The thing is the SEC treats football as culture and religion. They take pride in having the fanciest, funnest, craziest offenses and blitzes. The past two National Championships had some of the best plays around. They're the Brazil of college football.

Puke and UNC are like the Big 10 football teams, but in basketball. There's no artistry, no fun. Wake Forest and GA Tech are often the exception to the rule, but there is simply no Les Miles in ACC college b-ball.

There's a few games I watch the kids play at lunchtime. They have a playground version of 2-hand-touch, in which teams are allowed for forward passing at all time. The field is small and narrow, and pride is taken in quick jukes and shakes and yardage gained after the pass. It's SEC football right in a schoolyard.

ACC football has ideas above its station, but it never lives up to the modest hype and just ends up bleeding good players who could be playing for much better teams in front of a lot more fans in other conferences.

Even the addition of VT, Miami, FSU and BC hasn't done much to help. The only teams that seem to have consistent big fan support are Georgia Tech, Florida State and Clemson, which is perennially overrated in the pre-season polls. Virginia Tech thinks of itself as a big power, but doesn't have much of a history before about 10 years ago and the hype around them that we used to hear in the DC media has fallen off precipitously in recent seasons.

Same with Maryland and UVa. I see the contrast. When Maryland or Virginia is losing, the general reaction of the media and casual sports fans around here is apathy. That doesn't happen in most of the BigTen or SEC. When one of those teams loses, it's a public crisis.

And nobody in Boston gives a shit about Boston College.

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

QUOTE:
And nobody in Boston gives a shit about Boston College.

Unless they're playing against Notre Dame.

Right, because nobody in Boston pays enough attention to college football to know that Notre Dame doesn't matter much anymore.

How 'bout them Dandy Vandys ?

My only question/concern is that they played a steamhorn of a big ship upon their victory over Auburn, I suppose in a nod to their nickname (Commodores.)

My question is if a river, much less a lake or ocean, is located anywhere near Nashville ? And if there is a river, if a boat anything bigger than a sailboat could float up it ?

So in sequence...
Lose to Middle Tennessee
Beat Top 20 Cal
Win at Clemson
Get absolutely drilled 31-0 at UVA, who themselves just lost to DUKE 31-3.

What the hell?

JV, Massa Vanderbilt himself was "the Commodore".

He made boatloads of cash with ferries before he ever got involved with railroads.

The Terps seem to be playing with a random result generator.

I see. Because as it stands, it's like the University of Miami being called the Cornhuskers instead of Hurricanes.

I also must say for the Pac Tenners, that I absolutely adore Marshawn Lynch of Cal and the Bills. Imagine if the Bickering Bills had a player with that kind of positivity, fun, and spunk instead of that insipid little turdcunt named Thurman "Where's My Helmet" Thomas.

LSU got SPANKED last night by Florida 51-21. Ouch.

It was actually a really good game for about 13 minutes (when LSU scored on their last possession of the 1st half to make it 20-7, then scoring on the first possession of the 2nd half to make it 20-14.)

Tebow and that short little fast flea he was handing off to were just too good. Jarrett Lee was a little too inexperienced to pull it off, and LSU's defense couldn't handle the speed of the screens Florida was throwing to that little guy.

CBS has their Saturday night game online, BTW.

LSU has a challenge going up against Alabama and Georgia on the road. However, they can play their way back in like last year.

This season, and especially the past 3 - or 15 - or 25 seasons, have shown how stupid the lack of a playoff is. As everyone has been saying, the days of undefeateds are probably over. Imagine Texas - Alabama - Mizzou - Oklahoma - LSU - Penn State - Florida - USC or Boise State would be in a 8-team playoff.

I started out trying to monitor it while watching the Red Sox game, but when I flipped it over in time to see an interception by Florida (and the score was already 17-12, or maybe 20-12), I stopped bothering. The baseball was a lot more exciting.

What, you mean to tell me an 11-inning game that set the League Championship Series record with 7 homeruns is more exciting than your hometown team losing by 30 ? Well I never !

Crazy, I know.

JV, Lynch is a hoot, and a nice guy as well. I run into him a few times while living near campus. He also was a 3.0 student at Berkeley, and a steal for Buffalo, phenomenal talent.

The SEC wasn't always a conference with aggressive offenses, they used to feature pretty dreary schemes until the NFL profile became bigger in the South with franchises like Jacksonville and Tennessee. They were more like the Norway or Ireland than Brazil.

This is shaping up to be an exciting season for my guys, anything is possible at this point, good or bad. With a bit of luck we could come down to LA for a conference championship showdown with USC.