It's hard to resist dissing a headline.
I love good puns. Unfortunately, I am not sure "It's no crock: Gators are in Final Four" is especially all that effective or punny. It's a little too cute for my taste, or should I say a little too tasteless for my taste.
Perhaps the headline writer was trying to have a little too much fun here, or got caught up in the moment of the game. Who knows?
There are a couple of ways people might read this headline:
First, there is the obvious play on words between the large voracious reptile "crocodile" and "gator", which is the University of Florida's mascot. If this is the intended meaning, fine I get it. But if that were the case, shouldn't the abbreviation be croc and not crock?
Second, perhaps a more a likely interpretation, suggests the term "crock" comes from the phrase "crock of shit."
I am not sure readers will take journalism all that seriously with this one. Is it okay to use slang in headlines, especially those associations that are commonly known?
In this case, the writer may be taking the risk of offending some readers. Then again, it is the sports page. How's that for stereotyping readers?
A "crock", in modern jargon, has come to mean nonsense and foolish talk. The context in which crock is at issue here. Some readers may not understand the relationship between the different ideas going here. They simply not get the joke. I get it, but I am still shaking my head about it.
The word "crock" has an interesting history. Originally, crock meant earthen ware, but over time the meaning changed to explain the dirt and soot that came to cover cookware or crockery. Somehow, the context changed or morphed with time into a "crock of soot" and later took on the meaning of "crock of shit." Now we just use "crock" as an expression to convey nonsense.
This is all good, but it's a bit of stretch applying the word "crock" to "gator." On the other hand, I could be just "full of it."