WHEN I CHECKED my e-mail this morning, I was delighted to find a long letter from my good friend Simon From Jersey on a matter near and dear to Rant readers' hearts: namely, college football. Despite the nickname with which I've saddled my best friend, Simon originally hails from the South, and his letter dealt with the glories of Southern football and my continued refusal to acknowledge them. It was such a good letter that I feel compelled to respond here on The Rant.
It's not merely because I like a challenge, either, or because intellectual integrity requires one responds to one's critics (the put up or shut up principle). You see, for more than two decades now, Simon and I have always enjoyed a good back-and-forth on myriad issues, and this letter is no exception to that strong tradition. When he makes an argument -- even though I often don't agree with it -- it is always well-thought out and reasoned. Thus, his arguments are something I always take seriously, and when he calls me out on something, I give it a heck of a lot of attention. Here, then, is the text of Mr Einspahr's letter, which he wrote Sunday night:
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Hey Ben, go Blue and all that. And hey, Steelers 4-1 and Lions 3-2 at the bye…not bad!I have noticed you seem to have a rather inflated opinion of the Big Ten on your blog. The PAC-10 has always been a great conference, they just play on the West Coast so we don’t get to see them; the average strength of schedule has been highest in the SEC and PAC 10 for 4 of the last 5 years. I mean, the Big Ten sucks. It has for 3 years now. We get our butt kicked in bowl games. And the middle and lower tiers of our conference gets beaten repeatedly and sucks.
Meanwhile, whatever your obvious prejudice, the SEC is hands down the best conference in college football, and has been for years and usually will continue to be. If you decided to watch it, you’d see some football that beats a lot of NFL games. Now it is a shame that a small percentage of players have some issues, but most of them are just kids like any other conference including the Big Ten, and I do find the tone of some of your posts regarding southern schools and by proxy the south a bit offensive. Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, are all Top 50 to second tier schools with many smart kids, good programs, and accomplishments. Vanderbilt is a great great thinking man’s school. Certainly, in the same league as Mich State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Indiana, Purdue, Iowa, etc etc. Florida is a fantastic public school, with excellent undergrad and grad programs.
While I realize much of your posts are in jest, the underlying, assumptions about the South are quite stereotypical and mostly unfounded. Mostly, it’s a shame because the quality of football, tradition, and everything we love about college football is top notch and easy to root for guilt free. While it may not have the media in its pocket like the NorthEast and old school Big Ten, Auburn Alabama is the best rivalry in perhaps all of sports. And a lot of the Big Ten schools, including our alma mater, have many of the same problems and issues that the SEC gets continually thrown under the bus for.
My two cents. Discuss.
Simon
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THERE'S A LOT THERE, so I have to admit I don't know entirely where to begin. But I think I'll start with the schools in the SEC themselves and their academic reputations.
I went back and checked over my football posts from the past year, and for the most part, I refrained from smearing the academic reputations of the universities in the SEC and ACC. It is true that on Jan. 8, I referred to the University of Florida as a "wretched, godawful, miserable uncivilized excuse for a university." However, this was because Florida had just taken Ohio State to the woodshed and I was slightly upset at watching the Big Ten get humiliated again on the national stage. So that was more of an embittered insult rather than an actual condemnation of Florida's academic prowess.
I think when one looks at the record, I haven't played the "academics card" and gone after Southern schools for their supposed lack of academic accomplishments. In fact, I believe the only schools I have unfairly criticized for a seeming lack of academic prowess are the University of Nebraska, Michigan State University, and Florida State University. But these schools are "low-hanging fruit" when it comes to that type of charge, and I have -- to my credit, I think -- not levied similar charges against other schools in the South. On this topic, at any rate, I have not aimed too high and accordingly missed.
That said, I am more than willing to admit there are many strong schools, academics-wise, in the SEC and ACC, and I gladly root for the strongest of these. For instance, I like Vanderbilt -- a great school -- and will almost always root for them, and I will almost always root for Kentucky. Also, I have a soft spot for Georgia and Georgia Tech, which are more likable than other squads in the SEC. In the ACC, I will always -- always -- root for Wake Forest, an excellent academic institution, and I have recently discovered the joys of Clemson football. Conversely, I would note that I don't like Boston College despite its northern roots and strong academics.
