For years, the Big Ten's comeback to the perceived dominance of Southern Cal and the SEC on Jan. 1 (in the latter case, it is only a perception: the Big Ten and SEC have split their annual dates in the Citrus/Capital One and Outback Bowls, 10-10, over the last decade) has been "Why don't you come play in the cold for a change?" Well, why don't they? SEC teams have traveled west for non-conference games in the Pac-10, but except for Kentucky's long-running "rivalry" with Indiana, have rearely ventured north of the Mason-Dixon line for any game – certainly not a bowl game, because they haven't existed – in a generation. Any conference with such obviously expanding ambitions should try its hand in unfamiliar territory.
— Dr. Saturday remains the blogosphere's most universally-respected figure, and deservedly so, but he's whiffed at a few pitches lately.
First, he wrote and published the ten-word sentence---"
If life isn't fair, fix it so that it is"---that so perfectly summed up the wrongheaded formulation that has produced much political madness that
it sent a shudder through my soul.
He followed that up by authoring
the passage quoted above, which missed the mark badly.
Let's be clear here:
Big Ten teams won't travel to play SEC teams, not the other way around, and they have a lot of nerve whining about our refusal to play football in the snow when
they're the ones who refuse to let us play baseball until it's warm enough for them.
Vanderbilt played Michigan in Ann Arbor, but didn't get a return game. If you think that's fair, check the Commodores' and the Wolverines' records the last two years and tell me what entitles the Maize and Blue to be so full of themselves. (Vanderbilt is
an AAU member and everything!) Those of us in Athens are still waiting on our return game from traveling to the Big House in 1965, and
we've made every effort to meet the Michiganders halfway.
To repeat, Dr. Saturday still does good work---
his points on the 2010 Hall of Fame induction class are well taken; incidentally,
I voted for Sam Cunningham and Pat Tillman---but, upon the point raised in the above-quoted passage, Matt Hinton needs to fight the real enemy.
Go 'Dawgs!
