Prepare for these football sayings

Beautiful fall is here and the football season that comes with it, especially the joy of a Saturday afternoon at a college game.

With tongue in cheek, but not by much, my favorite top 10 college football sayings that will be repeated often this season.

10. “He’s on the watch list.” These are the lists made up by 8000 football publications that list those players who might win one of the 10,000 awards at the end of the year. There are multiple awards for every position; all given with the hope the giver gets lots of publicity.

Football PR people love to note all these watch list people in the player bios of the 3000 pound press guide they put out for recruiting purposes. If a player is on the watch list, join the crowd.

9. “He’s a great student.” Probably true and really important, but when football people start their discussion of a player with this you can pretty much figure he’s not going to be playing much.

8. “We’re going to stay the course.” This is about a losing football team that doesn’t have the talent to make any changes. The coach is probably looking for another job and the recruiters are looking for other players.

7. “We want to have a balanced offense.” This means the team isn’t particularly good at either running or passing the football. No team with Jim Brown is worried about passing and no team from the WAC is worried about running.

6. “He’s growing in the position.” This is a coach saying I wish I had someone else to play there, but he’s it, so all I can hope for is that he grows into the job.

5. “I’m telling the kids to remember —–“(fill in the blank with the greatest upset loss in school history). When you hear this, the coach is telling you we are going to blow this team away, but he can’t say that without looking like a jerk.

4. “I thought it was promising.” You can bet that the final score didn’t say that. The comment may be about a particular player or a game, same meaning.

3. “Good things are going to happen.” This is about a hope and a prayer. When the discussion is about specific areas being worked on, there is probably hope. When the comments are about those “good things” you know the coach is trying to find them.

2. “Better days are coming.” The question is always when. And if that gets asked, the coach gets a real burn going around the collar.

1. And the No. 1 comment to be revered this college football season, “We aren’t going to quit.” We should, but we don’t have that option because someone went and scheduled this whole season’s worth of games and told those other teams we will play them.

Watch for the above in your next college football read or when viewing a coach doing an interview. They are required verbiage when all is not well.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.