Days of Whine and Rose Bowls: S.E.C. Bloggers and the Buckeye Backlash
by T Kyle King
on Mar 28, 2008 12:04 AM EDT
in Football
These are busy times around the blogosphere. While I've been getting geared up for Bloggerpalooza and MaconDawg has been giving you the straight poop on Kenneth Page (who may or may not have been the guest of honor at a highly unsuccessful party in these clips), Sunday Morning Quarterback has had this to allow regarding the beleaguered Buckeyes:
I will grant SMQ's thesis at its most basic level; over the course of the last two national championship games, Ohio State has earned a reputation which the Buckeyes will have to live down if they are to make a third straight such appearance. However, I find troubling the notion---especially coming from a fellow Southerner---that extreme (read: unwarranted) skepticism concerning the Ohio State University may be found "on any blog" featuring "regular contributions from SEC fans," particularly in light of the accusation (implicit in such a declaration) that Southeastern Conference bloggers and commenters are most to blame for the current state of affairs.
I know, I know, I know; I agreed not to participate in the conference wars, but I continue to reserve the right to defend the S.E.C. from unreasonable broadsides in legal brief form . . . and, quite frankly, I'm getting a little tired of all the Big Ten whining.
For all the grousing about S.E.C. fans, our weblogs (a category, incidentally, which includes Dawg Sports), and our message boards (a category, incidentally, which includes many Dawg Sports readers), it would appear that much of the name-calling, finger-pointing, and league-bashing, much like holiday traffic on I-75, has been flowing first from the Midwest to the Southeast rather than starting in the opposite direction.
After all, it wasn't S.E.C. bloggers who hated them some Ohio State; it was Big Ten bloggers who hated them some Georgia. It wasn't an S.E.C. blogger who swore never again to support a Big Ten team's claim to a national championship game berth; it was a Big Ten blogger who made that pledge about the S.E.C., as well. It wasn't an S.E.C. fan who expressed his preference for Adolf Hitler over the Big Ten; it was a Big Ten fan who directed that scurrilous and offensive animadversion at the S.E.C. It also wasn't a Florida fan who asked Big Ten fans to perform a degrading sex act upon him.
Sunday Morning Quarterback undoubtedly is correct that some message boards would---do---light up with crude dismissals of Big Ten football, but every fan base in every region has its fair share of yahoos. The comments appended to SMQ's own posting, however, are illustrative of the hypocrisy to be found among some of our Midwestern brethren (including one who grumbled that he couldn't have picked three worse years to live in the South).
Lewis Grizzard had a helpful suggestion for this sensitive soul.
A fellow who proclaims himself "still ill" offered this observation:
Admittedly, this point is not wholly insubstantial. As I freely acknowledged at the time, Urban Meyer's unbecoming electioneering for a spot in the title game against Ohio State at the end of the 2006 season lacked the dignity displayed by Lloyd Carr, who refused to stoop to that level.
Since when is Coach Meyer's pedigree Southern, though? Before becoming the head coach of the Gators in 2005, he had never worked in the S.E.C. Coach Meyer's ties all were to such decidedly non-Southern enclaves as Utah, Bowling Green, Notre Dame, Illinois State, and---yes---Ohio State. In this respect, he is much like L.S.U.'s Les Miles, a Michigan man. (Lest I incur the further wrath of a particular fan of the Louisiana State University, however, let me hasten to add that Les Miles is a better coach than I gave him credit for being.)
While I am on the subject of Big Ten guys who have coached at L.S.U., I should note, as well, that, when Nick Saban (a Kent State alum who coached in Toledo, Cleveland, and East Lansing) said something silly and unfairly critical of the Big Ten, I took him to task for it, despite knowing from firsthand experience that many Alabama fans do not cotton to criticisms of their current head coach.
In short, the presence of a "most convincing braggart" mentality in the Southeastern Conference coaching ranks seems to be concentrated almost exclusively among those coaches with direct ties to Big Ten schools. (Mark Richt, who has no such connections, is too busy supporting the troops to brag.) As for the charge that a boastful nature is the hallmark of the S.E.C. commissioner, let's just say that Big Ten fans whose commissioners live in glass houses might want to think twice before throwing stones.
Along similar lines, the aforementioned commenter who disdained the time frame during which he found himself living in the South discerned "[p]erfect anecdotal evidence of SMQ's exact point, in the comments of the post itself, no less." This evidence came in the form of a prior comment made by the proprietor of Corn Nation, SB Nation's Nebraska weblog. Contrary to what fans of Larry the Cable Guy's faux-Southern shtick may believe, the Cornhuskers are not a Southern team.
