Our football team is huge. No, not weight-wise – although if you’re looking for a fun fact, the net weight of the entire football team is 32,955 pounds – but rather in numbers. As it is, there are 153 players listed on the 2011 team roster.

That’s nearly seven percent of the entire undergraduate enrollment. That also means that 54 players on the team share a number with someone else.

The Baltimore Ravens had 53 players on their roster last time I checked. Wait, we have almost three times that many players on ours?

Money speaks, and I know that’s why we have such a large team. Boosters give money; more players mean more parents and more parents mean more potential boosters and yes, that means more money for the university.

Does more money (and a new stadium) make them a better team though? It would seem as if a larger crop of players to choose from would mean that there would be more potential gems.

Most of those players will never see the field. Practicing alone is not enough to make an average, mediocre or even good athlete into a great one; you need game experience. I’m an athlete; I know how that works. Practice is important, but practice isn’t sufficient motivation.

Being on a practice squad has to be like wandering around without a goal and, as much as the 30th, 31st and 32nd defensive backs on the depth chart might tell themselves that they’re helping the team, that help isn’t tangible. The reserve football team (an entire team in itself, it seems) occupies what seems like an entire section of the stadium seats on Saturdays. Half of the players that have the privilege of standing on the field don’t even get to cross that thick white sideline on game day.

There’s always room for improvement though, right?

A good first step would be to make the leap to being better than the guy you share a number with.

I hate to dislike a team, especially an Ashland team, but I just feel that way about the football team. Don’t get me wrong, I go to the games and I root for AU. I just enjoy watching football lose more than I enjoy watching the team win.

I was talking with some friends, and we thought about starting up a fantasy football league using players only on the AU roster. We never discussed how scoring might work, but we figured that we could draft at least an eight or ten team league. I would imagine that touching the field would be worth one point, touching the game ball would be worth at least 2 and maybe even hoisting the upright net after a touchdown would be worth a point.

We couldn’t put money on this theoretical league, though. The NCAA wouldn’t like that at all. They only like it when they make all the money.