Hype is a curious creature.
Sportswriters are often guilty of applying it to games which don’t merit it. Pundits and bloggers have been known to create a narrative which so fully defines the buildup to kickoff that the postgame conversation is inevitably reshaped as a result. When that reshaping seems to ignore the facts on the ground, hype can be a harmful entity.
In other situations — think of the Super Bowl — hype isn’t necessarily unjustified, but it is omnipresent to the point of overkill. It’s not that hype wasn’t needed or welcomed; it simply stayed around too long at the party.
In many ways, the best way to regard hype before a significant football game is to acknowledge and even welcome its presence, but not obsess about its place in the larger theater of events.
This Saturday, when the Alabama Crimson Tide meet the Georgia Bulldogs, the hype which will accompany one afternoon isn’t the main reason why this clash should be seen as a major event. For all the intrigues offered by this game in the present moment, the weight of the occasion on a larger historical scale is what catapults Tide-Dawgs to a higher level of significance for everyone involved.
To continue reading this article by Matt Zemek at Bloguin, click here.