Big Ten readers, please note that the University of Nebraska is not located in a city called "Davis."
In short, some Big Ten fans' broadsides against the S.E.C. have become so knee-jerk and ill-considered that even Nebraskans and Ohioans are being swept into the mix, which brings us to Sunday Morning Quarterback's uncharacteristic overgeneralization about "any blog" with a Southeastern pedigree. Here, for the record, is what I have had to say about the Big Ten and the S.E.C.:
As kindred spirits, we and those like us on both sides of the aisle should be able to interact with civility, even when we disagree. The large areas of common ground that we share should be more evident and open to exploration.
To the extent that we have difficulty finding that shared expanse, both sides are at fault. When Coach Fulmer offered his ignorant utterance, he said something foolish and false, for which S.E.C. fans should be the first to call him out because he made us all look bad by conforming to the popular stereotype of Southern football fans as condescending detractors of teams and leagues from New England, the Midwest, and the West.
By the same token, when a retort is warranted, those offering a rejoinder should take care not to paint with too broad a brush.
Here, too, is another representative example of what I have had to offer upon this topic:
In other words, read my lips . . . I respect other conferences! What do Big Ten fans need me to do . . . call them the morning after the Outback Bowl?
When I hear this kind of bilious crap from Big Ten country, I try to respond reasonably. When a Big Ten blogger gripes about the Worldwide Leader's "SEC lovefest," I try to offer a measured rejoinder before I turn right around and nominate that blogger for an award.
Accordingly, I take issue with the notion of the S.E.C.'s supposed built-in bias against the Buckeyes. Yes, I offered a principled defense of the proposition that Ohio State did not deserve to be ranked No. 1---an argument about which I was proven correct, offered in response to a fellow Georgia fan's advocacy of the Buckeyes---but even I gave Jim Tressel's squad more credit than it deserved based upon the strength of its schedule. If nothing else, surely every college football fan believes me when I claim that I hate Florida more than I hate Ohio State.
And Auburn. I hate Auburn, too.
I find the whining about a Buckeye backlash so disingenuous and unconvincing because Ohio State so clearly got the benefit of every doubt last year. That supremely impartial Ohio native, Columbus resident, and Ohio State alum Kirk Herbstreit spent the second half of the 2007 Big 12 championship game treating his alma mater's ascension as a given and, without a word of objection from his colleagues in the booth or on the sideline, confined his arguments to the merits of the respective contenders vying for the right to oppose the Buckeyes in the national championship game in which they had been obliterated the year before. If Ohio State is being subjected to an unfair backlash now---and it is very early to assert that this will be the case---it is only because it benefited so handsomely from undeservedly favorable treatment last autumn. You don't get to complain about the hangover if you willingly accepted every free drink offered you.
In 2008, as always, I will eschew favoritism, rank by resumes, and submit honest BlogPoll ballots. Ohio State's stock will rise or fall with me depending upon the Buckeyes' achievement on the field; I will evaluate O.S.U. based upon what the team does and against whom the team does it.
The Buckeyes do not start at a disadvantage with me, however much unseemly whining may accompany the sweeping generalizations to which even the most moderate S.E.C. bloggers routinely are subjected. Even if they did, though, I would thank my fellow denizens of the blogosphere to remove the planks from the eyes of many---not all---Big Ten fans before calling attention to the motes in the eyes of S.E.C. bloggers: Georgia and Ohio State both produce large amounts of N.F.L. talent, have coaches with comparable records, and posted 11-2 seasons in 2007, yet Ohio State fans are not having to fend off ignorant assaults by Stewart Mandel against their team's national stature . . . and Georgia is encountering a backlash of its own.
Once again, I grant Sunday Morning Quarterback's generic point, but I dispute strongly the way that he made it and I vigorously object to the underlying cries that the kettle is black coming from a myriad of Midwestern pots, which wailing and gnashing of teeth gave rise to SMQ's erroneous assignment of a uniquely, or even largely, Southern character to whatever doubts Ohio State engendered by losing badly in games in which the Buckeyes were expected to, but did not, appear deserving as contenders.
I doubt seriously that Ohio State will draw the short straw if push comes to shove. The Big 12 entered the 2005 season with a comparable black eye after the exposure of Oklahoma's unworthiness in championship showdowns at the ends of the 2003 and 2004 campaigns appeared to confirm a nagging suspicion held by many in the wake of Nebraska's outrageous invitation to the Rose Bowl at the end of the 2001 season, but that sentiment did not prevent Texas from earning a Rose Bowl berth that year.
