College Football

Friday, January 13, 2017

Oh, what a week: The struggle of having too much to talk about

From left to right; Joe, Brandon, Ray, Dakota, Colin, Mitch
By: Joe Smeltzer
Hello, all. Originally, I had planned to write a recap of college footballs national title game between Clemson and Alabama. Well, circumstances got in the way, and I mean that as a positive, and somewhat of a negative

In case you've been in hibernation over the past few days, the Clemson Tigers are your National Champions. It was the greatest college football game of this decade, and if not for a man named Vince Young, might be my choice for the greatest college game of all time. For Clemson, they are the champs, and they deserve to be. For Alabama, they will win another title or three before St. Nick retires. I had planned to write more about this game, but circumstances got in the way. Ironically, the cause of those events were people who I was with when DeShaun Watson hit Hunter Renfrow in the end zone with 1 second on the clock on that night in Tampa.

At around 3:00 P.M. on Monday, I had just started my first shift at Waynesburg's Library for the second semester, when I got a call from my buddy, Mitch. He told me that a group of us were planning on going to Morgantown the next night to watch #10 West Virginia take on #1 Baylor. I couldn't pass up my chance to see a #1 team, so I said yes. Boy, what an experience this turned out to be.

We got to Morgantown around 5:00, and parked all the way at Chick-Fill-A, where, of course, we ate. When we got into the Coliseum, all I could think about was how I would handle the Musket of Mountaineer's Mascot. For those unfamiliar, West Virginia's mascot looks like this
, and he fires that gun off.  I, Joseph Arthur Smeltzer, do not like loud noises. Having not been to a WVU home game before, I did not know what to expect, so I brought my headphones with me.                      

The gun turned out not to be a problem, as I dodged it by going to the restroom during pregame introductions. This allowed me to enjoy the rest of the night. Previously, I have not seen this West Virginia team in action. I knew about their famed press, and I have always known that Bob Huggins is an excellent basketball coach. However, I was amazed by what I saw.

What I saw was a basketball team possessed. The intensity that West Virginia plays James Naismith's game with is something that brings a tear to my eye. The Bears turned the ball over a staggering 29 times, and the outcome was never in doubt. West Virginia won, and I got to be a part of this.



This is one of those weeks that makes me love, and hate running this blog at the same time. In one way, it's perfect, because there's so much to talk about (don't forget the Steelers as well, which I promised to do at the top of my national title preview) At the same time, there's so much to talk about, and it's hard to stay on top of all of it. So, since I was at the WVU game and it was unlike anything I've ever experienced before, I thought it was important to write about, even if that meant not talking in detail about one of the greatest college football games of my lifetime.

In my three years of writing for my sports blog, I've learned a lot. One of the main things I figured out is that, sometimes, important events happen in the world of sports over a week, and it can get very frustrating when a writer, which I am, is not able to write about these things separately. So, since I've already covered the national title game and my experience at West Virginia, I'll briefly touch on something else that happened this week.

The San Diego Chargers have moved to Los Angeles. It is a very sad case of sports being a business first and a game second. The Chargers were in SD for 56 years, and it's a shame that LA will get it's 75th professional sports team at the expense of  San Diego.

Sound brief? Well, that's because of the struggle. Since I am a freelance writer who does not get assignments in professional sports, I have to come up with my own topics. Usually, there is about one event a week that has my attention. Well, this week, I had three, and if I wrote about them all at the same time in great detail, it would be draining.

With all of that said, I am proud to be an aspiring sportswriter. It's better to have too much to talk about than too little, and I'm glad I could try my best to wrap all of this weeks excitement into one big post.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           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