Congratulations to the Texas Longhorns for winning their first national championship since 1970. They beat a formidable opponent in the USC Trojans, ending a 35 game winning streak in a dramatic comeback. Vince Young was spectacular; he combined for 467 total yards and 3 touchdowns, including two after USC went up 12 with 6:42 remaining in the fourth quarter. Mack Brown won the big game, defying conventional wisdom from the talking heads. I will not say Vince Young had the greatest performance ever; we hear that from everyone. But more on that another time...
While watching the game, a friend pointed out football's similarity to warfare. I never thought of the 'grand strategy' of football or how play calling is a 'tactical decision' based on the pertinent circumstances. I never played organized football, I'm an ice hockey guy.
Football has rapidly become the new American pastime as baseball is deemed too slow, too boring, too ho-hum. Football has 5 to 7 seconds of action, then about a thirty second pause. I enjoy hockey because it is more fluid, allowing several minutes of action without stoppage. It is easy to understand what is occurring in a football game at any given point by stating the score, field postion, and time remaining. A hockey game has three periods and a three goal lead can become insurmountable as time winds down.
It's possible Americans may subconscienously associate football & warfare; but above that, I think they want warfare to be like football. Americans want to know who is winning and how much time's remaining. But warfare is more like hockey; there are three periods and the score matters throughout:
- Invasion
- Reconstruction
- Withdrawal
America is still reconstructing Iraq, but we're up by two goals. We need to finish filtering out the treasonous cads within their security services. Afghanistan isn't really talked about because we're up three late in the second... and that's near insurmountable.
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