The redneck comment whether sarcastic or not has a funny note, coming from PAC 10 fan who now has to face off with half the Big 12 in two years. I'd love to be tailgating during the Stanford/Texas match up.
I've lived in different parts of the world, including CA, and I find the broad brush redneck label the most irritating because the presumption of southern monopoly on that type.
I loved how a football analyst on ESPN was using a reference to Miami to describe what USC's going thru now. He said from 1983-1994 the Miami hurricanes won 4 national championships, they were at the very top of college football. And then the NCAA sanctioned them in 1995 and it took them the better part of a decade to finally even get back to double digit wins. Make no mistake, this is devastating for the USC football program. Add to that the Pac 10 is starting to improve and there is beginning to be a lot more parity within the conference with teams like Oregon, Oregon St. Arizona, and even Washington as a possible up and comer. And if this conference expansion happens, that would mean that by the time the postseason ban is over, that they would be competing with the likes of Texas and Oklahoma for conference titles. And also, i personally believe that with exclusion from bowl games for the next two years, we're going to see A LOT of those highly ranked recruits out of southern california that USC is so used to getting start to litter UCLA's roster. So by the time their suspension ends, they could very well be staring down the face of a much improved UCLA program right across town.