Top 5 reasons Thursday games stink
(Written by kencraw)
The more I think about it, the more I think Thursday games are the bane of all existence in College Football. They’ve got one upside: Money. Spreading out games over more than just Saturday means more viewing hours from fans of the game. But other than that, it’s all garbage:
- Number 5: Lost bye week advantage. Theoretically, it’s an approximate 90% likelihood that with one bye, that each team will have one week where they’ve got the bye advantage (had a bye while their opponent didn’t) and one week where they’ve got the disadvantage (didn’t have a bye while their opponent did). The Thursday games tend to equalize things there for the bye advantage, because it’s likely your opponent will have a pre-Thursday bye just like the Bears (see Oregon) but it doesn’t significantly shrink the statistical likelihood the Bears will have a week with a bye disadvantage (although this year it doesn’t happen sans reason #4).
- Number 4: Double Thursdays mean you’re going to get the bye shaft. After getting no bye advantage last Thursday, we’ll have a bye disadvantage against USC this week who has a pre-Thursday bye just like we did the first week.
- Number 3: Difficult to get to home games. People who work in San Francisco won’t sympathize, but for the many Bear fans who come from far away for Cal games (I’ve found I’m not alone at traveling multiple hours to get to Bear games) a Thursday evening game is a real logistical challenge. And being a night game, as all Thursday games are, it also makes it not kid-friendly (who have school the next day (see reason number one as well)).
- Number 2: It messes up practice schedules. I really think one of the keys to success in college football is consistency. That starts with practice. This year we’ll have 4 consecutive weeks (9/25 bye week through 10/22 Utah game) where the practice schedule will be unorthodox.
- Number 1: It messes up the classes of our Student Athletes. Everyone remembers these are STUDENTS, right? They already make tons of compromises in the class scheduling to work around practices and travel schedules for Saturday games. For Thursday games they’re for sure going to miss additional class time and distracted, particularly on their return Fridays and with all the odd practice schedules during the week.
I’m sure these aren’t the only ones, others?
October 10th, 2011 at 11:33 am
[…] Why Thursday Games Stink […]
October 10th, 2011 at 11:53 am
As a Cal Band alumnus, I feel for the current band members who must deal with the upcoming Thursday night home game. I’m sure many current members have lab classes Thursday evening as I did when I was in school, which means choosing between class and the game. Since we’re not football players, it makes even less sense for band members to have to sacrifice academics and the gameday experience in order to help the bottom line and get national ratings. And what about the general student body?
October 11th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Thursday games stink except for one thing — national TV exposure with no other football competition.
And if Cal can beat USC, the exposure will be good.
For all you complainers, doesn’t the basketball team play on Thursday nights? Isn’t there a band for those games? What do the basketball players do to meet their class requirements? And don’t the basketball players have 30 games instead of 12?
Perhaps the basketball players and the basketball band are just smarter than their football counterparts.
October 11th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ……………………
October 13th, 2011 at 6:32 am
I’m going to wait until tomorrow to post something about how we always get embarassed playing on Thursday…
October 14th, 2011 at 8:11 am
In regards to Uncle Rick’s comment about basketball players being smarter than football players, as a former mascot I’ll toss this fun bit out there:
Basketball players know that every week, they’re playing on Thursday nights, often on the road, so they don’t schedule a lot of classes early Friday morning. Football players don’t have that luxory.
I can’t speak for the band, but I don’t think the entire marching band goes to every basketball game. So maybe there is a bit of “whoever can make it, makes it”.