Eagles' Sonny Jurgensen leads the NFL champs to a solid, but not embarrassingly easy, win over the College All-Stars.
Temple's Montel Harris wasn't quite the force I expected him to be at the East-West Shrine game in Florida last week.
Three carries, eight yards in a 28-13 loss to the West last Saturday.
I didn't expect the 36 carries, 351 and seven touchdowns he had against Army, but definitely more than three carries.
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| Temple's Brandon McManus practices a kickoff in preparation for Casino-Del-Sol College All-Star game. |
The way all-star games are set up now, it's not to simulate real football, either in the NFL or colleges.
Sunday's All-Pro game in Hawaii is even a bigger farce that becomes more farcical every year. It's nothing more than a glorified Flag Football game.
I have proposed a trade that would benefit both organizations.
Play a combined group of the best college all-stars (an East-West Shrine and Senior Bowl combined team, if you will) against a REAL all-pro team (minus Super Bowl participants, of course).
Ditch the pro bowl.
Ditch the East-West Shrine game.
Ditch the Senior Bowl.
A similar game was played up to and including 1977 and the pros dominated, winning 31 and losing nine. There were two ties. The college team won enough games to make it interesting enough to attract viewers, a ratings' bonanza in the early days of television.
One of the differences was that most of those games were in August against the defending NFL champs.
Another, more important, one was both teams were actually TRYING to win.
That's really the name of any game and something that has been lost in recent all-star football years.
My late father and guys from his generation said that the college vs. pro all-star game was one of the highlights of the football season in those days, right up with big games in college football and NFL playoff games.
You could still have the satellite college all-star games for the lesser stars, but this gets football fans a chance to see the LIKELY first- and second-round picks tested against the best available NFL talent.
This is the perfect time to do it as the all-star season for both college and pros comes to a zenith during the last part of January.
I know the college kids would play hard and I suspect pride alone would make the pros play a real game as well.
I can't think of a better way for the NFL to break out of its Sunday-before-Super Bowl malaise and it would certainly be a booster shot for college football.
A win-win for all fans of this wonderful game.
