College Football

 

*/By Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc./*

*/Twitter [1]/*

College football is back baby!   I love college football – much more than
watching the pros play – which I also enjoy.  But there is a difference to
the college game.  First off it is kids playing (although I realize that to
their face I would call few of them kids.) 

Everyone can be unpredictable, but kids in particular.  When you are in
college you have a million things running through your life, of which
football is undoubtedly a big part – but it is only part.   With the pros
they also have many things running through their heads, but many of them are
football connected.  That makes their job is some sense much easier and much
more predictable.

Secondly in college football, the level of experience and expertise is not
there.  Also there is greater disparity between the best and the worst. 

Finally (for this list anyway) there is a greater role for passion.  In the
pros, it is a profession.  In college football I still believe (perhaps
willingly naively) that it is a passion for the big majority of players. 
Passion brings ebbs and flows.  Passion means that on any given Saturday
that any team can beat any other team provided the passion is present. 
Passion means that the human element (both individually and collectively as a
team) is always present and a factor.

For these reasons (and many others) college football is filled with
unpredictability, with crushing losses and unthinkable upsets.  The
unexpected becomes expected.  It means beauty and ugliness.  It implies
that the full range of outcomes, and then some, are able to happen.  It is
risk management played out to a conclusion within approximately 3 hours. 

Gotta love it baby!


[1] https://twitter.com/rsdsolutions