How good would Cape football have been with all those athletes?

There’s one thing we can learn from a fat sporting dog. The more you toss them food the more ravenous they become, the better they catch rather than fetch and they develop those begging eyes when they are around nonsporting and plumped-up humans.

I have pushed away at least 20 hot dogs and sausages and a like number of offered beers just after one week of full-blown football season.

I know that all lifelong members of the lineman’s tribe are always on a diet because no matter how much they are eating it is a sign of restraint compared to what they could eat.

LAX AND SACKS – Seven-on-seven flag football in Rehoboth on Sunday mornings is fun stuff to cover, and if it weren’t fun to play the young men who play it would exercise their option to stay at home.

I have noticed that without a doubt there are more former lacrosse players and soccer players sprinting around the flag football field than former football guys.

Perhaps that’s because so many football guys play unskilled positions, so why transition to the sport where everyone touches the ball when there are breakfast specials at McDonalds? And because football is America’s sport, when I watch guys I have known forever who didn’t play in high school then I see them snapping on the football field as young adults I can’t help but wonder how good would Cape football have been if they got all the athletes?

WILD HORSES - I get asked many cliché questions about high school football. After Cape’s 34-7 loss to Indian River several fans who weren’t at the game asked, “Is Cape really that bad?” And my least favorite, “What’s the matter, they just don’t have the horses?” I would resent that question if I were a player because I am one of the horses and I’ve never stepped onto a field thinking if I were better we’d have a better chance of winning.

“Outgunned and outmanned” are other offensive analyses to the athletes who played in the game.

LET THEM HANG AROUND - I was on the Richmond sidelines last Saturday for the Delaware game and I couldn’t help but notice how relaxed the players appeared despite trailing for most of the game. The Spiders are defending national champions of Division I-AA and riding an 11-game wining streak. When the Spiders’ offense was on the bench everyone watched replays on the new scoreboard seeming almost mesmerized by the technology. If they had cell phones I knew they would be “texting and tweeting.”

Blue Hen coach K.C. Keeler said after the game when the Hen’s game-winning field goal was blocked, “that’s what happens when you let good teams hang around.”

I wondered who was allowing whom to hang around in this game? A high snap and soft turf saw the ball sink to the first stripe for the would-be winning field goal attempt and basic physics teaches the angle of lift and trajectory is lower when the ball is slightly sunken - that’s why golfers cheat and use wooden tees but “the block” is not allowed in college, only high school.

COLOR GUARD LANGUAGE - Last Saturday was band day at Delaware and it only took me looking at 200 high school kids before the game - “man these people look young” - to realize something was up. The mega halftime performance was impressive and I sat directly behind rows of flag girls - I did not see a flag boy - as a woman barked instructions through a little Bose speaker. Take away the color guard and there goes the color.

We fans like all that stuff but the kids who do it are underappreciated and I noticed that all of them seemed to be having so much fun.

And now each football team has two players who are honored as flag holders charging onto the field with the American flag and a university flag. Wasn’t the flag guy the first one shot in trench warfare?

There is no scenario where I’m charging into a hail of bullets armed with a flag or playing a bugle.

SNIPPETS - Junior Molly Dreska put a ball in the back of the net in the second half for the University of Maryland women’s soccer team in its 1-0 victory over James Madison Sunday afternoon at Ludwig Field. James Madison returned nine of 11 starters form a team that went to the Sweet Sixteen last season. The win ups the Terrapins’ record to a perfect 7-0 with one game remaining in its nonconference schedule. Maryland will host Brown on Friday night at Ludwig Field with the opening kick schedule for 7 p.m.

I have been working the visiting sidelines at Delaware for at least 10 years and the regulars from Delaware always think I am with the visiting team figuring I’m a coach or, god forbid, a distinguished alumnus. The CAA conference statistical gate keeper asked me early in the third quarter “Did you guys come up last night or drive up this morning?”

“Actually the team showed up at halftime,” I said. “But momentum rolls over slowly like a lazy dog.”

Think of the Phillies post-season roster decisions and “Vote for Pedro.”