To Cal...

#52
#52
milohimself said:
School has got me all tired now. I can't believe my sleeping habits are back in order... I feel like I'm being forced out of jet lag. As such, excuse any misspellings there may be (Wemus).

Believe me, I know well what SEC fans think of their conference. It's deserved, however. Few teams around the country can match the history and tradition of a Tennessee or an Alabama, and even fewer can match the experience of a Georgia or an LSU. The SEC is the best football conference in college sports. You will find no debate here on that topic.

You guys know I'm never one to run around and make wild claims about the Pac-10. I know USC is a step above everyone else. UCLA could be on the same level, except that athletic department is more dedicated to success in all sports rather than dominance in football. And USC really is the only Pac-10 school with a great football history. Most of the other schools just have brief stretches of success among general mediocrity. And I know that the conference takes a definite backseat to the SEC and Big Ten... Although I think it is on its way to taking a firm step ahead of definitley the ACC, and possibly the Big XII. I'll explain why in a second...

The sheer lack of importance placed on football out here is very much different to the south and the rust belt. California still manages to churn out a lot of talent, because 1/5 of the country happens to live down there. So it keeps the talent level afloat. I think why the west coast places so much less importance on football in the south and in the rust belt would be a great topic worth discussing some other time.

The topic of debate can get tiresome and annoying though, at least for reasonable west coast fans. I firmly believe that we here, as a whole, take more crap than fans of all other conferences combined. And I hate to make blanket statements, but it's usually from people who have never been west of the Mississippi River, maybe the Great Plains.

When you talk to any Pac-10 fan (except a USC one), you generally get one overwhelming sense. The need to prove legitimacy or at least take the chance at it whenever possible. A genuie, earnest need. We've dealt with failure before, and done it time and again with class and dignity. We don't shy away from it though. Pac-10 features easily the best non-conference practices out of any BCS conference. If a school has not found a winning way, they are working hard as hell on it.

No, I don't think west coast football will ever quite be on a level with the south. We're not Permian-level crazy for the game. We're fond of it, and there are smaller towns that are big on the game. But among the sense of defensiveness and earnestness about football out here, you'll find one thing overall; life beyond football.

It's somewhat of a curse for football fans... But a blessing that most are able to worry about other things.

/ramblings
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Well said Milo. I would agree with you on all counts 100%. the issue that seems to be the most difficult to overcome would be the overall importance of college football to the general fan in the region, more specifically, California. there are pockets where they take it seriously, Oregon, Washingoton come to mind, and even AZ to some extent. but by and large, even with those areas, it still isn't as important as it is in the South. And as someone who has traveled the West Coast, i've found that most sports fans are more interested in pro sports or sports that they themselvs participate in, i.e. Golf, softball leagues etc...and not that that's a bad thing, just that it's a difference. I think if you asked the average Pac 10 football fan what they would rather do on a Saturday afternoon...catch 18 at the course or watch AZ play Or. St., the majority would catch the score at the course. You'll find that a little bit here too, but most would tell you that Saturdays in the fall are for one thing...even if it means watching Ole Miss vs. Arkansas. that game still means something to not only Ole Miss and ARK fans, but Bama, LSU and Auburn fans all want someone to lose that game to help their teams' chances in the division.

this is not to say that the West Coast is the only part of the country that is like this. i don't think there's any debate that inthe Northeast and even in the majority of the midwest (minus ohio and michigan) that most would say pro sports are more important to them than College football.

There are even pockets of that here in the South too. I live in North Carolina. and while i would say that the vast majority of the population here is football crazy on Saturdays, there are fanbases out there that really couldn't care less as a whole...namely Duke and North Carolina fans. They simply don't care colletctively.

but at the end of the day, you draw a line up around TX and OK, and bring it over to VA, and down around the East coast and back around the Gulf Coast, you wont' find a region more football nuts than the south. And that combined with how competitve the SEC is with each other, is what makes it so special. Everyone has a friend, relative, co worker...soemone, that is a fan of one of your rivals. Each year, smack gets talked, and someone has to live with that smack talk for 365 days til your team gets another shot at 'em.

And to think, i'm acutally proud of that? sheesh. good post Milo.:thumbsup:
 
#53
#53
rwemyss said:
There are only two problems I find with your post milo. 1) About UCLA trying to be good in EVERY sport... UT has made the postseason a regular thing in football, women's basketball, baseball,track & field (indoor as well as outdoor), women's soccer, men's tennis, and women's volleyball... I'm sure there are others, not to mention the Men's basketball run into the tournament last year, that bodes well for the future. Plenty of other SEC schools have similar resumes.
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Never said they didn't. I just said what UCLA's athletic department focuses on... USC actually focuses on it too. Go to the NCAA website, look up # of national championships.

