Mailbag

Madden’s logic over upsets is, well, upsetting

In response to Lance Madden’s article “”Don’t get upset over upsets,”” it’s quite clear that the Wildcat’s assistant sports editor has a very limited knowledge of college football. The reason for the enormous amount of media hype covering Appalachian State’s victory over Michigan is that it was absolutely stunning and unprecedented.

Think about history and the circumstances: A Division I-AA team had never defeated an AP top-25 team, let alone a top-five team. So when a school goes into Michigan’s home turf of the Big House on opening day in front of 100,000-plus fans and defeats them, it’s kind of a big deal. To top that off, Michigan’s football team has the most WINS in the history of college football – yet it’ll be remembered for the most stunning LOSS.

What’s actually upsetting, Mr. Madden, is your ridiculous “”what if”” scenario about a 150-pounder tipping over a 400-pound sumo wrestler. That’s not an adequate enough example to lessen the impact of Appalachian State’s victory. Did your grandfather John Madden over there at NBC’s “”Sunday Night Football”” tell you to write that fourth grader-esque scenario? Whenever an unknown beats a top-tier team with the history of Michigan, it’s called an upset. It doesn’t matter which the better team was that day, or which had “”good fortune”” as you refer to it. You write, “”(…) but if the underdog is just that – an underdog – there must be a lucky rabbit’s foot in someone’s pocket, or the better team had an off-day.”” Did you honestly write about a rabbit’s foot? Do you actually think a rabbit’s foot determines games?

Why am I reading about 400-pound men and rabbit’s feet in an article about the greatest upset in the history of college football? Don’t try to downplay it: The fact is that a relative nobody beat No. 5, off-day or not. In addition to your brilliant words, “”All Madden,”” you’re also a funny guy because you make fun of Carlos Mencia in your commentary. Well, funny man, I think Mencia would get a lot of laughs by making fun of your logic in this porous article.

Vince De Luca
political science junior

Blogs

A terrible job for a football fan

I go into a sports blackout on the weekends because I work 4 p.m. to midnight as a security guard. Basically, I bicycle around a mall for eight hours. This means the football side of my brain is going into full-blown atrophy.

I managed to catch about five minutes of last week’s game against NAU by tailing a car with the radio on. After work, I get the highlights on ESPN Radio, head home and hit the sack. It’s a good arrangement for paying the rent, but a bad one for doing pretty much anything else (unless, of course, you really like bicycles – and watching parking lots).

After Saturday’s game, however, I thought, “”Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that I can’t catch the Wildcats in action.””

I got into my car after work Saturday night and turned on the radio fully expecting to get the rundown on Arizona’s victory against New Mexico. What I got instead was this:

“”Go home. Go to sleep. Try and put this behind you.””

Not very reassuring words from KFFN radio personality Jody Oehler. And sure enough, the ‘Cats had dropped the game.

I’m not an expert, but I know Arizona was supposed to beat New Mexico.

In fact, every single Wildcat sports writer (with the exception of our esteemed editor) picked Arizona to beat New Mexico during Friday’s staff meeting, which strikes as a decent gauge of conventional wisdom. That’s why this loss is so deflating.

The opener against Brigham Young seemed excusable. The game was on the road, the Cougars beat a Pac-10 opponent in their last bowl game, the new offense debuted. However, after laying down 45 points against NAU, the Wildcats were supposed to have ironed out some of the kinks and take care of business. That didn’t happen.

Now nothing is ever purely chalk in sports (think Appalachian State), but I’m looking at the rest of the schedule and I’m thinking, “”If you can’t pencil one in against New Mexico, who can you pencil one in against?”” Arizona has a tough road ahead, and a 0-2 start against the Mountain West is NOT a good way to get the ball rolling.

Even I know that, and I’m living in de facto exile from football. But I also follow the Arizona Cardinals, so maybe that’s a good thing.

– Alex Dalenberg

Cheer broadcasts needs to go

The one thing more annoying than the ups and downs of the Wildcats defense on Saturday was the excruciating sound of what I believe were the Arizona cheerleaders’ voices blaring over the loud speakers directly in front of the student section.

For the second week in a row, the cheerleaders thought it was a good idea to use a microphone to elicit their ideas on what the student section should cheer.

Instead of actually leading the crowd in cheers, however, the amplified shouting tended to kill the cheers already coming from students. For instance, in the section I was in, on several occasions the students began a healthy “”A-ri-zon-a”” chant.

Shortly after, the rhythm and intensity of the cheer was shattered as the blaring sound from the speakers spit out a completely different cheer of “”Let’s go, Wildcats”” or “”U of A, U of A.”” Although these are indeed good cheers, they tore into the chants already started and drew much criticism from many of the fans in my section.

Many students felt the cheerleaders’ amplified voices were incredibly annoying. About every five minutes or so, several fans covered their ears while others chose to let their voices be heard by yelling “”Shut the (blank) up!”” in the direction of the speakers.

During halftime I asked a student what he thought of the cheerleaders’ approach, and he said, “”It sucks. This is the most annoying thing I’ve heard in a while.””

From a student’s perspective, I have to agree. The speakers need to go. The noise is very unpleasant, the cheerleaders never follow the cheers the students have started and, most importantly, they are incredibly ineffective at starting their own cheers.

I maybe once heard the students build on the cheer coming from the speakers. Most students just covered their ears or yelled obscenities when the cheers were broadcast. Sorry, cheerleaders, but the students will continue to begin cheers themselves. By all means keep doing your stunts, shouting for the Wildcats and counting Wilbur’s push-ups; but please, turn off the damn speakers.

– Bobby Stover