Football is dominating the RNC

The college football season might be canceled as far as two of the Power Five conferences are concerned, but you wouldn't know that from watching this year's Republican National Convention.

Halfway through the third night of the proceedings, the three best speeches so far had all been given by former coaches or players. The first came on Monday from the Heisman Trophy-winning running back Herschel Walker, who gave an impassioned and occasionally amusing address about his improbable decades-long friendship with President Trump. Walker also spoke with intelligence and conviction about race relations. I'm not saying this was the equivalent of a certain Illinois state senator's breakout speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. But I'm not not saying that either. Go Dawgs.

Then on Wednesday night came Lou Holtz, the reactionary Notre Dame legend who is one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport. Holtz's address was largely devoted to his opposition to abortion, but he also gave perhaps the best one-sentence case against Joe Biden I have ever heard. “I used to ask our athletes at Notre Dame, ‘If you didn't show up, who would miss you and why?'” Millions of Americans are asking the same question about the former vice president.

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A few minutes after Holtz finished, the former journeyman NFL safety Jack Brewer gave a bizarre, rambling, and instantly memorable speech about his childhood that touched on everything from street fighting and the Ku Klux Klan to his mother's views on the Evil one: "My momma, when the Lord starts blessin', the Devil starts messin'." Indeed.

If nothing else, the total rhetorical domination of the RNC by football players is a good reminder of my dictum that politicians and pundits are mostly unnecessary because other famous people usually say the things the former wish to express far better.