Schools with the Most NCAA Championships

2) The fact of the matter is, that at every attempt by a school that doesn't have "Southern California" in its name has failed miserably in the department of "proving legitimacy" in football. With the recent decline of Arizona basketball, and the earlier decline in UCLA basketball, they are having trouble with that sport as well... but that is a discussion that should be left for a couple of months down the road.
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I think it's been stepping up. I believe that. I see the ACC and Big XII as being on the decline. It's Oklahoma and Texas left in the Big XII (Nebraska, as much as people want to think they're back, has yet to prove it) with a bunch of junk. In the ACC will be just Miami and Virginia Tech after Bowden leaves FSU... I don't see any signs of success beyond that. The Pac-10 has a winning record vs. the ACC anyhow.

The Pac's record vs. the Big Ten is close to .500, and the SEC is the only remaining conference against which the Pac-10 has a bad record. But to be fair, the SEC only has a losing record to the Big Ten.
 
#54
#54
Nice post there (the longer one before that), milo. That's about as unbiased as I've ever seen you be concerning the Pac Ten. :p

I think most of the "Yeah well, (insert ANY conference) is better just because" comes form people just being loyal to their region. Being from the South, I'd (almost) rather watch a game between SEC (or even ACC) schools before any other conference. You just feel, I dunno, closer to them. The dreaded regional loyalty. It doesn't mean I like Florida, Alabama, or even Vanderbilt... but I'd watch a football game between Florida and Kentucky before I'd watch a game, say like, Notre Dame and Michigan State.
 
#55
#55
"But to be fair, the SEC only has a losing record to the Big Ten."

You just had to stick that in there didn't ya!!
 
#56
#56
jakez4ut said:
Well said Milo. I would agree with you on all counts 100%. the issue that seems to be the most difficult to overcome would be the overall importance of college football to the general fan in the region, more specifically, California. there are pockets where they take it seriously, Oregon, Washingoton come to mind, and even AZ to some extent. but by and large, even with those areas, it still isn't as important as it is in the South. And as someone who has traveled the West Coast, i've found that most sports fans are more interested in pro sports or sports that they themselvs participate in, i.e. Golf, softball leagues etc...and not that that's a bad thing, just that it's a difference. I think if you asked the average Pac 10 football fan what they would rather do on a Saturday afternoon...catch 18 at the course or watch AZ play Or. St., the majority would catch the score at the course. You'll find that a little bit here too, but most would tell you that Saturdays in the fall are for one thing...even if it means watching Ole Miss vs. Arkansas. that game still means something to not only Ole Miss and ARK fans, but Bama, LSU and Auburn fans all want someone to lose that game to help their teams' chances in the division.

this is not to say that the West Coast is the only part of the country that is like this. i don't think there's any debate that inthe Northeast and even in the majority of the midwest (minus ohio and michigan) that most would say pro sports are more important to them than College football.

There are even pockets of that here in the South too. I live in North Carolina. and while i would say that the vast majority of the population here is football crazy on Saturdays, there are fanbases out there that really couldn't care less as a whole...namely Duke and North Carolina fans. They simply don't care colletctively.

but at the end of the day, you draw a line up around TX and OK, and bring it over to VA, and down around the East coast and back around the Gulf Coast, you wont' find a region more football nuts than the south. And that combined with how competitve the SEC is with each other, is what makes it so special. Everyone has a friend, relative, co worker...soemone, that is a fan of one of your rivals. Each year, smack gets talked, and someone has to live with that smack talk for 365 days til your team gets another shot at 'em.

And to think, i'm acutally proud of that? sheesh. good post Milo.:thumbsup:
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Thanks. I hear ya about the pockets of fans... Yeah, the PNW is bigger on football than California is. But the population up here is quite sparse, so it helps little.

A question I've always wanted the answer to is, why is football so much bigger in the south? I know that it is bigger, and I know how much bigger, and I know what goes on, but at its root, why is the sport such a big deal? A question worth pondering. I've got my own answers, but I'll wait for a few responses.
 
#63
#63
milohimself said:
Thanks. I hear ya about the pockets of fans... Yeah, the PNW is bigger on football than California is. But the population up here is quite sparse, so it helps little.

