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College football documentary

It’s 150 years of college football documentary..

Trust me by the time they show all of them this fall you will change your mind..
 
Great show. Can’t wait to watch more. ESPN definitely over emphasized parts where they had easy access to guys/interviews (Meyer, Finebaum, Tebow) but it’s hard to fault them for that. It only minimally takes away from the story. There was a lot on the sec and Notre Dame but they also played huge parts in the history of college football. Would have liked to see a little more on the military academies but they supposedly have a lot more coming so hopefully they go back to it.
 
Great show. Can’t wait to watch more. ESPN definitely over emphasized parts where they had easy access to guys/interviews (Meyer, Finebaum, Tebow) but it’s hard to fault them for that. It only minimally takes away from the story. There was a lot on the sec and Notre Dame but they also played huge parts in the history of college football. Would have liked to see a little more on the military academies but they supposedly have a lot more coming so hopefully they go back to it.

Would love if they bring up the 4 Horsemen again that they would mention they’re was only one TEAM that BEAT them TWICE... NEBRASKA!
 
It’s 150 years of college football documentary..

Trust me by the time they show all of them this fall you will change your mind..
If I read it right on ESPN its a two part documentary.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/25663448/college-football-150-espn-schedule

There will be an 11 part series airing on Tuesdays starting Sept 17. Hoping for better there. Maybe they will actually say the name Osborne or show a half a second clip of Memorial stadium.
 
The Greatest will be a 11 episode series starting on Thursday Sept 17 which doesn’t make sense when they’ve going to have Thursday night games on ESPN..

The greatest games will be aired on November 6th.
Nebraska will have 2 games I believe will be mentioned. 1971 Oklahoma game and 1984 Orange Bowl.
 
On a serious note, the best part (and it included a few bites from Johnny Rodgers about how Devaney recruited African-American players) explained how northern schools such as Michigan State started to put some distance between themselves and most of the SEC — excepting Alabama — by recruiting black players from the South to fill their rosters. Only when Alabama started getting its ass handed to them did Paul Bryant begin to recruit black players.

The Huskers won our first national championship by beating an all-white LSU team in the Orange Bowl. The next year, we defeated Alabama, which featured one black starter. By the time Nebraska played Alabama again six years later in Lincoln, the Tide's roster had done a makeover.

As it relates to Nebraska, the documentary claimed that Nebraska and Oklahoma used segregation against Southern schools by focusing on African-Americans to form a larger portion of their rosters. However, that's misleading regarding players from the South.

Devaney's recruiting focused on players from the North and West, though the 1971 team included John Adkins from Virginia. We generally didn't recruit from former Confederate states, though we did pull players from Missouri, a slave state that didn't rebel. Our 1971 team included African-American players from Illinois, Ohio, California, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, New Jersey, Michigan and Wyoming.

Before Devaney, Bill Jennings dipped into the South to pick up some African-American players who helped turn the program around a few years later with Devaney. They included Willie Ross from Helena, Arkansas and Ed Mitchell from Galveston, Texas.

Nebraska began to integrate under Bill Glassford in the early '50s after nearly 40 years of having no black players on the roster. Of course, in the 1890s and early 20th century, led by the legendary George Flippin, Nebraska had several African-American players on the roster, and it caused schools in Missouri and Oklahoma heartache.
 
Those shows had better be better than this documentary, because it sucks. Bad.

First of all, its extremely negative. It should be titled “150 years of this awful stuff called CFB.” With the trailer asking if its even worth playing at all.
Before you take it to extremes, Im not saying it 100% must be sunshine and roses. But come on, lets at least build it up with the good stuff first. A documentary celebrating CFB should probably, you know, celebrate it?

Its also inaccurate at times. Their timeline regarding tv for example is wayyyy off and also fails to account for the rise of cable tv in general.
It discusses the system of passing without ever diving into the history of the run game or option, unless you count the small segment on football before the forward pass was legal. It talks about the run game only in a negative light, and how passing is so much better. Wtf? Go ahead and discuss passing, but you should probably highlight the greatness and evolution of run games, too.