Pre-emptive whining about being kept out of a game no team yet has been barred from attending is unseemly and decidedly premature; assuming that S.E.C. bloggers and fans of every stripe already assume that this anticipated blackballing will be warranted if, in fact, it comes to pass is as prejudicial as the S.E.C.'s detractors presume all Southerners to be, and it is just plain wrong, besides.
Go 'Dawgs!
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Are we really doing this still?
You see, this is the problem with the nationalization of a sport that was regionalized for so very long. What many Northerners and Midwesterners fail to realize is that Southern football (in reality or at least in the minds of Southerners... we could get into a whole debate about perception is reality, but that's neither here nor there...) was dismissed, disliked, and ignored by everyone not in the South for a considerable period of time. (The Granddaddy of 'em All still holds onto this tradition of Midwest versus West Coast. Many Southerners still believe its because they got tired of Southern teams winning the darned thing.) The traditions of Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, etc. all dwarf Southern football within national public perception, despite the traditions of some teams being comparably rich, vibrant, and long-lasting.
The natural result is that Southern teams became isolated and regionally-focused. So, when Georgia doesn't leave the South for forty-some-odd years, Georgia receives harsh criticism, even though the natural evolution of the game over several generations of football was to insulate itself and develop regional rivalries... i.e., Clemson and Georgia Tech. For a considerable period of time, Alabama was the only Southern team with any national stature. They were one of the very few teams that would/could play a USC.
Anyway... I say all of that to say this:
If Southerners seem arrogant and brash, it's because we've had decades of being second rate, and we're a bit defensive. If Big Ten fans or Pac Ten fans would give us just a bit of patience and not take what non-Southerners (Saban, Miles, Meyer) say about other conferences as what all Southerners believe, then I think we'll all get along quite nicely. Otherwise, we will seem like cavemen who can't understand the fundamental concepts of logic. (For the record, that is a bad thing... unless you run 4.5 and are white... then you could play linebacker for Ohio State... ZING!)
by imarealist on Mar 28, 2008 9:08 AM EDT 0 recs
It wasn't restricted to the South
by smq on Mar 28, 2008 9:40 AM EDT 0 recs
Sorry, SMQ . . .
The problem, all the way around, is too great a willingness on everyone's part to cast too wide a net in support of one's own prejudices. I find the "S.E.C. speed" argument nonsensical in an era of national recruiting, and I have said so; the "S.E.C. speed" mantra is being repeated and perpetuated by Jim Delany, not by me, yet the Big Ten faithful constantly trot out equally bogus straw men while seeming not to notice that the unironic use of the phrase "S.E.C. speed" tends to be like a straight-faced citation of Ann Coulter . . . namely, something done more often in the act of refutation than in the act of affirmation.
I do quarrel with your use of the word "any" and I was careful to note that my criticisms were not universal. I also noted that this (admittedly small) overgeneralization on your part was uncharacteristic. One of your strengths, for which you universally and justly are recognized, is an ability and a willingness to look behind and beyond the conventional wisdom to get at factually-supported conclusions most others miss. For this, you have everyone's respect (including mine) and everyone's praise (including mine); the "any" aside was a rare instance of intellectual laziness which, predictably, provided fodder for those who make intellectual laziness a routine practice.
The problem is that, frankly, we don't need to give the S.E.C.-bashers even the slightest ammunition to continue this crusade. The tone of the comments left in reply to your posting reinforced my belief that it is important not to allow some Big Ten fans' mistaken beliefs to be reinforced.
I was reminded of the episode in the first season of "The West Wing" when Josiah Bartlet visited with a motion picture mogul at a fundraiser in Los Angeles. A minor Congressman known for delivering speeches rather than for delivering votes had introduced a purely symbolic bill into the hopper and the movie magnate wanted the president to denounce it publicly.
President Bartlet's position was that he would veto the bill, but that the bill would never pass. When the film executive demanded that the president say so publicly, Jed blew up at him, explaining that he was a professional politician who knew what he was doing and that, if he denounced a bill that otherwise would sink like a stone, he would serve as "a human starter gun" that would turn a legislative molehill into a political mountain.
It is to your credit that, in the blogosphere, you are something of a human starter gun; you are capable of beginning conversations that debunk the conventional wisdom. This almost always is useful, even when we happen to disagree. This was an instance when it was not, as it threatened to serve as a pistol shot heard 'round the blogosphere, launching another interminable set of tired canards between two conferences who have no reason to bear one another such ill will for such silly reasons.
Take it as a compliment that your errors, however mild and unintentional, are sufficiently important (because you are sufficiently influential) to warrant a response when the same mistakes, made much more flagrantly and deliberately by less prominent commentators, would not be worthy of notice.
