They don’t know how to analyze college football. This is not surprising since most OSU fans never attended Ohio State. Many of the others that did attend Ohio State, never graduated. And even those that did earn a degree were never revered for their critical thinking skills. I mean, c’mon, what’s the toughest decision students have to make – Natural Light or Bud Light.

In the post below we see a complete lack of analytical skills. In fact, if such skills are present, they have been obscured by bias. The OSU author makes an assumption that there was only one option to the play and that was for Arrington to pass to Manningham. Anyone who has watched just a few college football games knows that it is rare for a play to have just one option. Why would a college football play have more than one option? Pray tell, indeed? What’s the old saying – there’s many a slip betwixt a cup and a lip – which means that things don’t always go as planned. I propose that the play in question had at least three options for Mr. Arrington.

Option 1 – Pass the ball to Manningham if he is open;
Option 2 – If Manningham is covered (which may mean that there is no defender between Arrington and the endzone especially if the right side of the line has sealed off the defenders) run the ball in for a touchdown. Actually, this was probably his first option as it involved less risk.
Option 3 – Throw the ball away if Manningham is well covered and there is a defender on top of you.

Only through a basic misunderstanding of the fundamentals of college football could one come to the assumption that only one option existed and therefore, Arrington’s statement that he considered running the ball was somehow against the coach’s directive.

The second rudimentary misconception about college football is that because Arrington said he didn’t practice the play the previous week that he had never practiced the play. Arrington is currently a senior at Michigan. In his four years there, I’m sure he has practiced that play several dozen times. Any assumption to the contrary can only be based on sheer ignorance.

So the problem with OSU fans is they have a limited understanding of college football which is affected by their bias against Michigan. Michigan wins a very tough game on the road with several starters injured. OSU fans realize the enormity of such a victory and the best they can do to counter it is through assumptions which can only be based upon bias or complete ignorance.

Update: Carr notes that Arrington had had repetitions on this specific play at 25:54 of the above video.

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