Video games killed the realistic fan base.
When The British group The Buggles released “Video Killed The Radio Star” who knew that years later the same could be said of the creation of sports video games and the end of realistic fan bases? In 1991 Nintendo released Tecmo Super Bowl (TSB) and it has been a quick decent ever since. I remember playing the first Tecmo Super Bowl. I used to play it at my friend/neighbor TJ’s house. I used to switch between taking the Raiders and tearing it up with Bo Jackson (The Mike Vick Madden video game character before Madden and Mike Vick) or taking the Eagles and playing with Randall Cunningham. TJ used to pick the Browns and loved Webster Slaughter.
You used to be able to drop back all the way to the endzone and throw the ball 100 yards into the other endzone, and if you had Bo Jackson or Christian Okoye you could truck almost anyone. The graphics at the time we thought were insane. As the years passed along came Madden (you could create yourself as a player) and the games became more and more complex (more than 6 defensive plays) and looked more and more real. The NCAA football series also started. Allowing people to play as their favorite college programs. I believe that this extra connection of making feel like the coach of their favorite team has led to fan bases with astronomically high expectations.
Now I am only 25 years old so maybe I just did not realize how delusional fan bases (fan comes from the word fanatic by the way) were during this time period. I doubt it however as even over the past 10 years I have seen fan bases show less and less patience with new coaches and have insanely unrealistic expectations of players.
I bring this up because I am currently living in Southern California and the LA media and many others are going nuts over USC dropping a game to UW. College football fan bases these days of large programs seem to believe that their teams should win EVERY SINGLE GAME and not just when they have a senior heavy class but EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Some of them honestly believe that their team should win National Titles 8 out of 10 years. USC going undefeated this year was not realistic. They had to start an unproven QB, they went with true frosh Barkley over 8 passes in his career Corp. USC also lost their number 2 receiver for the season with a collarbone break and after going on the road and beating OSU they lost their starting QB (Barkley) and their All World safety Taylor Mays. To top it off Carroll had to replace coordinators as they became head coaches elsewhere (the price of any successful program).
From how many talk about it (especially fans) you would think that the Trojan loss caused the world to fall off it’s axis. It is an in conference loss on the road to a former assistant of yours who had a superior QB to you. You lost the turnover battle and still only lost by 3. In fact if I remember correctly in the past 7 years Carroll has not lost a game by more than 7 points. That is a phenomenal statistic as it means that in every loss you were in the game. Oh yeah, by the way all of Carroll’s losses come against conferences opponents with the exception of their loss to Texas in the BCS game. And in each game his team lost the turnover battle. If I remember correctly Carroll isn’t the one fumbling.
So why all the sky is falling talk? Because the media fans the flames of whatever the rabid over emotional fan bases want. And what these fans want is undefeated seasons constantly. And why wouldn’t they?, they lead their favorite teams to 10 straight undefeated seasons and 10 straight national titles or Super Bowl titles. In fact in college football they can replace 7 starters on offense and 5 on defense and start a true freshman and still go undefeated. I am a University of Arizona season ticket holder. During my stay at UA we were at one time the worst Division 1 team in the nation. We then hired Mike Stoops and by the way I heard many students talk you thought we would be winning National Titles in year 2 or 3. When that didn’t happen Stoops was on the hot seat. In fact I heard people talking about their video game seasons and why couldn’t Stoops do that. I also heard them complain at every incomplete pass because in “their season” apparently Willie Tuitama went 48 for 50 every game with 10 touchdowns. Luckily for Stoops he made a Bowl in year 5 which should be the benchmark for how you are as a coach as you have now graduated one class. Although I have a feeling now that he replaced his 3 plus year starting QB that the fans will grow incredibly impatient if they are forced to sit through a 6-6 or 7-5 season.
In sports teams have windows. Your goal as a coach is to win titles be they conference or national in those windows. Then you have down years. That is the rule of sport. The team on the top today falls tomorrow. This is true in the NFL and in College. When you are successful you are everyone’s circled game on the calender and you lose players/coaches to the draft/other teams and retirement.
I will be providing a side by side of the real UA football season with a video game season I will be playing to show how far from realism these games can be. So keep checking back to see how I do compared to the real Arizona Wildcats In closing I ask that people give their teams and coaches a break. No competitor wants to lose and your pressure on administration/owner just leads to additional stress put on the coaches/players. And finally these guys are people. Please treat them as such. Don’t destroy their property if they make a mistake and cost a team a game (HELLO BILLS FANS!!!!!!!), they didn’t want to lose that game either.