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September 18, 2009The Browns Will Win If…
September 18, 2009
This week, there has been a lot of talk about that one touchdown scored by USC. The picture shows that USC might not have actually scored a touchdown. The waves of groaning, whining and complaining emanated from around the Buckeye world. The logic, seemingly being, that if that touchdown had not counted, then the Buckeyes would have won the game. That kind of thinking is completely and utterly flawed and let me tell you why.
I learned this theory in college from one of my roommates. We used to play NHL ’94 on Sega Genesis for some retro gaming action when we were decidedly unable to date females. The biggest flaw in that game was that you could end in ties on occasion. When you are betting or trying to figure out who is going to stay on and play the next game, it causes problems. One of my roommates was of the position that you should just play a single period of a new game and whoever was leading after that “overtime” period should get to stay on. My other roommate came up with the logic that I quote to this day. “You can’t play the first period of a new game as an overtime period. An overtime is a desperate situation where players know that the next goal ends it. All those video game guys on the screen have NO IDEA that they are playing a sudden death in the middle of the first period. We must play a full second game to decide it.”
Now, only the NHL 94 programmers know for sure if there is any truth at all to the logic my friend put forth as part of the unofficial constitution that dictated the rules of play for our anti-social video game lives. Also there is no accounting for the potential selfishness of him potentially just wanting to play another full game. I digress. The logic is useful in the real world, though.
You can’t look at that USC touchdown, say it wasn’t legit, and change the score in your minds where the Buckeyes win the game. The logic of that is flawed. Just like Marty McFly was changing his present and future by interacting with his past, you can’t alter something and then just assume the rest would play out the way it did the first time when the touchdown was granted to USC. Maybe the world where that TD is disallowed Terrelle Pryor takes the next snap, runs through the middle and a USC safety breaks his leg. Maybe Joe McKnight trips on the sideline and knocks himself unconcsious on the Gatorade cooler. Maybe Pete Carroll is disfigured by an ice maker in the locker room. The point is that everybody’s performance on that field is dictated by all the factors surrounding them including the scoreboard. Change the score and every event in the game after that one play changes.
But there is one situation where we could argue. Let’s call this the Dwayne Rudd principle. If the play in question is one that should / could have ended a game, then you can commence arguing about it. Just mentioning Dwayne Rudd got me depressed. The point is that unless the USC touchdown in question was the one that ended the game, or would have preceded three kneeling plays, it isn’t worth talking about. The Buckeyes lost. Get over it. Hopefully we can talk about the Buckeyes getting fortunate the way USC was in a BCS bowl game sometime this year.
10 Comments
NHL ’94 as retro gaming in college? NHL 95 was “current generation” gaming when I was in college. Thanks for making a guy feel old on a Friday.
“Maybe Pete Carroll is disfigured by an ice maker in the locker room.” haha oh the fun that could be had with that.
Jeremy Roenick was really, really good on NHL ’94.
That said, Blades of Steel was better.
Also, I was in 4th grade when NHL ’94 came out. Just to make you feel a bit older, Boom.
I’m with Boom. I was a college freshman in the fall of 1995. Ouch.
That said, me and my cabal of friends had the only tie-breaking system that I ever knew of that was without fail and without argument. If the game ended in a tie, you did one thing and one thing only: you went to game stats, and whichever team had the most body checks won. Hands down, no arguments.
If, by some act of craziness, both teams were tied in that category, too, the second tie-breaker was penalty minutes. Whomever had the most penalty minutes won, because if you played to a tie and they were shorthanded for more time, that must mean they played better than you.
If THAT was tied, then and only then did you play an entire new game. But, that never happened.
@#3 – really, the best part of Blades of Steel (I had that game and played it relentlessly) is that if your LOST a fight, YOU had to go to the penalty box. Brilliant!
“That said, Blades of Steel was better.”
Shhriiiinnnnnnng!
I spent my college years playing Madden ’95 on the genesis. One of my roommates was a dirty, no-good Steelers fan and we had some absolutely *epic* Browns/Steelers battles in that game. The stats for the two teams were basically 100% evenly matched. And sadly, Madden ’95 is probably the last version of the game where the Browns were decent.
@#6 – “It’s a pass! It’s a pass! It’s a pass! It’s a pass!”
Mutant League Hockey was better.
Ugh…thanks for reminding me of the Dwayne Rudd game. I was at that terrible contest (the season opener no less), and let me tell you, I had never seen, and haven’t seen since, a crowd so furious when leaving the stadium/driving home.
As a kicker, it’s also “fun” to remember that that game kicked off the only season since the Browns’ return in ’99 in which they made the playoffs. I can’t remember for certain, but I’m pretty sure a win in that game would have put them up against someone other than the Steelers in the wild card game…which leads me to another point…Dennis freakin’ Northcutt. That pass to seal it from Holcomb was right in the basket.
I love being a Cleveland fan…nobody lives in the dreadful past like us!