Playing a Losing Game

Last week, I saw a movie for the first time in a year and a half. The Green Knight, A24’s new film, is set in medieval Camelot. It’s based on a book and is a reimagined tale about King Arthur and his nephew’s quest to make something of himself.

The plot: In short, King Arthur’s nephew is tasked with holding up a promise or risk living a life full of shame. His attempt to fulfill said promise takes him on a winding, peril-filled quest full of traps, moral conundrums and life/legacy-altering decisions.

It got me thinking about college football.

Coaching can be a lot like knighthood. The job carries a certain level of respect and forces men to be brave, decisive and grapple with forces bigger than themselves. It can also be short-lived. Heck, even the heroes rarely stay on top in the end.

As we look ahead to the 2021 CFB season, let’s explore the college football-morality conundrum and confirm why things will never change.

If You Aint Cheatin’, You Aint Tryin

To coach college football is to play a losing game.

No matter if you’re an epic failure or smashing success or even something in between, the losing game almost always catches up with you.

Guys like Tyrone Willingham, Charlie Weis, Ron Zook, are the epic, on-field failures. History remembers them. Fanbases remember them. Every botched drive, recruiting miss and indiscretion bubbles to the surface. It’s easy to pile it on, remember because they did a bad job.

Sometimes, a coach is just average. There’s nothing spectacular either way about his tenure. The list of names is long. Your school has probably employed a few over the years.

The legendary coaches, you know the ones like Tom Osborne, Bobby Bowden, Bear Bryant, it catches them in a different way. After the confetti stops falling and the statues have long been cemented, they’re placed atop a pedestal so tall the only place to go is down. Maybe it’s a reexamination of history or a dirty secret or something else. To reach that level, there’s no playing by the rules. There’s always a skeleton buried in a closet.

Then there are the coaches inflicted by a double-edged sword. The guys who rise so high, so quickly and later burn out so spectacularly that you can’t help but remember them. That same sword that helped them build a legacy, win games and cash in is the same one that sends them toppling back down the proverbial mountain. I’m sure you can think of a few of those guys, too.

In this sport, more than Team X vs. Team Y or Coach X vs. Coach Y, it’s actually winning vs. morality that is in direct competition. If you cheat, you might win next Saturday’s big game. If you tell that lie, you might get the next big recruit. If you cover up that scandal, you might save your job.

They’re playing a losing game.

The Cycle Continues

You don’t have to look far to find compromised morals in college football. In fact, there’s plenty of large-scale moral missteps in the last 10 years alone. Not to mention the ones unfolding before our eyes.

None of these instances are the same. Some of the above coaches are vile, lack human decency and are unforgivable. Others are plain dumb. A few are even laugh-out-loud funny and deserve eternal Internet mocking (cough cough Bobby Petrino).

But there is a common link.

Somewhere along the line, the allure of winning won. Winning and success outweighed morals and good judgment. That dopamine hit that comes with winning and power and fame and lots and lots of money won out.

But don’t worry, college football will come calling back.

It’s Going to Keep Happening

The scandals won’t go away. Not now, not ever. For as long as there has been a game that needs winning, someone has been willing to cheat.

In college football, if you’re good enough, you’ll almost always get a second chance.

Bobby Petrino crashed a motorcycle with a 25-year-old female assistant on the back, whom he was having an affair with, tried to cover it up, got fired and got a job seven months later.

Steve Sarkisian struggled with alcohol and pills and, according to one staffer, reportedly coached a game under the influence. He was put on administrative leave and later fired. He got a new job less than a year later.

Hugh Freeze got caught paying players, using a university cell phone to repeatedly call prostitutes and then tried to rely on his backwoods Baptist bullshit to get out of it all. He got fired. It took him less than a year to get a new job.

Art Briles covered up a major sexual assault scandal at Baylor. And guess what…he’s probably going to get a new job again. Liberty University on Line 1.

The What-If Moment

At the end of The Green Knight, viewers are treated to alternate endings.

The first iteration depicts what happens if King Arthur’s nephew doesn’t hold up his end of the deal. Choosing to break his promise, he soon became king (short-term gratification) but later dies a fast and hard death (ultimate demise).

In the second iteration, King Arthur’s nephew is true to his word. He succumbs to temptation, but by being brave his life is spared. Instead, he’s forced to wear a sash of shame as a reminder of his wrongdoings. A physical reminder to him and others of the things he did wrong.

It’s hard to tell which version actually happened. That was purposeful.

In college football, it doesn’t really matter the path you choose. Honor or dishonor. Playing fair or cheating. Keeping your promise or breaking it.

Either way, every coach has to wear a sash of shame to some degree. And they’ll almost always get a second chance to write an alternate ending, too.