Fitz and crew getting snarky again
- Thread starter shakes3858
- Start date
This time it's about "Watch lists." Apparently, Northwestern has released their very own!!
Spectacular. Where did that come from?
Got it. Still hilarious to me. Preseason watch lists are ridiculously unnecessary.
My personal favorite is the annual list for the Rimington Award, given to the top center in the nation. There are about 102 returning starters at center assuming a normal distribution across five classes and 128 D1 teams (and it's probably not completely normal, as there are usually more upperclassmen starting than underclassmen) and the Rimington "watch list" is usually about 40 players long. This year I count 62 BCS players on the watch list (63 total if you include Appalachian State's Jesse Chapman).
Instead of "watch list" they're pretty close to being able to say "here's a list of the returning starters at center playing D1 football." Hilarious.
Hmmm.... I may be reading too much into this, but I find it very interesting that Alviti is listed second ahead of both Zack Oliver and Clayton Thorson.This time it's about "Watch lists." Apparently, Northwestern has released their very own!!
Preseason watch lists are designed to promote interest in the sport that pays everyone's salary in NU athletics. I'm fine with this dig and actually like it, although it wasn't that long ago that NU sports was touting Jackson's watchlist appearance...can't have it both ways. Either you like the benefit that watchlists bring your team/players or you don't.
I didn't actually take it as making fun of watch lists. In fact doing so in such a fashion would be weird, cause it would be like saying these guys couldn't ALL be good. I took it as "all of these guys are players to watch and have potential"
I was thinking the same thing, Villox. Perhaps a subtle form of motivation for the guys who seem buried on the depth chart.
I'm guessing whatever student intern created this needed another name to make the five columns even and thought it would be funny. But Willie could probably use some muscle building on his legs. He's very top heavy.
Yes. This is exactly what it is. It's a gesture of appreciation for everybody on the team. Sheesh!
My HS coach used to do this and it drove reporters crazy. A reporter would ask him how he thought one of our stars did, and he'd rattle off the names of half the team and claim they did just as well, also. Ask him who the stars would be going into the season and he'd rattle off the name of every senior on the team. Articles would have entire paragraphs filled with all the seniors names. Julescat will vouch for this. No individual was ever singled out for recognition, even if they'd scored 5 TDs or had 4 interceptions.
the comment from NU athletics on the FB page said exactly this (with regards to column length)
More evidence that they weren't being snarky, as they're now touting Justin Jackson being added to the Doak Walker watch list.
http://nusports.sidearmsports.com/news/2015/7/16/FB_0716151821.aspx
http://nusports.sidearmsports.com/news/2015/7/16/FB_0716151821.aspx
This time it's about "Watch lists." Apparently, Northwestern has released their very own!!
I think this is hilarious. Well done, NUSports!
I do indeed vouch for Glades on this. And he is way, way right that it drove the newspaper guys nuts. Of course, on Glades senior year HS team there were so many bona fide stars that pretty much anyone named was actually great. On some of Rex's not-quite-as-well-endowed teams his sharing of credit through the entire team was clearly to emphasize what is obviously true - football is the ultimate team game.
I always like thinking back to the 1973 Wheaton North Falcons. The Machine.
