A quick list of College Football dos and don'ts....

In the second chapter of View From North America's "What to do and what not to do in college football) Alex Ferguson comes up with a quick list of college football do's and don'ts....

FOR THE QUARTERBACK

DO: Mix it up with a little running and a little throwing. It’s always entertaining watching a quarterback out of the pocket (Pat White (WVU), Tim Tebow (Florida))



DON’T: Try and run out of the pocket, trip up, and look like a fool (Stephen McGee against Penn State in the Alamo Bowl – which cost the Aggies the game)

FOR THE BACKUP QUARTERBACK

DO: Hit the wide receiver in the corner with second remaining on the clock for the winning touchdown and the monster upset (Stanford’s Tavita Pritchard) on the opposition’s turf, leaving the home crowd speechless and close to tears.

DON’T: Hit the person in the fourth row back in the last second of the game when your team’s five points behind against a minor opponent at home. Want to know why? Can I suggest you try it?

FOR THE RUNNING BACK

DO: Total 1,000 yards against both the good and bad teams (Adrian Peterson, Oklahoma)

DON’T: Show how wonderful you are against the good teams and how much can turn the ball over against the bad ones (West Virginia’s Steve Slaton vs South Florida in 2007).

FOR THE KICKER

DO: Celebrate with the "Gator Chomp" when your team beats Florida on a last-ditch, twice-taken field goal in The Swamp.

DON'T: Expect to come out alive.

FOR THE CHEERLEADERS

DO: Bounce up and down and generally look happy with life. You’re cheering for crying out loud! You’re meant to do that!

DON’T: Cheer when the other team scores (USC Song Girls against USC and UCLA). It doesn’t look all that great to get a full ride and screw that kind of thing up.



FOR THE TEAMS

DO: Celebrate every score. Can we suggest that the whole team does NOT run on the field after a score, though? Sure, it might hype you up, but it creates bulletin board material for the 'return leg'.

DON’T: Celebrate every score like you’ve just won the National Title. Especially if you’re playing a I-AA school

DO: Play like Georgia against Hawaii in the BCS, where Georgia destroyed Hawaii, putting to bed any thoughts of a monster WAC upset.

DON’T: Play like Michigan against Appalachian State. What happened there again?

FOR THE FANS

DO: If your most hated opponent loses to a severely minor opponent, buy as many I LOVE T-Shirts with the winning school’s name on it.

DON’T: Carry it on after that school’s then beaten your school. You look like a fool. Carrying it on after the season has finished? By all means.

DO: Throw a beer across to the students sitting at the car next to you at the tailgate at 8am. They’ll remember you at 5pm when you’ve run out of beers and their buddy’s just popped to the store to get another case or two.

DON’T: Throw your beers AT the opposition fans (like Penn State’s did against Ohio State) – not cool.

DO: Rip up the goalposts after an upset victory and carry them around campus.

DON’T: Be one of the poor bastards carrying the goalposts – or be at the wrong end of it!

DO: Stay until the end. I know it sucks, but many people would kill to have a season ticket. If you don’t have a season ticket and have walked in on scalped tickets, then why would you leave anyway?

DON’T: Stay to the end and then boo your team off the field after a loss. Your team knows that it sucked ass. It was playing the damned game for 60 minutes, right?

FOR ESPN GAMEDAY

DO: Have College Gameday at a Division III school, like you did when Williams played Amherst last season. I mean, it's great seeing it at LSU, Georgia, Florida and Ohio State week in, week out, but the Williams-Amherst Gameday is something special.



DON’T: Let Lee Corso wear the mascot’s head. Sometime, Lee will wear the mascot’s head and get bombarded with material the home fans have been collecting for just the occasion.

DO: Replay Chris Fowler’s speech to Virginia Tech fans at the start of the 2007 season. A true tearjerker.




DON’T: Forget to filter the messages behind Kirk, Lee and Chris. They become YouTube heaven.

FOR THE IDLE VIEWER

DO: Make sure you've got two TVs and a computer going at the same time, showing different games. Or buy ESPN Gamecast/ sojourn yourself to your local bar/ go to Vegas.

DON'T: Try and buy ESPN Gamecast if you're in the UK. You can't. However, there are international channels that will still show you 70 games. SCORE!

DO: Sit back, open a cold one, and Thank God it's college football Saturday once again.

DON'T: See your local game on TV and swear to God that you were going to go to the game, if hadn't been for the darned kids/wife/ husband/ car/ house. If you really wanted to go, you would have, right?

FOR THE 2008 SEASON

DO: Make sure you’re watching USC- Ohio State next season.

DON’T: Figure that the winner of that game is automatically going to the BCS Title Game, and the loser automatically isn’t. Haven’t we learned anything from 2007?