Six Saturdays a year, we treat our five senses to the unadulterated magic of college football. In East Lansing, college football Saturdays smell like someone is using sunscreen to extinguish a charcoal fire. They taste like that last sip of your beer before you realize the rest is too warm to drink. They sound like a tenor tom drum bouncing the fight song off of the MSC tower, they feel sticky and above all - look incredibly familiar each time.
We like college football the way it is because there's more to college football than what happens on the field of play. We like to jeer when an opposing sweatshirt ventures near the tennis courts. We like to hate Johnny Spirit. We like walking home after a win and falling asleep where we fall - sunburned, full and certainly not thirsty. For 107 autumns of MSU football, the game's competition and the fans' unadulterated tradition have blended to create the experience that is bigger than any one program in the country. The traditions overshadow the game and rivalry will forever trump the score. And if there is a more pure sport on Earth than college football, we'd rather not know about it.
That said, the addition of instant replay to Big Ten football is a potential threat to that purity. As it stands today, instant replay will be utilized in Big Ten football for the first time in conference history. For one season, the Big Ten is the NCAA's instant replay guinea pig to discover the effect of officiating serving under the power of video. For a sport that was raised on its purity, the inclusion of instant replay acts not as a rule change, but as a statement of radical renovation.
Any fan of Spartan football knows it's impossible to set, hike, snap and spike a ball in less than one second, but we all know MSU beat the University of Michigan by two on Nov. 3, 2001. Just as quickly, fans of U-M football know that the ground did not cause Anthony Thomas to fumble in their victory over Illinois three seasons ago. In its natural form, Big Ten officiating is, was and should be about give-and-take. It's a given that our officials are second-rate, but its accepted that a blown call will eventually turn in your team's favor. On our college football Saturdays, the human error quotient runs as freely as the troughs in the stadium's men's rooms - and we like it that way.
The intangibles of college football are responsible for molding the game into its current existence, not the accuracy. Assuredly, instant replay will create a more consistent brand of football, but it's at the cost of its history. Last season, 23 plays would have been reversed, according to a Big Ten study. But for every play that will be reversed this season, think of the elation you saw on the field as the clock struck 0:00 on Nov. 3, 2001. Now, ask yourself if a strictly regimented game is the answer to a problem the Big Ten never really had to begin with.
Instant replay may very well clean up Big Ten football. Its benefit is welcome, and its intent surely noble in upholding the fairness of the game. On that merit, we understand why conference officials and coaches are willing to submit to this experiment. But on the merit of the traditions we uphold every football Saturday, we'll remain skeptical of the imprint instant replay could leave on our cherished game.
