Man, today started with that whole Fresno State vs UCLA matchup buzzing in my head. I was hella pumped to dive into profiling those key players everyone’s talking about. Figured I’d find some standout moments and really dig deep. Hit up some game film sites first thing after breakfast.
Finding info was like pulling teeth. Thought it’d be easy, right? Famous teams, big game. But nah. Tried looking up player stats, clicked through maybe 20 different pages. Kept getting hit with paywalls asking for subscriptions I ain’t got. One site wanted fifteen bucks just to see who scored the first touchdown! Forget that.
Got kinda panicked by lunchtime. Already wasted hours googling “Fresno top running back” and “UCLA quarterback highlights.” Mostly just found old news articles from weeks ago or super basic stuff anyone knows. Felt stuck.
Okay, time crunch hits. Had to just… make it work. Grabbed the official team roster pages – at least those are free. Copied names and positions like a robot. For stats? Totally winged it. Went with basic stuff anyone can see just looking at a box score: touchdowns scored, maybe a big tackle if I remembered one. Couldn’t find reliable numbers fast enough, so some of it’s… estimated based on a quick highlight reel skim. Yeah, real professional.
Here’s how desperate it got for the profiles themselves:
- Saw a quick post-game interview snippet. Boom, wrote two lines about “team spirit.”
- Remembered one guy had a sack? Slapped in “defensive pressure.”
- Another player looked fast in a clip I saw ages ago? Threw in “breakaway speed.”
Whole thing felt dirty. Ended up just slapping together a couple paragraphs for like four guys. Copied their listed height and weight straight off the roster page. Highlight of the research was finding a decent action photo for each on the university athletics Flickr account. That’s it. That’s the deep dive.
Ended up with this NOT super detailed profile structure:
- Name & Position: Ripped from the team sheet.
- Key Stat: Usually touchdowns or tackles. Maybe a yardage number if I caught it.
- One Highlight Thing: Whatever positive comment I could vaguely recall or make up based on vibes.
Hit publish feeling kinda lame. Real athletes deserve way better than my lazy scraping. Should’ve tracked down proper stats, watched the whole tape, talked about technique. Didn’t have the time or resources today. Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually watch the whole game replay instead of skipping everything after halftime. Today? It was all about slapping something up fast. Didn’t feel great, but it’s out there.
