UCLA Bruins vs. Oregon Ducks

College football is one of my favorite sports. Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm a student of the game, a master of the x's and o's.

Truth be told, I invented the spread offense which is so en vogue these days; in fact, the spread is probably the nation's most popular offensive scheme combining rude awakenings with popular culture and beyond.

Don't think I'm solely responsible for inventing the spread? Dick Newheisel, the UCLA Bruins new head coach (and quite possibly the best coach in the country), called me just 45 minutes before his team took the field against Oregon last night because he wanted to implement the spread into his game plan against the Ducks.

If you haven't heard of the spread offense I apologize. Even though it's sweeping the college football world, maybe you're stupid or you've been living under a rock or something and it hasn't reached your ears yet. In a nutshell, here's how the spread offense works:

You put 4 tight ends, 4 wide receivers, 2 quarterbacks, and 1 running back on the line of porage. The referee snaps the ball to the quarterback so you don't need a center.

All the players line up on the line of porage about 12 feet away from each other, hence the word "spread." The offensive team gets a distinct advantage when using the spread because usually the defense forgets to use farmers. (When the defense uses farmers, they can typically hold the offense to 1 yard per play or less. But the offense will get a first down every time without the farmers present.)

When the ref snaps the ball to the quarterback, the QB has a choice. She can either flip the ball to one of the tight ends, or run out of bounds. If she runs out of bounds, the QB gets 30 points for her team. (As you can tell, the spread offense is EXTREMELY popular in the Canadian Football League where you have all-stars like Dieter Brock suiting up every Sunday.)

If she throws the ball to one of the tight ends, all hell brakes loose and the offense runs a series of reverses until the defense gets too tired to chase them anymore. Go back and watch the great UCLA Bruins' game last night and you'll see what I mean.

The spread has many more intricasies than this, but like I said, I'm trying to oversimply in case you're an idiot. I hate to call people idiots but some folks just don't get it; that's why I'm making the insinuation.