The focus on specific programs was at times a mix of teenage fandom and at other times simply perplexing. TCU? Washington?
Why the hell did they focus so much on Woody Hays? Go ahead and talk about him, but they could have discussed three other coaches in the time they devoted to worshiping him.
Some of the people they interviewed absolutely sucked and frankly from hearing them talk Im not sure why they even like CFB. Questionable choices.

I could go in for awhile but what an absolute letdown. This was horrible.
 
Those shows had better be better than this documentary, because it sucks. Bad.

First of all, its extremely negative. It should be titled “150 years of this awful stuff called CFB.” With the trailer asking if its even worth playing at all.
Before you take it to extremes, Im not saying it 100% must be sunshine and roses. But come on, lets at least build it up with the good stuff first. A documentary celebrating CFB should probably, you know, celebrate it?

Its also inaccurate at times. Their timeline regarding tv for example is wayyyy off and also fails to account for the rise of cable tv in general.
It discusses the system of passing without ever diving into the history of the run game or option, unless you count the small segment on football before the forward pass was legal. It talks about the run game only in a negative light, and how passing is so much better. Wtf? Go ahead and discuss passing, but you should probably highlight the greatness and evolution of run games, too.

The focus on specific programs was at times a mix of teenage fandom and at other times simply perplexing. TCU? Washington?
Why the hell did they focus so much on Woody Hays? Go ahead and talk about him, but they could have discussed three other coaches in the time they devoted to worshiping him.
Some of the people they interviewed absolutely sucked and frankly from hearing them talk Im not sure why they even like CFB. Questionable choices.

I could go in for awhile but what an absolute letdown. This was horrible.

I agree. I thought it sucked too. Very weird.
 
Hopefully I will watch all of them and judge it after seeing the majority of them..
 
Hopefully I will watch all of them and judge it after seeing the majority of them..
One can also judge the first and I thought longest episode, much as one judges a new episode of their favorite series.

The bar is set extremely low, so theres that. But Im not sure Ill waste my time.
 
If you thought it sucked, your just a husker homer.....
source.gif

Easy Rambo.
 
On a serious note, the best part (and it included a few bites from Johnny Rodgers about how Devaney recruited African-American players) explained how northern schools such as Michigan State started to put some distance between themselves and most of the SEC — excepting Alabama — by recruiting black players from the South to fill their rosters. Only when Alabama started getting its ass handed to them did Paul Bryant begin to recruit black players.

The Huskers won our first national championship by beating an all-white LSU team in the Orange Bowl. The next year, we defeated Alabama, which featured one black starter. By the time Nebraska played Alabama again six years later in Lincoln, the Tide's roster had done a makeover.

As it relates to Nebraska, the documentary claimed that Nebraska and Oklahoma used segregation against Southern schools by focusing on African-Americans to form a larger portion of their rosters. However, that's misleading regarding players from the South.

Devaney's recruiting focused on players from the North and West, though the 1971 team included John Adkins from Virginia. We generally didn't recruit from former Confederate states, though we did pull players from Missouri, a slave state that didn't rebel. Our 1971 team included African-American players from Illinois, Ohio, California, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, New Jersey, Michigan and Wyoming.

Before Devaney, Bill Jennings dipped into the South to pick up some African-American players who helped turn the program around a few years later with Devaney. They included Willie Ross from Helena, Arkansas and Ed Mitchell from Galveston, Texas.

Nebraska began to integrate under Bill Glassford in the early '50s after nearly 40 years of having no black players on the roster. Of course, in the 1890s and early 20th century, led by the legendary George Flippin, Nebraska had several African-American players on the roster, and it caused schools in Missouri and Oklahoma heartache.

The tipping point for Bama was apparently in 1970 when USC went down to Legion Field and beat Bama like a drum.
 
The tipping point for Bama was apparently in 1970 when USC went down to Legion Field and beat Bama like a drum.
As early as 1967, Alabama had four African-American walk-on players on the team for spring practice, but none of them made the roster for the fall season.

Running back Wilbur Jackson was recruited in 1969 to Alabama's team, where he signed in early 1970 and played on the 1970 freshman team.

