There will be no College Football Angst Watch this week due to these incredibly annoying things called “having people counting on you” and “professional obligations” and “wanting to be good at what I do.”
Instead, I want to share the picture above. And pitch you a movie.
It’s a screenshot from the TCU-North Carolina game on Labor Day. Kirk Herbstreit, an infamous dog owner, was doing color commentary. It was a primetime game. It was Bill Belichick’s college debut. It was supposed to be a big fucking deal.
But it was an unmemorable blowout. No one who watched the game can remember how bad it was, but it can be safely assumed North Carolina lost by somewhere between 34 and a billion points.
These are hard games for play-by-play and color commentators. There are only so many variations on “that’s right, Bill, these guys sure do SUCK ASS.”
So naturally, near the end of the game, having utilized all his SUCK ASS variations, Herbstreit ushered his dog over and put his headset over his ears and microphone in his mouth. The sound guy and the twelve people left watching got to hear a golden retriever pant in their ears for about five seconds before Herbstreit realized this was a stupid joke.
The image, though, left me with one thought.
“I want a movie called Barkfensive Coordinator.”
Many offensive and defensive coordinators in the sport, you see, will hang out in a skybox booth, so they can see the whole field while calling plays in with a headset. The result of Herbstreit’s joke was exactly what this would look like.
So here’s the general arc of how this movie would go:
First, you need to know we are going to play everything like it’s a typical sports movie. Swelling orchestra score. Deeply serious characters. Training montages. Also, one of the main characters is a dog. What’s it to you?
We open in the offseason. Our protagonist is a highly touted college quarterback entering his senior season. This is it for him, his last year to play, and his career hasn’t lived up to the hype.
Our team, The Midwestern University Something-or-Others, lost to THE DREADED RIVAL last year, and it was all his fault. He’s deeply depressed about it. Practically PTSD-ridden. A freshman quarterback—a real douchebag—is joining the team and will compete with our depressed quarterback for the starting job.
Our school has hired a new head coach. He’s a young hotshot. He’s never been a head coach before, so he hires a veteran to be his offensive coordinator and consigliere.
Meet Coach Dog. He’s got that dog in him because he is a literal dog. He’s the grumpiest, meanest, oldest golden retriever you’ve ever met. He barks. Everyone listens. He was a slot receiver back in the day. Check out his tape. He could have gone pro if he hadn’t torn his ACL and broken his paw.
I’m a little torn as to whether or not Coach Dog should be able to talk. I feel like it’d be hysterical if he barks and everyone understands him. You can have subtitles so it’s only a quasi-Chewbacca situation, but I also recognize that subtitles are generally not optimal for the moviegoing experience. Talking might be better.
At any rate, Coach Dog sees potential in our depressed quarterback. He coaches him up. The depressed quarterback works on his throwing mechanics with him; it’s literally a game of fetch.
They go on walks together (Coach Dog does not require a leash). On one occasion, Coach Dog gives a monologue about chasing squirrels which is an allegory for a pursuing a goal with no guarantee of success.
One day, our depressed quarterback levels with Coach Dog, telling him he only plays football because his late father played football, and he feels like he never impressed him before he died. Coach Dog tells him about having a litter of puppies who don’t talk to him anymore. That’s why he treats his players like they’re his sons. They’re his second chance. They’re establishing a surrogate father-son connection. I do not think this is necessary to point out, but I understand the art of subtext is dead.
At any rate, between Coach Dog’s coaching and the emotional bond they develop, our depressed QB gets his mojo back. He begins outperforming the douchebag freshman in camp. The head coach sees this, but is intrigued by the douchebag freshman’s potential upside.
In a controversial move, the head coach decides that our depressed quarterback and the douchebag freshman will split time during games. Douche gets to play the first quarter. Our sadsack gets the second quarter. The hottest hand finishes the game.
The press and the fans hate it. If you have two quarterbacks, you don’t have a quarterback. Coach Dog thinks his boss is ruining both players’ development. He gets into a shouting match with our hotshot head coach over it. Coach Dog agrees to go along with it only because he thinks this young head coach will be smart enough to admit he’s wrong when he realizes he’s wrong.
The head coach remains steadfast in his approach, but relents when our depressed QB manages to lead the team to victory after the freshman puts them in a hole. The head coach admits he was wrong and names him the undisputed starter for the remainder of the season.
But our depressed QB doesn’t do too well in his first true start of the year, shattering his confidence. This relapse comes at the worst possible time too. The next game on the schedule is the last of the season, and it is against THE DREADED RIVAL.
The thing is, not only did the depressed quarterback’s poor performance lead THE DREADED RIVAL to winning last year’s game, but our school hasn’t beaten THE DREADED RIVAL in 20 years. THE DREADED RIVAL is considered the best team in the sport. Our school is not. Our school is kind of a joke.
But somehow, miraculously, the game is tied at halftime thanks to the quarterback’s performance. Coach Dog rallies his troops. Nobody expected it to be this close. It’s fucking crazy they got this far. Keep at it! Keep biting at their heels! Go for the jugular! They said you’d never catch that tail, but gotdamnit, we’re gonna do it!
And that’s what our school does in the second half. They kick ass! They tie it up. But our school’s defense lets THE DREADED RIVAL back into the game, forcing our depressed quarterback to lead the team on a comeback attempt in a desperate two-minute drill.
Before going out there, our depressed quarterback tells Coach Dog that, whatever happens, he’s grown into a man thanks to him. Coach Dog barks, “go get ‘em, kid.”
In a long no-huddle drive, our depressed quarterback leads our school on an 80-yard touchdown drive, scoring on a ludicrously difficult rollout pass that’s caught by the freshman douchebag playing a snap at receiver. The play is so crazy and cool it makes an NFL scout’s head literally explode.
The time on the clock expires. The game is over. The student section storms the field, caked in the scout’s blood and brains. THE DREADED RIVAL is vanquished. Miracles are possible. Our depressed quarterback smiles for the first time all year and Coach Dog is so happy, he comes down with the zoomies for the first time in 50 dog years.