I apologize if I seem too sensitive. If you regularly had to endure being berated about Capital One Bowl outcomes, recruiting practices, and beliefs you do not hold by people who invoke the Nazis, complain about how awful it is to have to live near you, and demean your educational institutions and your ancestors, you'd develop a pretty thin skin about such subjects, as well.
by T Kyle King on Mar 28, 2008 12:29 PM EDT 0 recs
Can see both sides of the issue.
First of all to Imarealist concerning the following comments:
What many Northerners and Midwesterners fail to realize is that Southern football...was dismissed, disliked, and ignored by everyone not in the South for a considerable period of time.
As a college football fan (often times a fanatical-die hard one) for nearly 40 years, I have started off each Saturday for the last 30 plus years watching College Game Day and the Big-10 (Televin) Conference, ACC Conference and the Big-East in the morning, and then in the afternoon we get the SEC games. I watch all of these games as my love for college football knows no regional boundary.
There are many fans in the west, who are just like me...we watch all of the games involving the other conferences so I'm not sure where you come up with disliked, dismissed or ignored. If a West Coast fan is going to watch a game at all before 3 PM in the West, it is virtually a Big-10, Big-East, SEC or ACC Contest.
What I have noticed is that the West Coast games involving the WAC, PAC-10 and the Mountain West come on the air in the latter part of the day along the west coast, which is in the late evening and even into the wee hours of Sunday morning on the East Coast.
If anything, I would say that the opposite is true...the west coast games are virtually ignored and I will give you one example which has occurred many times in the last four years.
One of my close friends is a national cross checker for a professional baseball team. He covered the South for nearly 5 years before being promoted to the west coast. His father had lived in Orlando, Tampa and Atlanta now for nearly 20 years.
His father has told me on many occasions how he would have to travel to several sports bars to watch a northwest college football game on the air, many times the game was well into the second half before he found a bar airing the game.
The common response he received when asking if they would devote one of the 30 plus televisions in the sports bar to a west coast game was "Buddy, around here people don't care about watching Oregon versus Oregon State or Washington versus Washington State. We'll take the Vanderbilt versus Louisiana Tech or Tulsa versus Texas any day of the week over SC and UCLA (This has happened 10 times a season in the last decade alone).
Spencer, while covering the South calls me on many occasions as he is driving and listening to the sports talks shows covering college football. His take on the region is that you can pretty much draw a vertical-North-South line through Boulder, Colorado (Canada to Mexico) and it is almost like anything west of that line doesn't exist.
My take on this issue is that anytime the southern schools are not immediately identified as the best, they act as if they are ignored. It's an all or nothing phenomenon with the south. If we are not the best, we are ignored.
Now Kyle, even if you are the light in a beacon of negativity regarding this subject, you are still one voice among an ocean of participants who slam the other conferences as unworthy, slow, non-dedicated and lacking tradition.
To say it another way, I respect your candor Kyle and the fact that you don't do this, but the fact remains that if you visit any internet forum on earth and want to talk about college football, you will quickly drown within the volume of SEC superiority banter. It is over-whelming!
But...
It doesn't stop on the internet forums, its plastered all over the airwaves regarding every other intercollegiate sports venue, from Women's Basketball, to Soccer, to Field Hockey, to Baseball and Men's Basketball, or haven't you heard already...The SEC is the greatest conference ever.
The second issue I have with this statement is the fact that one of the reasons that the Southern schools may have been blackballed back from the mid-1960's to early 1970's was over the color barrier.
If you haven't read Don Yaegers book (with Sam Cummingham and John Papadakis) "Turning of the Tide - How One Game Changed The South." it is a great read and offers some insight into this issue. Again, this isn't something that I'm making up Kyle, it really happened and the issue had two opposing fronts. The Southern schools wouldn't schedule a school who had black players for many years and the northern schools wouldn't schedule southern teams in retaliation.
There have always been issues with the southern schools and the NCAA (of which the PAC-10 and Big-10 supported the NCAA due to their connection to Walter Byers, who was the president of the NCAA) over things like scholarship restrictions and the landslide of rules that have been thrown down to level the playing fields and prevent the rampant cheating that occurred during the era.
During the same time period (civil rights issues) the College Football Association was born where essentially, Notre Dame, the SEC, the Southwest Conference and the ACC (primarily southern schools on most offensive fronts) took on the NCAA over revenue sharing.
