Conference pride is important. A 3-peat of titles from the SEC will give any SEC champ the inside track to the BCS title game….including UGA. You need to be able to put bitterness aside and realize that any SEC win indirectly benefits all conference teams.
I pulled hard for Ole Miss and had no problems doing so. Ole Miss was simply better than us that day earlier this season. Does that mean that I want a Big 12 team to beat them with their Arena League style?? Hell No!!!!

For those of you that feel compelled to root for Oklahoma on the 8th? Just remember you can’t win – Stoops is always a Gator as he helped coach us to our first title. Either that or the Gators get you twice in one season.

You make the call.

Congrats on the win against Michigan State – you did the conference proud.

The last part of this comment is why I’m an OU fan on the 8th. I hate Florida. Confrence pride is overrated. Would I hate them if Georgia could make our rivalry somewhat respectable? I have no idea. I’m only 28 and my memory from the 80s isn’t that great….

will I root for Florida to win. NEVER. EVER. NEVER!

If Florida was playing Al-quida in the BCS Championship I would be rooting for Osama to throw for 400 yds and 6 TD’s.

I hope the Gators lose by 40!

I never understood the logic in pulling for teams that bad mouth you during recruiting, whose fans are total assholes, and whose coaches use every opportunity they have to put your program down, just of “conference loyalty”. You know what makes a team look good? Winning every game they can—not how the teams they played perform in mostly meaningless bowl games played 5 weeks after the season is over. When Florida is flying to a game, I root for gravity. I will NEVER pull for Florida in anything because you can bet the mortgage they’re not pulling for us.

our fellow SEC teams. The more the SEC wins the better it is for all. That is why a 2 loss LSU was allowed to play for the MNC.

for playing some legitimate nonconference games in TCU and Cincinnati. TCU took Utah to the wire and lost by 3, and Cincinnati won the Big East. Florida played nobody this year outside the SEC and possibly an emerging Florida State team. Although most admire Florida’s success in what they’ve done during the past several years, they did it on pansy nonconference schedules. They probably have the easiest nonconference schedule out of all the SEC teams, and I give no respect for them complaining of a tough schedule. If Georgia has the initiative to go out of state and hosting legitimate teams for their nonconference games, that brings a lot of respect about their program in having the initiative to take the challenge and playing those teams.

So how does Florida go to the National Championship? Outside of playing the SEC, they play pansy nonconference teams. How does Florida go undefeated at home? Play Charleston Southern and the Citadel every year. I would like to see Florida host a legitimate nonconference team like Oregon, BYU, Nebraska, or Cincinnati. They would probably win all of those games, but it comes to show that they are not chicken in hosting a competitive team.

“Florida winning the NC is good for Florida and nobody else.”

Very true and couldn’t have said it any better than that. Having an opponent SEC team doesn’t help our cause. It’s like saying that GT was in our conference and they went to the NC. Why should we root for our bitter rival to win the NC even if they are in the same conference as us?

OU can and hopefully will win, by a close game. However, if OU can’t win this one, I wouldn’t root for OU in any future BCS games. Utah should have taken OU’s place if OU should lose next week.

been some valid points in this post by all sides – GREAT Post Hobnail_boot.

“Conference pride is important. A 3-peat of titles from the SEC will give any SEC champ the inside track to the BCS title game..”

BUT I can not and will not EVER root for Florida. The loss by Alabama was horrible and damaging to SEC “powerhouse” status but I will not root for Gators as I did for "The Tide.’

That many of you have indeed chanted S-E-C S-E-C before. Maybe it was at the SEC Championship game, maybe it was in New Orleans last January. The essence of that cheer is stating “we are part of the best conference in America. We know it. You know it. We all know it. Go ahead and hate us – we are SEC and we will destroy all other conference foes.”

Most fans on other boards seem to share our SEC spirit and understand what it meand. This board clearly appears to be the lowest of those pulling for conference mates – I’m guessing only about 1/3 will pull for Florida. We welcome the support of those 1/3 or so.

cloud our current thinking. As an older Gator fan, I remember watching Belue to Scott live. That’ll change a kid’s perspective on life. I remember Florida would lose in the worst possible ways in Jax from my entire childhood. Georgia was ALWAYS the big game on the slate. Hell, Tennessee was rarely on the schedule (if at all).

Then Spurrier came and slowly changed all of that. Tennessee and FSU became the big rivals as Georgia went through a down period. I wanted UF to beat those teams, but it was still all about beating Georgia in Jacksonville, preferably in the most humiliating way possible. Even now, that’s still the game I always worry about (no matter if UGA is down or very good) when it comes around. Younger Gator fans think you’re crazy, but they just didn’t live through the pre-Spurrier years (particularly the early 80’s).

I can cheer for just about any SEC team at any given time (and I LOVE this conference). I’ve grown to actually kind of like Miami and FSU (a support the state thing for me). But I just can’t cheer for Georgia. I can certainly understand and I would not be surprised if Georgia fans rooted seriously for Oklahoma on Thursday night.

I may be a little longer in the tooth than some of y’all on here and can remember the regular cans we used to open up on UF before football was invented in the 90’s. Spurrier came along and won a special place in our dawg hearts as the evil genius, but for me at least, also garnered a grudging respect for what he was doing for the SEC and how when you got beat by him you knew you got beat by a master. I’ve certainly got some other schools on the dance card that reserve that extra special bit of “hate” for but UF is not at the top of the list because of Spurrier and because I can well remember beating them like the ugly kid in school. The current coach there certainly shows he can win, but I don’t feel like we got beat by SOMEBODY when the Cryer is in charge for some reason.
That being said, no way in hell am I going to pull for the gators, even if it is against my second most despised team and coach. Its close, but go Sooners.