College Football

I was going to bust Grim's chops about how the SEC teams never play away games against top opponents, by shifting them to "neutral" sites a block away from their campus. But William and Mary played a top 20 school today, and the result wasn't pretty.

I'll tell you an interesting story.  When I arrived in the autumn of 1971, there wasn't 1-A and 1-AA, FBS and FCS. We played a few top teams every year, seldom with much success.  But Lou Holtz was the coach (Marv Levy was the coach before him*), fresh off W&M going to the Tangerine Bowl (!!! But we got killed). I recall an interview with him in the Flat Hat,** with Holtz talking seriously about W&M being just a few good recruits away from contending for a national championship.  This was clearly insane, as our athletes got only the slightest favoritism. Duke, the Ivies, and the Little Ivies took all the best ones, but it is the sort of insanity you actually seek in a football coach.

He, uh, left the next year.

*We have done way better on coaches than players.  The two NFL coaches who were players in my era, Mark Duffner and Ivan Fears, I knew slightly.  At a school of 4,000, you had only one degree of separation from just about anyone.  My freshman girlfriend knew Duffner well, but I never did. His wife graduated my year but I can't place her.  Mike Tomlin and Sean McDermott came later, and there are a few others I know little about.

**When you go to a school with that much history, there are always cool little sidebars.  The Flat Hat Club was a secret society that was the predecessor of Phi Beta Kappa. Thomas Jefferson was a member.