This compounded the issues between the southern schools and the northern schools. I can go into this issue a ton Kyle, but as you can see by the length of this article already, you might as well write a book on the subject which I am now nearing (finally) the completion of, but when I say that the BCS has a connection to the civil rights issues, I literally mean that there is a deep connection here. Again, I know that you are a good man and do not harbor ill feelings towards others based on their ethnic background, but to ignore the connection to the current issues is like sticking your head in the sand and pretending none of this ever took place.
The connection to the present is that this tsunami of conflict which occurred over a 25 year history fractured the relationships between the two rival sides (NCAA and CFA) and right now what used to be known as the CFA alliance is alive and well, which is now known as the BCS. The same people who ran the CFA are the key people running the BCS and the major bowls. The television networks who were taken to the woodshed by Walter Byers for years, are now in cahoots with the BCS and bowl alliances because this is their meal ticket and the connections they have in the major advertising markets, in which a large share of that wealth and power resides in the south due to the oil, tobacco and alcohol industry presence in this area cannot be ignored.
The second comment:
"The Granddaddy of 'em All still holds onto this tradition of Midwest versus West Coast. Many Southerners still believe its because they got tired of Southern teams winning the darned thing.) The traditions of Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, etc. all dwarf Southern football within national public perception, despite the traditions of some teams being comparably rich, vibrant, and long-lasting."
When talking to any competent SEC fan on any internet forum or in person for that matter, the first thing that stands out is the connection and importance that is placed on history and trdition in college football. The SEC defines college football's connection to history and tradition.
The common SEC fan will talk overzealously regarding the number of fans in attendance, or the size and extravagance of the stadium or the fact that nearly every coach in the conference has won a national championship.
Since I grew up in Arkansas during the early part of my life, I still have a strong connection to Arkansas today. But I see this program with clear eyes because I am not blinded by the hype this program receives due to their alliance with the SEC, because I remember how this program was perceived when they played in the Southwest Conference...essentially they were treated a the Texas Longhorns red-headed step child.
I am currently running a six part series on the SEC and one of the things that has jumped out at me is the fact that not one single football program in the entire conference has winning record in the SEC during the BCS era when matched up against teams who have won at least 9 games or more.
- LSU (21-22)
- Georgia (19-20)
- Tennessee (18-23)
- Florida (21-28)
- Auburn (18-28)
- Arkansas (13-27)
- Alabama (12-34)
- Miss St (6-29)
- Kentucky (4-35)
- Ole Miss (3-28)
- S. Carolina (3-37)
- Vandy (1-35)
- Georgia (49-27)
- Florida (49-33)
- Tennessee (41-32)
- LSU (42-33)
- Auburn (34-40)
- Alabama (35-49)
- Arkansas (29-45)
- S. Carolina (21-54)
- Ole Miss (17-46)
- Miss St. (15-50)
- Kentucky (13-55)
- Vandy (2-69)
- Auburn (49-1)
- Florida (44-1)
- Tennessee (52-2)
- Georgia (48-3)
- LSU (47-4)
- Arkansas (46-4)
- Alabama (35-5)
- South Carolina (34-8)
- Ole Miss (43-13)
- Kentucky (36-14)
- Vandy (29-14)
- Miss St (36-19)
LSU fans all over the country have essentially bashed USC and discredited their 2003 AP Title based off of this years results. The numbers between USC and LSU, since 2002 are gross auspicious as I have written recently over at conquestchronicles.com
Bumped...Our good friend BCS Busters has another great take on out of conference scheduleing. Paragon
In a recent article that can be found here (www.ncaa-schedule.com):
Some interesting stats between USC and LSU:
In the final analysis, the fact that LSU fans continue to discredit a USC program, who in their mind competes in the Pathetic-10 or a West Virginia program who competes in the Big-Easy, while boasting of their own BCS accomplishments, the fact remains that the three best teams over the course of the last four seasons have yet to meet each other on the field.
The fact that LSU had an open date (they recently added Appalachian State) and could have easily scheduled West Virginia or USC this coming season (or in any of the past 5 seasons) speaks volumes to the dismay of college football in general and the BCS in particular, and is once again a glaring example of the BCS largess that the SEC holds over all of the other conferences.
Still disagree with this assessment?
Consider the following. USC not only has a superior overall record as compared to LSU since the year 2002 (70 - 8 versus 64-15), but a better bowl record (5-1 versus 4-2). USC not only has a superior QOF-Rating (22-5 versus 17-11), but has beaten more BCS non-conference opponents (19) than LSU has even played (12), and even more significant to the argument, has beaten more winning programs with 7 plus wins a seasons (37) than LSU has even played as well (36).
Of the 12 BCS teams that LSU has played since 2002, 8 had elite 9 (plus) win seasons. Of the 21 BCS teams that USC has played since 2002, 15 had elite 9 (plus) win seasons. Once again, USC has beaten more elite BCS non-conference opponents than LSU has even played (12).
