College Football has a twin, and his name is Formula 1

College football is the largest sport in the world.

Whatever your opinion or argument against that claim, it is incorrect.

No sport could begin to imagine comparing itself to the history, tradition, pageantry, hilarity, stupidity and general absurdity of college football.

Or at least I believed that until I was introduced to Formula 1.

Back to about a decade ago when I first saw Asif Kapadia’s fantastic documentary “Senna” (yes, it’s on Netflix) about the possibly greatest Formula 1 hero, Ayrton Senna, and his fatal, shocking and heartbreaking accident in 1994 I was intrigued by a sport with which I was practically unfamiliar, but at the time I made no effort to pursue potential fandom in this newly discovered sport where I would have to start from scratch.

Fast-forward to 2019 when Netflix released the documentary series, “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” which captured the entirety of the 2018 Formula 1 season and gave viewers a rare glimpse into one of the world’s most dramatic and bizarre sports. . I loved every second of it. It felt strange, but so familiar. And then it finally hit me.

“My God”. Formula 1 is college football. “

And then, just like college football, I became addicted. I saw every qualification and every race in my inaugural season as an F1 fan in 2019, and the more I consumed the sport, the more my epiphany reaffirmed.

Let’s take a look at how these two sports are evil twins:

1. The kings stay the kings

If you are a college football fan reading this, you are probably familiar with this cliche. College football has not seen a national champion for the first time since 1996 when Florida won its first of three national titles in a 13-year span. In that same 24-year period, three F1 teams have represented 18 F1 World Constructors’ Championships, awarded to the most successful F1 team.

Like college football, the past decade in F1 has been dominated by the elite. In fact, only two teams won championships in the 2010s, with Red Bull sweeping from 2010 to 2013 and Mercedes taking all the championships thereafter. The gap between the top teams (Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari) and midfield (the other seven teams) has only continued to grow as the cost of running an F1 team continues to rise.

Just like college football, those who to have continue to prosper while those who are I do not have it will continue to fall further from the top.

2. Winning championships is not everything

Most people would think that if you were to play a sport where you never get a chance to compete with the best and take first prize, you would be resigned and have nothing to play for. But if you’re a fan of college football or F1, you know it couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, just like college football, sometimes the battle outside of the championship contenders is as exciting as the competition for the top crown, if not more.

In college football we have the bowl system. Some call it a participation trophy season for the other 126 teams that failed to compete for the championship, but as Bill Connelly has illustrated, bowl games are much more than participation awards.

Only 44 different schools in the 150-year history of college football have won a national championship. But that does not stop the other 86 teams from adapting each season and giving their blood, sweat and tears knowing full well that it is practically impossible for them to play for the sport’s first prize. For those 86 schools there is still a lot to play and dream. Don’t believe me Go see the Cheez-It Bowl 2018.

Outside of the top three F1 teams are seven other teams that have equally great goals and dreams, even if those dreams are not winning the World Championship. These teams refer to themselves as “midfield,” while others refer to them as Formula 1.5 or Formula 1 1/2. Regardless of what you call them, for midfield the goal is to be the best of the rest and hopefully make it to the top three someday.

Often times, when the top three teams have blocked the top six spots in a race (two cars per team), the battle between the other 14 cars to finish in the remainder of the Top 10 and earn points is much more exciting than whoever. trying to get on the podium. But every now and then a midfield rider blocks the podium and it’s pure magic. Take Pastor Maldonado’s victory at the Spanish Grand Prix in 2012.

This was Maldonado’s only F1 podium and career victory in his entire career. He seems to care.

3. Everyone cheats

If you are a fan of college football in 2020 and still don’t believe your favorite school cheats, I’m afraid I have some terrible news for you: your favorite school cheats.

It is just the nature of the game. As the saying goes, “if you are not cheating, you are not trying.”

Cheating in college athletics has been around since the first intercollegiate athletic competition in 1852 when Harvard and Yale met at Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire for a regatta. Harvard sought to gain an illegal competitive advantage by allowing a non-Harvard coxswain to compete with them. And so, the rich history of college athletics and his favorite bad habit began.

But F1 has no room to judge, as those in sports share the same sins as college football.

Go ahead, name the four most famous F1 drivers in history. Chances are you’ve included Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, and Lewis Hamilton.

Guess what? All cheats.

Senna famously and deliberately crashed into Alain Prost at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix to prevent Prost from taking his 1990 World Championship. It worked.