Now, as for the SEC -- is it the best conference in college football? Of course it is. Even I have to admit that, and I have done so on the blog, when I conjure up the SEC Partisan Foil and knock him with a frying pan to shut him up. Saturday's matchup between LSU and Florida was outstanding -- outstanding -- football, and either of these two squads could easily defeat Michigan and probably knock off Ohio State. The Thursday night matchup between South Carolina and Kentucky also proved to be great football.
I will also admit, as hard as it is for me to do so, that the PAC-10 has gotten considerably better over the years. California and Oregon have become hard teams to beat, and they play excellent football. Arizona State is also ranked in the Top 25. USC, of course, is a perennial powerhouse in that division. I think Ohio State could beat any team in the PAC-10 but I must admit the other Big Ten teams would have trouble with Cal, Oregon and USC, and perhaps even Arizona State. Heck, Oregon just rolled Michigan, and that's a pretty strong statement.
Now, as much as I hate to say it, the Big Ten has been having performance issues over the past few years. Not only is the SEC better, the PAC-10 and Big East (!) are better, although I do think we're about even with the ACC at this point.
I do think that on any given Saturday, the top tier of the Big Ten could compete against the top tiers of any other conference in the nation. (Notice I did not say win; I said compete). I also think the middle tier of the conference would prove competitive against similarly-placed schools in other conferences. However, there's no denying that out of the 11 Big Ten schools, five or six stink to high heaven. The result of this year's bowl season -- please God, let us win -- will shed further light on this subject.
That said, I'm a Big Ten partisan. I'm going to look at these schools with rose-colored glasses -- academically, athletically, spiritually -- you name it, that's my bias. Which leads to the OTHER bias question: do I have an issue with Southern schools because I have issues with the South?
I don't think I do. When I went to the South on vacation earlier this year, I found the people there friendly, pleasant and courteous. Not one of them took issue with my Yankee-ness, no one brought up the war, and there was no Catholic-bashing either. (Not that I expected them to do that, of course; I note this simply to dispel three of the big stereotypes). Simply put, the South was a nice place, and I received a warmer welcome there than I have other places in America. Plus, the food is outstanding. So, given that, what's the issue I have with Southern schools and their football?
I suppose it all started back in the late 1990s, during the Heisman Trophy race in 1997. Michigan's Charles Woodson, who was one of the best to play the college game, had won the Heisman Trophy, yet there was a whole bunch of complaining from backers of then-Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning. (As Loyal Rant Readers know, I hate Peyton Manning, and this incident is what started all that).
Over the years, I suppose I developed a general dislike of football programs I saw as generally unclassy: whose players I thought were undisciplined and whose coaches I saw as more focused on winning than building good men: the Florida States and Miamis of this world, and to a lesser extent Florida. Combined with a growing and now strong sense of conference loyalty -- even though I'll gladly beat up on Michigan State for these same infractions -- it manifested itself into the hardened, dystopian world view I have today. (And getting taken to the woodshed by these same teams didn't help matters, either!)
Still, despite all that, I would reassure Simon -- and my Loyal Rant Readers -- that this dislike is a mile wide but only an inch deep. When all is said and done, I'm writing to needle and not to wound. Furthermore, when I needle other teams and their fans, I do so in jest -- I may fire with both barrels, but the shotgun only has rock salt in it.
Also, although I'll gladly dish it out again and again, I'm also man enough to take it. That's what being a sports fan is all about. You get to enjoy the wins, but you have to deal with the losses accordingly. And even though I know I set myself up for a heaping platter of crow from rival fans with my bombastic screeds, in my heart I love it nonetheless. The rivalries and the traditions and competition make it all worth it. That said, please let Michigan win the Big Ten and the Rose Bowl, because otherwise I'll never hear the end of it.
Posted by Benjamin Kepple at October 8, 2007 11:31 AM | TrackBack