Based on these numbers alone, how can anyone discredit USC and the fact that they have essentially been barred on many occasions from competing for the national championship when the numbers scream of the injustice. Both USC and LSU were 8 points from a perfect season in 2007, why the discrepancy in the polls?
Especially considering Arkansas and Kentucky are virtually equal to Stanford in regards to history and tradition, and if you take North Texas, Florida International, Tennessee Chatanooga, Troy or Mississippi out of the equation, there isn't much difference between Arkansas and Stanford last season.
History and Tradition define the SEC and college football benefits tremendously because of it. I watch the games between Alabama-Auburn, LSU-Florida or Georgia-Auburn with great interest. But there is a bit of a double standard when SEC fans talk so openly about their history and traditions, but rebuke other conferences who have traditions of their own. The fact of the matter is, in today's BCS marketplace, considering the connection between the CFA and the Harris Poll, SEC teams benefit from their history and tradition while many other programs are discredited. LSU is the only team to win two BCS championships and on both occasions haven't even played the best teams in the country during the process...but they did play Florida, Auburn, Arkansas and Kentucky (actually they lost to Arkansas and Kentucky) and a host of other Sun-Belt, Conference USA and MAC programs just like the rest of the SEC.
So you'll excuse me Kyle if I take exception to your response and as you have stated on many occasions, the wheel does turn both ways. The noise coming out of Big-10 country is but a blip on the radar compared to the constant static coming from SEC country. Can we please move on from this argument?
by bcsbusters on Mar 28, 2008 3:09 PM EDT 0 recs
All of these are valid points
I believe ImaRealist's point dealt with a much earlier period in college football history (i.e., the period in which Alabama was invited to the Rose Bowl only grudgingly, after several Eastern powers had declined the invitation to face Washington; the period in which Georgia only acquired national stature by going on the road in the 1920s and '30s to face the likes of Harvard, N.Y.U., and Yale) when Southeastern football clearly was regarded with disdain.
You are quite right to criticize L.S.U. for scheduling Appalachian State; I also criticize all teams, including my own, for scheduling Division I-AA opponents . . . but Michigan deserves the criticism as much as the Bayou Bengals (more, if the Fighting Tigers actually beat the Mountaineers).
Meanwhile, I give Ohio State credit for scheduling 2007 Pac-10 co-champion Southern California next fall, just as I hope Georgia will be given credit for scheduling 2007 Pac-10 co-champion Arizona State next fall. The latest scheduling news, by the way, concerns the two-year series between Ohio State and Tennessee.
I do not necessarily disagree with the bulk of the balance of your points, other than the last one (to which I shall turn anon), but I fail to see how they are pertinent to the present discussion. The Pac-10 is not irrelevant as a general proposition, but it is irrelevant to this particular discussion.
The fact is that, when Georgia beats a Big Ten team (and, incidentally, the Bulldogs have not lost to a Big Ten team since 1957), I do not post crude insults directed at all Big Ten fans everywhere; likewise, I do not claim that I would root for a team quarterbacked by Adolf Hitler if it played a Big Ten team, I do not demean the educational systems and ancestries of other conferences, and I do not whine that a built-in bias kept my team out of national championship contention.
(You will recall that I remained consistent in my principled opposition to non-conference champions having a shot at the national title even when Georgia was being bandied about as a championship contender. However, since Georgia was leapfrogged in the B.C.S. standings, due in no small measure to the lobbying of the Worldwide Leader, you will pardon me if I lack a certain degree of sympathy for U.S.C., which won a national title despite not getting into the designated championship game and was given a full year's worth of praise in 2005 as the greatest team of all time.)
With all due respect, your final point has it exactly backwards: there is simply no comparison between such sophomoric cheap shots, low-rent personal attacks, and expressions of regional bigotry (the real "constant static") and having to miss the first half of an out-of-market game in which you have an interest while watching television in someone else's establishment far from home (the actual "blip on the radar").
If I were in Oregon, I wouldn't expect the sports bar I was in to turn away from Arizona-Stanford so I could see Georgia-Auburn, but, even if I did, I could not conscientiously compare the barkeep to someone who invokes the Nazis when criticizing football fans he does not like. Whatever superiority complex some S.E.C. fans may display on message boards, we do not deserve that and there simply is no comparison between the mild boasting we put out and the cultural condemnation we are forced to take.