In 2006 Schumacher outpointed Fernando Alonso by 15 points before the Monaco Grand Prix. Monaco is an extremely difficult track to transmit due to its narrow characteristics, making pole qualification in the Principality more important than anywhere else. To prevent Alonso from exceeding his own qualifying time, Schumacher stopped his car on the track to back up and prevent Alonso from having a clean lap. It worked, until it didn’t. Schumacher had to start from the pit lane in last place and finally finished in fifth place when Alonso claimed victory and finally the 2006 World Championship.

Hamilton had his “Lie-gate” in Australia 2009 and Vettel, while technically not cheating, but still very grim, had his “Multi-21” incident in Malaysia 2013.

But by far the worst criminals and cheats are the teams themselves. It would be almost impossible to list all the confirmed and unconfirmed ways that the teams have cheated. Hell, Ferrari just definitely escaped cheating just a few months ago, even though F1’s governing body (FIA) couldn’t prove it.

All of this is to say that those in college athletics and F1 love cheating, and really, it’s hard to blame them.

Think about it. If you are a pilot and have landed in one of the twenty most coveted racing seats in the world, would you do nothing to preserve it? And if you are one of the ten CEOs of an F1 team, which invests hundreds of millions of dollars in your car and equipment each year, would you do nothing to retain your job and make your shareholders happy? And if you are the highest paid state employee, would you do nothing to keep yourself that way? And if you’re a multi-billion dollar clothing company like Nike or Adidas, wouldn’t you make sure you get a return on your endorsement?

If you answered “no” to any of the above questions, why are you still reading this?

4. The governing bodies are corrupt

If you’re a college football fan who reads this, you don’t need me to tell you that the NCAA is rotten.

And if you’re an F1 fan reading this, you don’t need me to tell you that the FIA ​​isn’t clean either.

Forward!

5. Coaches Carousel = Silly Season

What could be bigger and dumber than the biggest offseason thrill of college football we like to call the coaches carousel?

Honestly not much. But if you want to make the silly F1 season storyline, then I’m open to it.

Just look at the craziness F1 has been through these past few months. In the midst of the sports world closing, F1 advanced its Silly 2020 Season and got very fast. One of the biggest stories and rumors was when Mercedes team principal (head coach) Toto Wolff was rumored to have quit the best team in the sport and to join the Canadian billionaire and F1 Racing owner. Point Lawrence Stroll. buy the Mercedes racing team from its parent company, Daimler.

Let’s take a moment to admire the madness of what was a mass rumor at the time. For college football fans, this would be like Nick Saban quitting his job so he can team up with a UAB mega-booster and buy Alabama so he can be the president of the school.

But that wasn’t even the biggest story of this silly past season.

That title would belong to Ferrari strangely and awkwardly shooting four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and promoting Charles Leclerc, a 22-year-old rising star who has only been in the sport for two years, to the team’s No. 1 driver.

I don’t have good analogies at this point, but I hope there are enough details in that sentence for most of you to understand how huge that story was.

And there you have it. I have successfully demonstrated that college football and Formula 1 are exactly the same sport. No yes, ands or buts.

With so much uncertainty surrounding the start of the college football season, there is no better time to watch F1 as the first race of the 2020 season is this weekend! Qualification will take place tomorrow, July 4, at 9 am ESPN and the Austrian Grand Prix (g’day, mates) will be at the same time and place on Sunday.

It is a very spectator friendly sport as there are only 10 teams, 20 drivers, races cannot last more than two hours or end, and they run on tracks around the world instead of turning left in circles.

“But who am I supporting?”

Here’s a cheat sheet for college football fans choosing their favorite Formula 1 team:

Ferrari = Texas: One of the largest and most recognized organizations in all auto racing, but for some reason it can’t go out of its own way and go back to its winning ways

Mercedes = Clemson: strong story before, but they have really resurfaced this decade and taken over

Red Bull = Miamicool new guys on the block who won many championships from the start, but have been slightly behind the leaders ever since despite consistent high levels of talented drivers

McLaren = Oklahoma: great tradition, strong team, but still cannot break the roof of the Top 3

Williams = Nebraska: dominant in the 90s, not seen anywhere these days

Renault = USC: won champions in the 2000s, but lately it’s been a mess

Racing Point = Boise State: Consistent superior performance with fewer resources than most, eye-catching color scheme

Alpha Tauri = Temple: They never did much on their own, but they have been a great stepping stone

Alfa Romeo = Pitt: Quite historic and I’ve tried greatness several times, but now sits firmly below average and plays second fiddle to your team in the state / at home

Haas = Kansas: Extremely popular team manager although the team is horrible

See you in grill track.