Hlas: Self-imposed football shut-ins in Jacksonville

JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. - How powerful a hold does football have on Americans?

Though the sky was blue, the temperature was in the upper 70s, and the beach and a quarter-mile-long fishing pier were full of vacationers Sunday afternoon, many others were just the length of a few football fields away in a darkened sports bar.

Sneakers Sports Grille on Beach Boulevard might as well have been in chilly Cedar Rapids. There, adults gathered to watch their favorite NFL teams in nine games airing simultaneously. Six of the television screens in the place are roughly a story tall.

At least a half-dozen men and women were wearing Tom Brady No. 12 jerseys and intently watching their beloved New England Patriots play the Buffalo Bills. It apparently didn't matter to them that the game essentially was meaningless because the Pats had already secured the AFC's No. 1 seed in the upcoming playoffs.

What seemed the oddest to this tourist is that the game involving the Jacksonville Jaguars seemed to attract the least attention. The Jags brought their 3-12 record to Houston to play the Texans in their season-finale, and they might as well have been the Vancouver Jaguars by the non-reactions in the bar.

This is Jacksonville, a college football city with an NFL franchise. Unless, that is, the Jaguars are good. Then it's a pro town through and through.

But the Jags put the finishing touch Sunday on their seventh-straight losing season and fourth-consecutive year of at least 11 losses. Luckily, the football powerhouse University of Florida Gators are only 71 miles away.

Except that people here are down on the Gators. How down? Well, Florida was 6-5 in the regular-season (it had an Aug. 30 home game with Idaho canceled because of severe storms) and SEC rival Tennessee was 6-6, but Jacksonville's TaxSlayer Bowl took the Volunteers instead of the Gators even though Florida's largest concentration of fans comes from the metropolitan Jacksonville area.

'There's really three things we look for when we select a team,” TaxSlayer Bowl President Rick Catlett told the Florida Times-Union this month. 'The first is a good matchup that people will want to go see. The second is national television. Two brand names playing each other. The third is what we always called heads in beds (filling hotels) and butts in seats (game attendance).”

Whether Iowa-Tennessee meets the first two parts of Catlett's criteria may be arguable, but there was no way Florida fans would fill Jacksonville's hotels, sports bars and surf shops.

You think Iowa fans are disappointed with a 7-5 season and a date with Tennessee here Friday? The Gators are in this Saturday's Birmingham Bowl against East Carolina. Ewww.

There are banners in downtown Jacksonville and in Jacksonville Beach welcoming TaxSlayer Bowl fans here, but the only out-of-towners in a hurry to get here for that game was Iowa's team, which arrived on Christmas. The Hawkeyes may not have run the ball with maximum efficiency in some games, but they can run up a tab with the best of teams.

Tennessee's team practiced in Knoxville Sunday, then flew to Jacksonville. The Vols have been to Florida before. Hey, who hasn't?

Still, don't you have to worry a little about anyone who comes here from the cold for a short time in late December, but is immune to the charms of surf, sand and sun because their football team is playing on TV?

Don't you wonder about people who pack their Joe Flacco and Tony Romo jerseys so they can wear them for three hours in a sports bar that's a 2-minute walk from the ocean?

Luckily for the Iowa fans who will be in Jacksonville on New Year's Day, the first of the two college playoff games starts at 5 p.m., Eastern time. They can have their beach time and football time, too.

But if they sit in Sneakers and watch Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl, Minnesota in the Citrus, and Michigan State in the Cotton on New Year's afternoon? Please don't tell me. There's enough sadness in the world.

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@thegazette.com