What the S.E.C. fans you describe say is, "My football team is better and more important than your football team." What the Big Ten fans I describe say is, "My people are better than your people, I'm smarter and more noble than you, and it's not fair that people like you inbred racist troglodytes better than us . . . and, oh, yeah, whenever we beat you, I want to force each and every one of you to perform submissive sex acts on me." It does not take anywhere near as discerning an eye as yours, BCSBusters, to appreciate the difference, or to see with whom the greater fault lies.
by T Kyle King on Mar 28, 2008 3:58 PM EDT 0 recs
E.L.E.
Everybody Love Everybody.
Look, y'all. I'm a Dawg, two times over. I just spent a weekend hanging out with a Gator alum with a masters from Georgia Tech and a Vol alum, and we got along swimmingly, so I know first-hand that the tribalism of CFB can be defeated.
We have all got to find a way to get past this shit.
We all love, love, love CFB- our similarities are much greater than our differences, and sports is the toy department of life, so puff puff pass the peace pipe. Please.
It's a beautiful game in all of its iterations, so let's stop arguing infinitely whether steak or lobster is the best meal in the world- the important thing is that we're ALL eating well. Who is to say whether a strawberry, banana, kiwi, blueberry, rasberry, or acai is the best tasting fruit? IT DOESN'T MATTER which one is the impossible-to-determine "best"- it's all yummy-ass fruit and we should all be thankful to have wonderful bounty and diversity of it all.
Different strokes for different folks. Everyone do what makes you happy and let's move on.
{/rant}, and my apologies for the PG-13 stuff, TKK- I know that's not how you roll over here.
Peace out and a happy weekend to all.
by Kanu on Mar 28, 2008 4:35 PM EDT 0 recs
Kanu, you are The Man . . .
Your outstanding point about the distinctly regional flavor of college football, which gives the sport a rich texture and nuance notably absent from a uniform and homogenized N.F.L. in which "franchise free agency" renders local distinctiveness effectively moot outside of Green Bay, put me in mind of a column George Will wrote in November 1999, in which he had this to say about The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life by Michael Schudson of the University of California at San Diego:
But urbanization produced heterogeneous populations, newspapers (by 1794 they made up 70 percent of the weight in the postal system) fueled argumentation, and immigration produced fierce rivalries among ethnic communities. Soon mass-based parties replaced the politics of deference with the "politics of affiliation."
Between Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, writes Schudson, no president captured the public's imagination, yet "these were the years of the highest voter turnout in our entire history. Americans of that era enjoyed politics." It was not elevated politics. It was a sport of rival social groups organized into teams (parties) around "ethnocultural" issues---immigration, church schools, temperance---at least as bitterly divisive as today's social issues. . . .
Then righteous reformers and caring government took much of the fun, and a lot of the voters, out of politics.
Reformers wanted fewer parades and more pamphlets---voting should be not an act of group solidarity but an individual act of informed competence. Parties, said well-bred reformers, should not just rally committed followers, who often were, well, not the sort of folks who knew which fork to use with the fish course. Rather, parties should persuade the uncommitted. The progressive aspiration, says Schudson, was a "citizenship of intelligence rather than passionate intensity."
The "passionate intensity" line recalls William Butler Yeats's "The Second Coming," with all its accompanying unfavorable implications. Might we be witnessing a similar progression in college football poll voting? BCSBusters routinely paints a portrait of college football history in which the awarding of national championships and the allocation of bowl bids invariably favored the traditional powers.
With the rise to prominence of such teams from outside the C.F.A. and, later, the B.C.S. as Boise State, Brigham Young, Fresno State, and Utah, we may have found ourselves in an era of affiliation-centered balloting rooted in geographic solidarity and league-based animosities. Certainly, there are worse words than "ethnocultural" to describe S.E.C. denunciations of Pac-10 football as effete and irrelevant and Big Ten animadversions upon Southern educational standards and recruiting practices.
Might it be that the blogosphere generally, and the BlogPoll specifically, will provide the mechanism for bringing the "citizenship of intelligence" to the fore in poll voting? Sunday Morning Quarterback's increasingly popular "resume ranking" approach provides a philosophical framework for setting aside purely partisan considerations:
Attempts to use "evidence" rather than perception or past history to eliminate abstraction, and treats every team equally and entirely as a team - doesn't give any boosts or demerits to teams based on the recent past or personnel. . . . All that's considered is what's happened on the field to date, which is all that can be measured, and which is all anyone will have to go on in the final ranking in January, when it counts.
Likewise, MGoBlog is proposing something that sounds very like the reformers' dream when Brian Cook writes:
Is that approach---are conversations like these, and good faith efforts to reach, if not consensus, at least respectful recognition of the other fellow's point of view---the means to Kanu's end of mutual understanding among conscientious college football fans who are unashamed and supportive of regional distinctions?
