Beat Marshall..... Losers for backing out... Geaux Rockets.. The game tonight is the reason Western Ill. is in town tomorrow. This is the game Marshall back out for. Geaux Rockets.
This is the oppurtunity Marshall backed out for. Toledo is a conference game. They moved the date to get it on TV and replaced LSU with Hofstra (a 1-AA school) to make 12 games. Another debate entirely but connected: I think it sucks that the NCAA allowed Friday night games. Friday night is for high school. EVERYWHERE! I'm not too keen on Sunday competition either, but since society is rapidly moving to a more secular viewpoint the Sabbath is not respected like it once was. And Sunday afternoon (afternoon only, not morning nor evening) should be for the NFL. That's the main reason we have our current dilemma. I for one don't want to LSU play at anytime except Saturday night, but I understand moving one or two games a year for TV. And since LSU vs. Arkansas has been played on Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving the last few years, that could become a tradition. Other than that, no changes.
Hey, I like the Sunday night NFL games. Especially if I have gone fishing or something and not watched any football all day.
Actually, I believe t(could be wrong) that Marshall moved the Toledo came up this week & the extra game is next week against Kansas State, I think. At any rate, I hope Toledo wins! I live here in West Virginia ~20 or so miles from the Marshall stadium. The ignorant here are saying LSU was afraid to play them, imagine that. Folks here are very provincial & can't see much outside the WV border.
I used to call the games on radio for a team that played Marshall every year when they were 1-AA. Marshall people always carried themselves with a swagger and everyone else in the conference hated them - and not just because they won. How can you respect a school that eagerly accepted a guy like Randy Moss, after he had bounced out of two other colleges. And you should have seen the set of rogues that Billy Donovan had on the basketball team there (including Jason Williams) before he went to Florida. The school motto ought to be, "Just win, baby!"
High school games are attended mostly by the students and parents of the kids and friends and relatives of the players, along with some college coaches if there is a player in the game they want to see. I don't think Friday night games like Marshall and Toledo on TV hurt the attendance at a high school game one bit except maybe in Toledo or Wheeling, West Virginia. I live near Olympia Field in Baton Rouge. There was a high school game there tonight. I don't even know who the two teams playing were. I watched a good portion of the TV game tonight. I wasn't particularly interested in either team except for pulling for Toledo only because I wanted to see Marshall lose the game they stiffed LSU in order to play. If I hadn't watched the TV game I would have done something else but I wouldn't have gone to the high school game unless I had a son or the son of a friend or relative who was playing for one of the teams. In some places, especially small towns in Texas high school football is a big deal and they pack the stadiums on Friday night. I'll bet that there wasn't a single fan in Texas who stayed home from a HS game only because Toledo and Marshall were playing on TV. Same in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Maybe if it had been Texas and Oklahoma it would have been different but big games like that are never scheduled for a Friday night just to get on TV. On the issue of the Sabbath look at it like this. As long as I can remember and I'm sure dating back to long before I was born it has been a big traditional thing for people to eat out right after they get out of church on Sundays, especially in the South. Well, somebody has to work in these restaurants to cook and serve the food. I have had to work on Sundays many times out of necessity. I didn't like it, not out of religious reasons but I just don't like to have to work on weekends but I didn't always have a choice if I wanted to make ends meet and pay my bills. For NFL players Sunday is a workday. Some religions put more emphasis on not working on Sundays than others. The Morman faith is particularly stringent about it. Steve Young was not only a Mormon but he is the direct desendent of Brigham Young, the founder of the Morman faith for whom the university that Steve Young attended was named for. During his entire professional football career Sunday was the day that Steve Young earned his paycheck except for when his team was on Monday Night Football or a Thursday game. I have a friend and business associate who is Jewish. He is Jewish only by birth and ethnic background but he has become a Christian and believes in Jesus Christ. My friend has business dealings with a man named Yakov who lives in Israel. Yakov is an Orthodox Jew who strictly observes the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday. He will not even talk on the phone on Saturdays. He will not even talk on the phone with my friend when it is Sunday in Israel but still Saturday in the USA because he believes that even though my friend dosen't observe the same Orthodox traditions that he does that because my friend was born a Jew that he should be observing the Sabbath. However, if something really important comes up and the Sabbath has already passed in Israel but its still Saturday here Yakov will call me because I am not Jewish and ask me to call my friend to relay the information. As for me I don't believe that you have to be a follower of any particular religion to be a Christian and to accept Jesus as your Savior. Is the Power of the Lord in any way lessened to give you spiritual guidance on a Tuesday or a Thursday than a Sunday? My Dad's family were Methodists. In all honesty I can't recall a single time when he attended church except for weddings and funerals. He was a great person who would bend over backwards to help anybody at any time. There were lots and lots of times when he worked a double shift on Sundays to earn the overtime pay that kept the wolf away from our door. On the weekends that he didn't work (including Sabbath/Sundays) he would take us all out to do something whether it was going fishing or bowling or even a trip to Houston to watch the Astros on special occasions. Even though he wasn't a churchgoer he always did his best to raise us to do the right thing and to treat everybody the same as we would want to be treated. My Mother was from a Catholic background but she had stopped going to Catholic services before I was born. She never stopped being a devout Christian and I can remember more than once when she told me I shouldn't do this or shouldn't do that because it was a Sunday but on the occasions when we engaged in an enjoyable family activity on a Sunday she always enjoyed it as much or more than the rest of us. So, Jetstorm, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that both of them are in Heaven even though neither my Mom or my Dad were "strict observers of the Sabbath. " I can only pray that when my time is up I'll be worthy of joining them but whether I climb "A Stairway to Heaven" or get "Two Tickets to Paradise" it won't be determined by whether I "observed some religions Sabbath" If the weather is favorable Sunday I will try to catch some of the "fishes of the sea" that God has given Mankind dominion over along with the "beasts of the earth" If not I'll probably break my promise to myself after last Sunday's dismal performance by the Saints to not to watch them for the rest of the year. "I may be goin' to Hell in a bucket, but at least I'm enjoyin' the ride" Greatful Dead
BengalB, congratulations. Your post has just earned you a masters degree from Marshall University. Just kidding. You made some excellent points all the way around and what you said reflects my thinking exactly. Well done. So far as college football on Friday nights goes, here's my ultra-conservative take: if it ain't on Saturday, and it ain't on campus and it ain't under the open sky, it ain't college football.
A very good point, yet in our western culture we regard the nature of the Sabbath to be in the celebration of the ressurection of Christ on Sunday. I see my congregation suffer weekly from guys wanting to stay home and "watch the game." Truth be told, I'm out of the pulpit by 11:30 - well outside of the range of the games. The point is this - Fridays are for High School, Saturdays for college, and Sunday afternoons for the NFL. Let's get back to church, gentlemen- your families are more important.
