This year’s college football season begins in Dublin, which is normal. This is the fourth straight college football season which has begun in Dublin. That’s twice as long as it took the sport to make us expect ritual Pop-Tart sacrifice.
In the grand gridiron scheme, the Aer Lingus College Football Classic is sacred, an institution older than the rocks on Northwestern’s stadium’s shore.
It’s time to innovate.
I’m not sure whether the Aer Lingus College Football Classic is an offering of peace or an act of war. Are we softening up the Irish ahead of an invasion? Was our attempt to purchase Greenland a diversion? It wouldn’t be the first time that icy land became a tool for North Atlantic deceit.
For the sake of this blogpost, we’re going to operate under the assumption that the Aer Lingus College Football Classic is an instrument of peace. First, because that’s an easier narrative. Second, because the Irish get really, really mad if you even hint at sending another occupying force. It’s like wearing your shoes into the kitchen right after your mom mopped. Do it again and she’ll blow up your car.
One last note on the Emerald Isle, though, before we move on:
Iowa State and Kansas State fans are lucky college football—and therefore their annual matchup, the oldest of its kind—started when it did. Imagine a world where the Cyclones and Wildcats first met during James K. Polk’s presidency. The Irish (understandably) don’t like being occupied, and they (understandably) don’t like it when the Potato Famine gets minimized. If you wore a “Farmageddon – Since 1845” shirt down Grafton Street, someone might have to notify your next of kin.
There are three reasons we must play college football in the Middle East. The first is obvious: Because it’s there. The second is also obvious: We’re talking about football. This is a sport coached by men, a sport where players are taught to fear nothing and crush everything. If D.J. Durkin was half the tough guy he claimed to be, Maryland would have opened the 2018 season in Gaza. (Lone point of agreement between us and Hamas: Low man wins.)
The third, though, is noble. College football begets peace. Why hasn’t America fought another Civil War? We let out our aggressions through college football. There’s plenty of bickering between these United States. The South doesn’t like the North, the West Coast doesn’t like the East Coast, and one of these days Texas is going to realize Oklahoma’s copying all its shticks. But though we hate each other at times, we never put helmets on our young men, hand them a bunch of guns, and tell them to go kill the other side. Instead, we put helmets on our young men, hand them some exceptionally sticky gloves, and tell them to go give the other side CTE. And it works! Consider the events of just the last few weeks, when Tony Petitti proposed a 28-team playoff and nobody murdered him for it. That is remarkable restraint.
So please. Next year, let’s play a little football in Lebanon. In 2027? Let’s change what it means to show the Houthis an Air Raid. And in 2028, I say we play a Week Zero game in Tehran.
Because it’s there.
Because it’ll bring peace.
Because Lou Holtz could definitely bully Ryan Day into doing it.
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