Random College Football Discussion Thread

[cdj]

That is much better than a crystal ball which was something I only saw in my grandmother's China cabinet.

I'm the opposite. I loved the crystal football and wish they would have kept that incorporated in the new design.

Here is an article from The Patriot-News echoing similar sentiments:

The one part the Bowl Championship Series era got right was the trophy. The American Football Coaches Association's crystal football was beautiful. If it wasn't a design masterpiece, it was close. From the stylized three-pronged tee to the fact that the winner could pluck it off and hold it like the very tool of the trade from which it was modeled. It was a brilliant solution to a design question.

And it had become iconic in the best sense. When you saw Nick Saban or Urban Meyer or Pete Carroll hoist that sparkling football aloft, they looked like not just champions but the royalty of their profession. You know they dug it, too.

But when the College Football Playoff was announced last year, it was quietly also announced that a new trophy would join it. The geniuses who run the playoff decided that, after propping up the nonsense that was the BCS for 15 years, that the crystal football had become guilty by association. It's like they blamed the trophy for their own dysfunction.

So, today we were presented with something that looks like it should be given out at, if not a PBA Tour stop, then some anonymous corporate retreat to a million-dollar salesman. Big and over-stylized and uninspiring and designed by a committee of suits.


However, buried in the article is this:

The AFCA has insisted on still handing out the crystal football after the playoff has determined a champion. Which is great. The BCS was never the crystal football's fault.

The winner will still receive it, but apparently just in private? I wonder which trophy will get the biggest crowd pop when the National Champ heads home in January 2015.