CFL, SEC and the changing tides of football

We like to think of American football as, well, American. 100 yard fields, four downs per possession — that’s our sport.

Except ... except it was actually developed at McGill University in Canada.

When McGill’s rugby team traveled to play Harvard in 1874, they brought their own rules — and the Harvard team loved them so much, they convinced Yale to play by them as well.

This new sport the Canadians had developed out of rugby (which itself came out of soccer) featured three downs per possession, a 55-yard line at midfield (the field being 110 yards long), and end zones that were 20 yards deep.

As the sport grew in popularity, the Americans began fiddling with it. We added a fourth down, shortened the field, and narrowed the end zones.

But the Canadians didn’t. They kept their unique — and original — brand of the game they invented.

Sadly, this is the last season of Canadian football as we know it.

Starting in 2027, the field will be shortened to a standard U.S. size, while the end zones will be reduced to 15 yards. Also, the goal posts will move from the goal line to the back of the end zone.

The commissioner of the Canadian Football League offered some reasons for the changes, none of which make any sense.

That 55-yard line is just as much Canadian football as the multiple men in motion before the snap. It makes the CFL different from American football, gives it something unique.

If you enjoy the CFL or have never seen a game but are curious, this is the year to watch before it gets homogenized next year.

I’m a loyal son of Ohio — but I only adopted Ohio State University when I became an expat living in Southern California. (Growing up, I — and a lot of kids who went to the University of Dayton or or Miami, or Cincinnati — despised Ohio State because they were too gutless to play the smaller Division I schools in the state in basketball.)

And so I’m not particularly an Indiana fan.

But I love Hoosiers football coach Curt Cignetti calling out the stuffed shirts in the baseball-first Southeastern Conference for their easily disproven claims to football primacy:

“The Big Ten is the best league in football. We don’t run a hype machine up here in the Midwest. We believe everything’s earned, not given. And when we fall short, we say we fell short. We don’t cry a river, whine and complain. And that’s why we’re the best.”

And from Illinois’ head coach Bret Bielema, firing another shot across the bow of the arrogant SEC, which keeps threatening to leave the NCAA and have its own exclusive football and basketball championships: “They want to live in 2005 forever.”

There is, of course, one way for the SEC to shut those Big Ten coaches up: Win more games vs. the Big Ten.

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