A question I've always wanted the answer to is, why is football so much bigger in the south? I know that it is bigger, and I know how much bigger, and I know what goes on, but at its root, why is the sport such a big deal? A question worth pondering. I've got my own answers, but I'll wait for a few responses.
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that's a good question, and the easy answer is it's generational. Just as generations of NY Yankee fans pass on thier alleigence, so are those that in the South when it comes to their college football team.

and why is that the case? i think a lot of it has to do with the fact when back in the day, the south was still largely rural and very sparse population, a lot of it very poor also, there were no other outlets for people to show their support for a sports team, nor was there any real thing that allowed you to be proud of where you were or where you were from. there were no storied baseball teams in the South, like you had in Boston, Chicago, Detroit and NY. The NFL, in reality is very young, and there were no "titletowns" in the South when it was formed. No professional atheletes down here to be considered icons of the region. Nothing for them to have an extreme amount of pride in from a sports persepctive.

what we did have was college football. it has a much longer history than the NFL and is as revered in the South as Baseball is in the North. We didn't have The Babe, we had The Bear. We didn't have Bart Star or Jim Brown, but we did have Archie Manning and Hershel Walker. We didn't have Vince Lombardi, but we did have Vince Dooley. You get the idea...

so from very early on, college alleigences were formed, and they were passed on generation to generation, and those fan bases simply have gotten bigger and bigger as family trees have grown, and as new ones have started as more and more people become alumni of those institutions. And those coaches or players from way back are the iconic figures we tell stories about, and what gives it it's history.

And i would venture to say that for a long time, most thought it was the best kept secret in the country...like being part of a club that no one else knew about. And as it became more well known, the more proud you became. and as the Alabama's, GEorgia's, Tennessee's, Auburns of the world began to not only compete, but defeat, the stalwarts of the time, the more proud you became, because you knew it all along, and you've been there all along, and now it's come to fruition. In large part, it could simply be said that we had a chip on our shoulders down here, to some extent anyway. And college football was our way of thumping our chests.

And as the South has grown, established several major metro areas, populations have grown, so the attention to the sport down here has gotten intense, because the population basically demanded it.

And after 6, 7, 8+ generations of college football in the south, it's become a ver large part of the lifestyle.

that's my opinion anyway, for whatever it's worth.:peace2:
 
#66
#66
milohimself said:
8+ generations in not too much over a century? :lol:

Babies havin' babies.
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and not to be to technical, way back when, it wasn't unheard of for people to be starting families very young...it definitely wasn't like it is today where more and more people are not starting families til their 30's, like me.:dance2:
 
#68
#68
Well, Cal just slobberknocked the crap out of another "quality" Pac team, so like clockwork I had to dig this thread back up.

Oregon sure looked good on Saturday.

Milo, Cal keeps digging the dirt out from under the conference. Look out for them to take down the Trojans and really make us southerners smug in our proclamation that the Pac just isn't that good... or should I just try and make it sound like the Vols are just THAT good? :)
 
#69
#69
rwemyss said:
Well, Cal just slobberknocked the crap out of another "quality" Pac team, so like clockwork I had to dig this thread back up.

Oregon sure looked good on Saturday.

Milo, Cal keeps digging the dirt out from under the conference. Look out for them to take down the Trojans and really make us southerners smug in our proclamation that the Pac just isn't that good... or should I just try and make it sound like the Vols are just THAT good? :)
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Cal's legitimacy would be fine if they beat USC... I think a lot of you SEC folks are conveniently forgetting the fact that the Trojans have made your SEC West leaders look like a Sun Belt squad two times in a row.
 
#70
#70
is bettin Saban wishes he was still in college football. He sucks in pro ball, my 180 dollar leather dolphins jacket is screamin for Ebay.
 
#71
#71
milohimself said:
Cal's legitimacy would be fine if they beat USC... I think a lot of you SEC folks are conveniently forgetting the fact that the Trojans have made your SEC West leaders look like a Sun Belt squad two times in a row.
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I figure that after the two Washington schools gave USC a run for their money, Cal has a more than legitimate shot at beating USC. If that happens, and we win out, we would have a shot at leap frogging the lowest ranked undefeated team in the BCS, due to what would be a very good quality win number.
 
#72
#72
milohimself said:
Cal's legitimacy would be fine if they beat USC... I think a lot of you SEC folks are conveniently forgetting the fact that the Trojans have made your SEC West leaders look like a Sun Belt squad two times in a row.
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I considered that fact and chose to leave it out due to the fact that McFadden didn't play in the game. The point being, the Vols put a class A-1 whooping on Cal, who has then went on to do the same to every Pac team they can find. Very different from your prediction that they'll be in last place in the Pac.

Of course, it looks like the corner that missed the game with the Vols has shored up their pass D, and nothing is exactly as it seems at a glance... I just like giving you a hard time Milo. :)
 
#74
#74
therealUT said:
McFadden nor Mustain really played in that game.
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But I can't really argue that Mustain would have made much of a difference. He's a true freshman, and he has only now started to grow into a QB that can play in college. He made a lot of boneheaded passes as recently as against 'bama.
 
#75
#75
I can't wait until Cal beats USC. When do they play? That will be the lone Pac Ten game of the year that I make a concerted effort to watch.
 
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