All RSS feed content is owned by the respective 3rd party website.
“Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” — Vince Lombardi
“Just win, baby!” — Al Davis
It’s two days after the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, and it turns out that Vince Lombardi and Al Davis were wrong.
Winning isn’t everything. It isn’t the only thing. And it isn’t the singular reason for football players to draw breath.
The Arizona State Sun Devils lost the big game to the Texas Longhorns and with it, perhaps, the opportunity of a generation to win a college football national championship.
Desolation? Bleakness?
No. The Sun Devils are the talk of the sporting world.
Despite loss, Arizona State earned all the praise
Football fans and journalists across the country are ready to cattle-brand the Peach Bowl referees for not calling a blatant targeting penalty that was probably critical to the game’s outcome.
The commissioner of the Big 12 conference is demanding the College Football Playoff provide answers and clarity to this debacle. Social media sympathizers have called for the university to formally appeal or challenge the call in court, but so far, there’s no official word of that.
Further, Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark told the nation how proud he is of ASU — the game’s losers — for the way they represented the conference.
The Washington Post, a national newspaper, published a story headlined “Cam Skattebo (ASU’s running back) rescued the College Football Playoff by giving all he had.”
“This brother is special,” said ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith of Skattebo, an ethnic Swede, in what may become the greatest compliment of his career. “He was a man among boys.”
Skattebo was also named the game’s “Most Valuable Offensive Player” in defeat.
No one expected ASU to have this season
His team had merited little or no coverage at the start of the season. ASU was picked to finish last in the Big 12 (which, by the way, has 16 teams).
But by the end of the season, it had won the Big 12 and was asked to represent the little guys in the College Football Playoff.
There are two tiers in college football, the elite and the rabble. Cam Skattebo and his upstart Sun Devils represent the rabble, the bottom-feeders, the beggars for scraps and small compliments.
In the opening minutes of Wednesday’s Peach Bowl, it looked like the Texas defense had set up its smoker in the ASU backfield for a day of Texas barbeque.
There are some games that look over before they’ve barely begun, and this one had that look. ASU quarterback Sam Leavitt had no time to throw. Before he could start his rotations, he was line dancing with the Texas D.
Skattebo rattled off one 10-yard gain before he was crushed repeatedly in the backfield or on the line of scrimmage. No gain. The only way the Sun Devils were moving the ball was Longhorn penalties.
After two quick Texas touchdowns following a penalty-produced ASU field goal, it looked like these Sun Devils would actually cook up nicely into smoked brisket.
Sun Devils lost the game but won hearts
But Skattebo and ASU quarterback Sam Leavitt fought back with a determined Arizona State defense and turned a sure Texas route into a double-overtime thriller.
They ultimately lost the game, but they won the hearts of a national audience and media that could see the grit it required to come back in a game that began so lopsided, and in which the obstacles, the Texas defense line, seemed so formidable.
ASU’s young coach Kenny Dillingham was cast from the Al Davis-Vince Lombardi “winning is the only thing” mold.
“There are no moral victories when the season ends,” he said in his post-game press conference.
Letter:ASU deserves a parade, even if it lost
But even he seemed to change his mind as he kept talking.
“This should hurt and be painful. The locker room is dreadful right now, and it should be. If it wasn’t, something would be wrong.
“But at the same token, now that this is over, I really am going to challenge our guys to reflect on where it all started, because it really is remarkable.”
With a real playoff system, change is coming
It really is.
There are 134 college teams eligible to play for the College Football Championship. In 2025, one of the elite programs is going to win that prize.
But a school in Tempe started this season as less than an afterthought, a certifiable, no-miss loser — the dregs of their own conference and chum for the other 133 teams.
That team won their conference title and a chance to represent the non-powers in college football.
And they sent a message: With a real playoff system, parity is coming.
Just ask the Texas Longhorns. The beat up and bloodied Texas Longhorns.
They started the Peach Bowl with their Texas barbeque and today know better than anyone that they were only one bad call from becoming meat on the hoof.
Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic. Email him ph*******@*************ic.com.