OK, so the title of this blog post is horrible. It's horrendous; beyond horrible, terrible, whatever. It's still not as bad as this: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/stewart_mandel/07/24/sec-espn/index.html?eref=sihpT1
Reading this article made me angry. The first weekend of college football season, 7 (!) SEC games will be on the ABC/ESPN family of networks. They also are the only football conference that CBS really cares about. Why should any of the rest of us care about non-SEC football?
The arms race that is occurring in the SEC is pretty frightening. Each school continues to up the ante; my school, Tennessee, is the latest to do this, spending an ungodly amount of money on assistant coaches after hiring Lane Kiffin. The best football coaches now all reside in the SEC - Urban Meyer and Nick Saban being the two current best, Houston Nutt proving last year that he's a good one as well, Les Miles being the luckiest coach in America, Kiffin being the most quoteworthy and taking that title from Steve Spurrier (also the former best coach in America)...it is all very, very dizzying.
They've won the last 3 national championships, and their pride in the conference is sickening. Seriously, rival fanbases hate each other on gameday, but if they are playing someone out of conference (like MAC schools, since they never play a tough OOC game) they all root for each other. It's really disturbing.
And they are spending millions and millions, tens of millions, of dollars on football. All to prove that they are best team in the best conference in the best geographical area for football in the country. Well, you know what? I don't care.
I root for a non-SEC BCS school. I enjoy college football, a lot. However, I know that if my team runs into the buzzsaw that is Joe SEC Football school, we will lose. Not just lose; get slaughtered.
I've decided I don't care about this. The journey for me is winning the Big East, and then getting to tell 50 guys who play football at Florida that they will be sorry when they work for Pitt alumni. Academics at SEC schools are a joke.
Sorry, this was a really disjointed rant but I'm just sick of SEC football.
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Josh, it's nice to hear anti-SEC sentiments - especially from an alum.
ReplyDeleteAs one who has always been more entertained by Big-12, Pac-10, and, ahem, Big-10 football, I've never been all that interested in SEC. Perhaps it is because of the annoying insistence that they're hands-down the best conference in college football.
I'm one who never wants to concede that point and would much rather watch Oregon v. Arizona State or Kansas v. Missouri than Alabama v. Florida. And that is a significant statement.
Unfortunately, huge swaths of the country won't be able to make that decision with their remote as they'll be overruled by the fascists who run ESPN. The eventual result of this will likely be a far diminished interest in college football by yours truly. And that is the biggest shame of all.
I had to drive back from Asheville the day after Utah shellacked Alabama, so I had to hear all the Southern sports radio hand-wringing about how Alabama didn't come to play cuz they weren't in the national championship game, and in other circumstances, Utah doesn't belong on the same field, waaa, waaa, waaa. I don't think this guy was an Alabama guy, he was just an SEC apologist.
ReplyDeleteWe get it: Alabama and other SEC schools have better athletes than Utah. That means they shouldn't get their asses handed to them by Utah in a bowl game...but, they did.
Oh, and I can't stand Stewart Mandel. Total anti-Notre Dame chip on his shoulder. It borders on anti-Catholicism, and I am only half-kidding. Same with Pat Forde, but that's a rant for another day
Dave, I can't let you blaspheme against Stew Mandel when its not true; he's not a Notre Dame hater. Prove to me why he is, if you think this.
ReplyDeleteJosh,
ReplyDeleteStew has a 25 page chapter in his short book called "What's the deal with Notre Dame." The chapter is entirely negative. Entirely. If there is a positive word, it is in the context of the set-up for a criticism.
Stew can't avoid pointing out/dwelling on any irony, or profitable venture for Notre Dame - as if a university administration should be unconcerned about the profitability of its football program. He cites an administrator's claim that ND's football revenues go to the general scholarship fund as if this is some kind of sinister arrangement.
Look, some of his criticisms are just and have been leveled by Domers, myself included. And I understand that ND has made itself a polarizing program. But it is clear what pole Stew is on, and he takes every opportunity to let you know what side he is on.
I forwarded this rant to a few friends who pointed out rankings of Florida as one of the top public Universities in the country. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise I like the anti-SEC rant you put together here, Josh. I agree with most of it
David -- did you ever read _Under the Tarnished Dome_? One of several things that made me a Lou Holtz hater. I still enjoy rooting against Notre Dame, but I don't think they're the evil empire or anything.
His book (Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls) was basically a primer on college football, a noble goal for his virgin experience in book-writing. He was explaining college football; its not ridiculous, I don't think, to have a 25 page chapter about their situation in a 260 page book. On the first page of that chapter, he shares an email from Belgium asking why Notre Dame gets special treatment. It doesn't seem to me like a ridiculous questiont to ask.
ReplyDeleteI read the book and don't remember thinking that it was anything ridiculous. I remember that everytime he mentioned the "BCS Conference Schools" he would add (...and Notre Dame). Is that negative? I don't really think so.
Then there is the paragraph he devotes to listing why the Irish are so popular, listing their many historical achievements.
Finally, he talks about the Notre Dame "holier-than-thou" attitude. Maybe this is what you are referencing.
I just really don't see it. I see it as this guy writes on college football and if he says one negative word about your school, he's anti-_____. He writes more words about teams like Notre Dame. I don't buy that he's anti-Irish (and certainly not anti-Catholic).
I have to re-consider the anti-catholic comment. Pat Forde is worse, so I might have had him in mind, and in both cases I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole.
ReplyDeleteJosh, you know I am not a homer, and I have been frustrated with the ND football culture and articulated many of the same criticisms as Mandel. Still, I have been averse to read his writing because of the impression that he never avoids taking a shot at ND. I'm not looking for ND haters, and I don't think criticizing ND makes you anti-ND -it really is an impression I've formed about Mandel. My arguments right now are inconclusive - let's see how this season's columns play out.
I'll add that though my arguments are inconclusive they haven't been refuted. One paragraph of the significance of Notre Dame to college football is hardly notable ESPECIALLY when you are going to devote 25 pages - essentially 10% of the book to a VERY critical account of their current situation. Josh will you grant that the chapter is quite critical and another fairly objective chapter could have been significantly less critical?
ReplyDeleteNo, I can't grant that.
ReplyDeleteHe's not railing against Notre Dame as an institution or football program, he's railing against their special treatment. That's a totally valid criticism.
That is a valid criticism, but he over-reaches on the GROUNDS of the criticism - instead of being puzzled by an exclusive network contract (valid) he ascribes completely sinister motives to all involved (invalid) and makes a snide remark about scholarship checks being paid out by NBC (invalid) - and that is typical of the chapter as I read it.
ReplyDelete