Tim Tebow is injured. He's not 'groggy' or 'a little dazed.' He's injured. He suffered what from all accounts is a pretty severe concussion. We tend to laugh off those injuries because there's no blood, no broken bones. There's no picture of the knee exploding, or anything like that. It is that lack of physical evidence that makes it possible for us to laugh off the extent of Tebow's injury. That's how we rationalize it.
"Well, he just got his bell rung."
Not really, no. He was given what is also referred to in the medical community as "mild traumatic brain injury." That's not a thigh contusion. And as Alligator Army points out, it looks quite a bit nastier when you take away the context of the game. There's a general consensus in Gator Land that Tebow will play. Typically, concussions take a couple of weeks to go away completely. It's not that Tebow can't play in his condition. He can. It's that for him to be healthy, in the brain, you know, the center of all function for human beings? He needs more time. But that time will not be afforded to him as it would anyone else that had something asked of him, nor will that time be levied by his coach.
And that's where most people start and end the blame. Urban Meyer. The coach needs to look after his QB, his kid, his adopted son. He needs to think of that kid first, and not be so focused on the game as to allow Tebow to be in a position where he could be injured. But in reality, it's not a blood thirsty quest for victory that consumes Meyer, nor is it a disregard for the severity of his injury. No, what is pushing Tebow towards playing in a week and a half is the same thing that landed him in this position to begin with. And that's not his coach. It's the BCS.
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It's last Saturday night and the Gators are cruising. The game is completely over. The Gators have dominated from the opening tipoff and were up 31-7 in the third quarter. The Wildcats looked completely overwhelmed. And yet Tim Tebow was not on the sideline, drinking Gatorade or praying or doing whatever you do when you're not being THE TIM TEBOW at a game on Saturday night. Instead, he was leading another drive with the intention of scoring a touchdown, preferably one in which he himself scored. The result of the game was beyond doubt, so why was Tebow in? Because of his unstoppable will to win? Probably a little. Because his coach enjoys the destruction of a fanbase and the glee of running up the score? Unlikely. Meyer left Tebow in because he had to.
The week before, Meyer had suffered the questions. "Why didn't you beat Tennessee by more?" It wasn't enough to have dominated Lane Kiffin's group from the get-go. Not enough to have a dominant offense, a dominant defense, a dominant lead in the polls. The Tennessee win was a win that didn't help them at all. It could be used later by voters, if it came down to it, to vote another way. Sure, the Gators were undefeated and that is the goal for the season. Start number one, finish undefeated, go to BCS championship game, collect millions of dollars. But Meyer knows how the system works. He'd seen Auburn get shut out despite a more impressive resume in the past. He'd seen his fellow SEC rivals be excluded, simply on the merits of "not beating other people by enough." It wasn't about the computers. They would support his cause. But the voters had to be left every single week with the enormity of Florida's dominance. There could be no doubt. One slip-up, one bad week, one crazy week versus LSU, or a rainstorm game against Arkansas, and the Gators could have a loss. They had one last year. Which means if they get in a one-loss battle with Texas, with Oklahoma, with USC, all of whom have easier schedules, the Gators would need to have left the voters slack-jawed at exactly how incredible this Florida team was, even with the loss.
Meyer knew this, and knew he'd been weakened by Tennessee's illusion of "keeping it close" the week before. It wasn't Meyer's own hubris that demanded blood. It wasn't his boosters that called for the sacrifice of the Wildcats. It was the system that has rendered beach potential championship team vulnerable to the whims of voters who only peruse box scores or see twenty second highlights. It's a system that has created a labyrinth of paradoxes in its attempt to sort out the weaknesses created by its greed. If you don't schedule tough opponents, you'll never climb the polls. But if you schedule tough opponents and don't beat them by "enough" you may lose a tiebreaker. Running up the score on a weaker team can make that team look worse and hurt your schedule. Only winning by 10 against a rival opponent creates the appearance of vulnerability.
That's where Urban Meyer found himself in the third quarter against Kentucky. Having to blow out an SEC rival to impress voters so that in the future, they could look at the wide number of blowouts and be convinced that this team who plays in the toughest conference in the country and who still dominates, is worthy of a title shot. He had to commit to avoiding giving his fans the same bitter outrage Texas fans felt last year. One loss, dominant performance, no title. The motto isn't "Just Win, Baby." It is, it must be, "Leave No Doubt." And the best way to do that? Score more touchdowns with the invincible superhero.
And now, Meyer faces a similar dilemma. He has to decide between the health of a player who is "like a son" to him, and his responsibilities as football coach of the Florida Gators, an SEC team and member of the BCS system. He's reliant upon a system devoid of sense to provide him with what he feels is a just outcome. And the cost of that is the short-term disregard of advised, but not necessary, orders from medical personnel. Tebow can play, so Tebow must play. It's not that Meyer doesn't care about Tebow. In fact, for all the man's perceived arrogance, I'm sure seeing Tebow lay motionless must have been as hard for him as it was for anyone outside of Tebow's own family. But Meyer has a responsibility to his employer, to his fans, to his university, to his team, to his legacy. And the BCS has forced him to make the wrong call.
Football is, at its heart, still a game. College football is a business, that's a fact of life. And it is a passion for players, fans, and families. But that game should still never force people into making decisions that even in the slightest bit, risk the long-term health of its players. This is far from the first instance, and it will be far from the last. But of all the reasons to push past a conservative approach to a brain injury, isn't this system the worst of them all? Don't we owe it to ourselves to create something which is not only fair and fun and allows for people to make money and be obsessed fans, but also puts common sense first?
Too many dollars to be made. For Meyer, for Tebow, for the University of Florida. But the man behind the curtain, as usual, is nothing more than a flawed contraption we have yet to rebuild.
Comments
1) Injuries happen. If the second string quarterback had been in instead, and he got injured, then what you're saying is that this person is less worthy as an individual because he isn't a first string QB.
2) If you're trying to argue for the students as individuals, you should be focusing your efforts on getting them to unionize since they are exploited by all the surrounding organizations that make a lot of cash off of them.
3) Along the same lines as 2, a play off would require these players to play longer, which would actually be against their best interest as student athletes. Also, since injuries are statistical, by making them play longer, you have higher chances of more severe injuries like the one just witnessed.
All in all, this article tries to take the high ground but is completely misguided.