There was another documentary about the 1970 Alabama-USC game that credited Sam Cunningham's big day as being the final straw that led Bryant to recruit black players. While it is true that the Alabama varsity team of 1970 was all-white, the walk-ons from 1967 and Jackson's story contradict that claim because the wheels already were in motion and a black player already on scholarship by the time of the USC game.

In fact, another fullback — Colorado's Bo Matthews, not Cunningham — could have been Alabama's first black player. Matthews was from Huntsville, Alabama, and after the 1969 season, Bryant wanted to sign Matthews, but he wanted to play in Boulder, especially after he saw the Buffs destroy Alabama in the Liberty Bowl that December. Bama was left to signing Jackson as the only black player in that 1970 class.

What the USC game did was convince Bryant to start recruiting African-Americans even more heavily. In the offseason after 1970, he recruited John Mitchell from an Arizona junior college, and Mitchell actually played in a game before Jackson did.

Not to be too cynical, but I think Bryant saw his teams slipping and decided he finally had to diversify his roster:
  • 1966 (11-0, 6-0 in the SEC, 34-7 victory over Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl)
  • 1967 (8-2-1, 5-1, 20-16 loss to Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl)
  • 1968 (8-3, 4-2, 35-10 loss to Missouri in the Gator Bowl) Bryant begins recruiting HS junior Wilbur Jackson in the offseason
  • 1969 (6-5, 2-4, 47-33 loss to Colorado in the Liberty Bowl) Bryant gets Jackson to sign a letter of intent in early 1970
  • 1970 (6-5-1, 3-4, 24-24 tie against Oklahoma in the Bluebonnet Bowl) Bryant gets Mitchell to sign letter of intent in early 1971
  • 1971 (11-1, 7-0, 38-6 loss to Nebraska in Orange Bowl)
Number of black players on the Alabama varsity (based on a review of team photos)
  • 1965: Zero (beat Nebraska 39-28)
  • 1966: Zero (beat Nebraska 34-7)
  • 1967: Zero
  • 1968: Zero
  • 1969: Zero
  • 1970: Zero
  • 1971: Two (lost to Nebraska 38-6)
  • 1972: Seven
  • 1973: Fourteen
  • 1974: Fourteen
  • 1975: Fourteen
  • 1976: Fourteen (starting to feel like a quota)
  • 1977: Fourteen (lost to Nebraska 31-24)
  • 1978: Eighteen (beat Nebraska 20-3)
 
Those shows had better be better than this documentary, because it sucks. Bad.

First of all, its extremely negative. It should be titled “150 years of this awful stuff called CFB.” With the trailer asking if its even worth playing at all.
Before you take it to extremes, Im not saying it 100% must be sunshine and roses. But come on, lets at least build it up with the good stuff first. A documentary celebrating CFB should probably, you know, celebrate it?

Its also inaccurate at times. Their timeline regarding tv for example is wayyyy off and also fails to account for the rise of cable tv in general.
It discusses the system of passing without ever diving into the history of the run game or option, unless you count the small segment on football before the forward pass was legal. It talks about the run game only in a negative light, and how passing is so much better. Wtf? Go ahead and discuss passing, but you should probably highlight the greatness and evolution of run games, too.

The focus on specific programs was at times a mix of teenage fandom and at other times simply perplexing. TCU? Washington?
Why the hell did they focus so much on Woody Hays? Go ahead and talk about him, but they could have discussed three other coaches in the time they devoted to worshiping him.
Some of the people they interviewed absolutely sucked and frankly from hearing them talk Im not sure why they even like CFB. Questionable choices.

I could go in for awhile but what an absolute letdown. This was horrible.
This is what I heard on sports nightly last night.

I can't say because I didn't watch
 
I thought it was good. When you are creating a documentary covering 150 years, you are bound to miss something, or spend too much time on something else.

In today's environment, I thought it was pretty smart to include the detailed segment on the early history of the running game before the forward pass. It shows a perspective that the most popular game in modern day America is lucky that it was banned before it truly started. There were actual deaths on the field. We all remember players being paralyzed in a game, could you imagine if 20 players die on the field from hits suffered on the playing field during the 2019 football season? Football would be done.
 
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