A couple of nicely turned phrases

I have been following college football through the New York Times a lot this year, and I thought Pete Thamel had a couple of nice lines from the Florida-Cincinnati game.

From the gamer:

"The Bearcat defense had been mostly smoke and mirrors the last two months, giving up an average of 36.5 points in its final four games. As the Bearcats lined up across from Tebow and the Gators, the smoke cleared and the mirrors shattered."

From the follow-up:

"NEW ORLEANS — If the future of the Florida football program had a Facebook page, its relationship status would read, “It’s complicated.”

The coach is taking an indefinite leave of absence. The defining player is off to the N.F.L., and a group of talented juniors appears destined to follow him."

*****

I know some folks will argue the facebook reference is perhaps too "trendy," but it really worked for me.

 

The Facebook reference would have been trendy three years ago. Now it's whatever that thing is when things aren't trendy anymore but old, unhip people have just noticed it.

(Not that I think it's bad. It's okay as a lead.)

 

I guess. But, a few years ago, a general audience wouldn't have understood the reference.
There's a fine line in there somewhere, so to speak.

 

I think the term "smoke and mirrors" is better used to describe a defense that is playing well in spite of a lack of talent; as in "the Cincy defense doesn't have a lot of five-star recruits but they've been getting it done with smoke and mirrors."

Here, he says that giving up 36.5 points per game over the last four games is smoke and mirrors. So if that's the case, there really wasn't much different about what Florida did to Cincy and the smoke clearing and mirrors shattering doesn't seem to make sense. But I don't write for the NYT so who am I to say...

 

You're absolutely right.

 

I don't mind the FB line at all. It's different.

 

sportsjournalists.comy?

 

"Florida did not let Mardy Gilyard send it any pieces of flair."

 

Not to be a jerk, but I didn't find either of those to be particularly nicely turned phrases. The first was a cliche that he misused and the second just didn't do much for me.

 

I liked the Facebook one a lot more than the first one.

 

I can do better than that particular FB reference.

NEW ORLEANS — If the future of the Florida football program had a Facebook page, its profile picture would look like this:

 

"Florida has become a fan of Coaches Changing Their Minds."