets tough--when it's snowing and blowing and cold, that's when the big maulers on the offensive line and the bowling-ball running backs really shine. In other words, that's when the kind of teams that we generally find in the Big 10 come out to play.
I'm not saying that OSU beats LSU or Florida if the game is played up north, but those become very different games, don't they? At the very least, they become more the types of games that Ohio State likes to play, even if those other teams would ultimately have proven superior even in colder conditions. My question still stands: why should we favor one style of play over the others? The big boys in the NFL are still playing games as far north as Green Bay and Foxboro (well, not this year they weren't--as far north as Pittsburgh, anyway), so the college teams certainly could, especially since many of those players aspire to play in those games next year or soon thereafter. Why not start now?
The NFL is better in this regard, in that "homefield advantage" can dictate field conditions (remember all the talk a few years ago about how Indianapolis would need homefield advantage to beat the Patriots...?), but when it comes to the Super Bowl itself, we have the same bias, and I can't say I like it there very much either.
Of course, College Football can't even get it right when it comes to having playoffs, so I don't expect that mixing in cold-weather sites to the Bowl Games will get any traction.
And, since I know most of my regular readers have virtually no interest in any of the above, I'll share two of the items that made for a good meal this evening. The recipe I won't be sharing is the one for bread from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, since it's a) somewhat complicated and b) totally copyright infringement. I also won't share the ice cream recipe, since you'd need some kind of ice cream maker, and if you have that, you probably already have a similar recipe for French Vanilla ice cream. Sandwiched in between them, as it were, were Sauteed Baby Bella Mushrooms and, um, some kind of Broccoli stir-fried-ish thing:
Thaw out one package of frozen broccoli (or use fresh, but we had frozen). In a few tablespoons of olive oil, sautee approximately one teaspoon of red pepper flakes (more or less to taste) and 3 or 4 cloves of garlic. When the garlic is cooked to golden, add the broccoli. Mix thoroughly and cook to heat through and let the flavors blend. Add sea salt as well as pepper to taste. The sea salt gives a great burst of saltiness.