Will this bring us peace in our time? Is this unqualifiedly a manifestation of progress or should we, like Ricky Bobby's family when reading William Faulkner at the end of "Talladega Nights," worry about what might be loss in the process? Oh, brave new world, which hath such creatures in it. . . .
by T Kyle King on Mar 28, 2008 10:17 PM EDT 0 recs
Kyle...
I like you get tired of the cheap shots directed back at me when I am simply trying to follow the advice of Bear Bryant: If people are ignorant, don't condemn them, educate them.
I would think as much as we have debated back and forth that we could bring arguments to the table without childish cheap shots thrown back and forth. I was not intending to insult you or the current SEC blogsphere, but to tie in issues of the civil rights era with the CFA alliance, which still continues to affect the great sport we all know and love. I'm done with this argument. I simply tried to utilize an example of a regional bias. I wasn't trying to invoke the PAC-10 into the argument. I agree with SMQ, don't be so damned sensitive.
Go Dawgs
by bcsbusters on Mar 29, 2008 3:33 AM EDT 0 recs
BCSBusters . . .
I thought I responded in precisely the civil spirit and tone that I appreciated your taking.
I acknowledged the validity of most of your points and tried to clarify where I thought there was a misunderstanding (i.e., ImaRealist's historical point, which I believe dealt with a different part of history than the ones you cited).
I simply disagreed with you on the kind, character, and degree of the insults being suffered.
If I insulted you, I apologize, but, honestly, this comment catches me completely by surprise. I would be most grateful if you would be kind enough to quote the parts of my previous response by which you were offended, because, evidently, they did not come across as I intended and I would like the opportunity to clear up whatever misapprehensions you have.
Seriously, I'm not that sensitive---the Adolf Hitler thing and the constant shots at our educational systems and our regional culture coming from the Big Ten bloggers and commenters I cited are pretty extreme stuff, far worse than statements by bartenders to the effect that "we don't care about Pac-10 football"---but I am totally flabbergasted by your latest comment, which absolutely comes at me from left field. I sincerely don't get what I wrote that bugged you.
You took something the wrong way; please let me know what it is. As my response to Kanu should have made plain, I'm trying to get us past this divisiveness. It's the guys doing all the whining in the Midwest who need chastising, not me.
by T Kyle King on
Mar 29, 2008 11:49 AM EDT
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Be as sensitive as you want.....
Dug the article, as always, and the educated, researched, well-thought-out, and stylized way you tend to organize your thoughts. Whatever your colleagues may think, I would encourage you to continue your streak of sensitivity where it concerns SEC and Georgia football. Keep up the good work.
by allhailcale on Mar 29, 2008 11:10 AM EDT 0 recs
Kyle...
by bcsbusters on Mar 29, 2008 4:57 PM EDT 0 recs
In that case, my bad
One thing that has become clear to me in the course of all this interconference squabbling is that Pac-10 fans/guys from out west (e.g., Paragon SC, DCTrojan, USCLink, Bruins Nation, Building the Dam, Tightwad Hill, The Band is Out on the Field, Addicted to Quack, Block U, BCSBusters, etc.) generally are easier fellows with whom to deal.
On more than one occasion, a Pac-10 blogger has written something with which I disagreed and I have written a response expressing my contrary view. Virtually without fail, I have gotten a cordial, reasonable response, which almost always led to increased mutual understanding and sometimes even the discovery of common ground.
This is part of why the visceral animadversions hurled by some Big Ten fans at S.E.C. schools, fans, and states strikes me as so wildly disproportionate and unconscionably extreme. S.E.C. fans' critiques of Pac-10 teams have been far more dismissive than those directed at the Big Ten, and Pac-10 fans have a far better reason for feeling under assault, as the "onepeat" campaign and the persistent denials of the legitimacy of U.S.C.'s share of the 2003 national championship were unprovoked and unwarranted attacks.
I do not believe Big Ten fans have anywhere near as much basis for copping an attitude toward S.E.C. fans as Pac-10 fans do, yet Pac-10 fans are not the ones invoking Adolf Hitler, insulting our school systems, etc. Once again, this is not indicative of all Big Ten fans, by any means, but we seem to catch a lot more flak from the Midwest, despite there being a lot less provocation.
You're right, though . . . this argument needs to end, so I'll sit down now. Sorry again about the misunderstanding. As Kanu put it, "Peace out."
by T Kyle King on
Mar 29, 2008 6:00 PM EDT
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Re: Ohio State and Playoffs
by Year2 on Mar 31, 2008 9:29 PM EDT 0 recs
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