Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

šŸŽ¶ Those boots were made for mockinā€™ šŸŽµ

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The revolution will be supervised.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

“woke” is the new caravan.

ā€œWhat are Republicans afraid of?ā€ Everything.

He really is that stupid.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Let’s finish the job.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Donā€™t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just donā€™t know how.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Come on, man.

You donā€™t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You are here: Home / Sports / College Football Open Thread

College Football Open Thread

by | 198 Comments

This post is in: 

Watching Auburn trail Utah State myself.

Serious question- if the NCAA can get all worked up in a lather over little things like Terrelle Pryor selling an award he won, something which hurt no one and in no way impacts the integrity of the game, why the hell can’t they make those hicks in Idaho paint their god damned astroturf green, something that rightly offends everyone who is forced to look at it?

Reader Interactions

198Comments

  3. 3.

    Yutsano

    why the hell canā€™t they make those hicks in Idaho paint their god damned astroturf green

    Get over it white boy. That turf will stay as blue as Bronco blood.

    ETA: It looks much more awesome in person.

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    If green Astroturf is rightly offensive to everyone, why compel “those hicks in Idaho” to paint it that color?

    Me, I don’t think any sport should be played on Astroturf (of whatever color) except maybe field hockey.

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Please, do not get me started on the fashion atrocities committed by my own UofO Fighting Ducks. Just don’t.

  6. 6.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    What the fuck, I write that the goddamn smurf turf is blue, not green, and it gets deleted. Also, Pryor didn’t sell shhit he singed junk and the dealer sold it. AJ Green sold a jersey.

  7. 7.

    TheWorstPersonInTheWorld

    Cole, how’s the hangover? Have you vomited into the chip bowl yet?

    Boomer Sooner.

    Rock Chalk Jayhawk.

  9. 9.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    Athens is a ghost town what with the game in the ATL and that stupid comic book thing all you geeks will know about going on too.

  11. 11.

    metalgirl

    Since this is an open thread, I have to say that, so far, I’m loving my new Mac mini that arrived yesterday. My guy was up to 3am cloning the PC and setting up VMware so my old machine is on the mini and I can access both seamlessly. My phone, ipad, and email are all synching in one place and I have complete control of my address book :) Life is good and my older son is coming home from college for a few weeks and arrives tonight and I don’t have to work on Monday! BTW, from an open thread a few weeks ago about green smoothies, I looked up the cheaper blender recommended by Consumer Reports (the Ninja) and bought it — best $60 I’ve spent this year.

  12. 12.

    metalgirl

    Since this is an open thread, I have to say that, so far, I’m loving my new Mac mini that arrived yesterday. My guy was up to 3am cloning the PC and setting up VMware so my old machine is on the mini and I can access both seamlessly. My phone, ipad, and email are all synching in one place and I have complete control of my address book :) Life is good and my older son is coming home from college for a few weeks and arrives tonight and I don’t have to work on Monday! BTW, from an open thread a few weeks ago about green smoothies, I looked up the cheaper blender recommended by Consumer Reports (the Ninja) and bought it — best $60 I’ve spent this year.

  13. 13.

    adolphus

    I find the field jarring, but one thing it does for me is never lets me forget it is AstroTurf. I find myself rooting less for hard hitting and QB take downs when I am forced to remember those young men, who are getting paid a pittance for what they make for their schools, are being tackled on a hard surface that will end their careers, if they have any, years earlier than if they played on natural sod.

  16. 16.

    adolphus

    mealgirl: excellent news. I am considering buying a new mini to work with my aging MacBook, which I cannot afford to replace.

  19. 19.

    Anonymous At Work

    Boise State, and their turf, only offends those from conferences pre-determined to be “Big 6” that feel they have something to prove (Big East anyone?).

  21. 21.

    FlipYrWhig

    I enjoy the NFL, but I don’t get the passion people feel for the college game, and I groan every time I turn on ESPN for updates about late-season baseball and instead they’re minutely dissecting these poorly-played games between 19-year-olds from square states. Does not compute. Has it always been this massive, or is ESPN the tail wagging the dog? I don’t remember much passion for college football as a kid growing up in NJ in the ’70s and ’80s. I assume it was huge elsewhere and I just missed it.

  22. 22.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    A white boy from West Virginny calling people from Idaho hicks.

    Pot, meet Kettle.

  27. 27.

    Roger Moore

    The reason that the NCAA cares about athletes selling their awards but doesn’t give a shit about blue fields is that their number one mission is to make sure that no money ever makes it into the hands of one of their “student” athletes. Think of them as Feudal Lords trying to oppress the serfs and just about everything they do will make more sense. Their biggest worry is that people will start seeing college athletes as people with rights rather than gladiators performing for their entertainment.

  30. 30.

    Jade Jordan

    Finally, someone talking about the important issues of the day. The Blue Turf is part of the Avatar Navi people takeover of the world.

  31. 31.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @FlipYrWhig: What the fuck to you expect from Joisey? Of course it’s always been this “massive”. The pro game was considered about like being a pirate in the old days.

  32. 32.

    Roger Moore

    @John Cole:

    Not hungover at all. Stop believing everything you read on the internet.

    So we shouldn’t believe everything we read on your Twitter feed? I guess there weren’t any tweets about putting Pedialyte on ice, and this post came before evening WVa time, so we should have known that last night’s drinking didn’t get too far out of hand.

  33. 33.

    khead

    I donā€™t remember much passion for college football as a kid growing up in NJ in the ā€˜70s and ā€˜80s. I assume it was huge elsewhere and I just missed it.

    Pretty much. I’ve been to Temple/WVU and Temple/Va Tech games in Philly where I could count the number of people in the stands.

    I understand that it’s, well, Temple – but damn.

  34. 34.

    metalgirl

    @John Cole: Everything!! It’s got Apple’s latest OS on it, Lion, and it has an improved email client that allows you to sort your inbox (which is still missing on the ipad). The only thing that doesn’t work right (again, by My Guy testing everything) is FaceTime, which is known to be buggy on Lion (so I expect a fix will come out soon). With the VMWare set on the “unity” view, I can open IE (required to VPN into work) and Photoshop (I have v6, very old, but it does what I need) as if they were apps on the mini (they ARE on the mini in a VM). LOVE IT!!!

  35. 35.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @khead: College football doesn’t compute in the big cities, from my observations. Look at where college football draws – from the sticks. When you have an NFL team, not so much.

  36. 36.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @khead: Teams like LSU will have 20,000+ people go to away games with NO chance of getting in the game. When they opened in Blacksburg about 7 years ago they showed up en masse on Thursday and took over a huge parking lot for three days. It’s a different world down here.

  38. 38.

    Southern Beale

    Apparently Sarah Palin is giving a speech in which she accuses Obama of being a S0c1alist, etc. using her patented zings and digs and coded language, all attack.

    I’m going to have to stay away from Twitter.

  40. 40.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @metalgirl: Did you know you can set photoshop as your editor in iPhoto? Since the iPhoto one totally sucks I’d give it a try.

  41. 41.

    Amir Khalid

    @FlipYrWhig:
    The Wikipedia entry on the NFL shows an uneven geographical distribution of teams at that level, concentrated in the eastern part of the 48 states, with none at all in Alaska or Hawai’i. Chances are that your only prospect of a local American football team to support is often a college team. I would guess that’s why there is so much support for college football.

    Are there really no semi-pro or amateur leagues in American football, as there are in soccer?

  42. 42.

    khead

    Well, I was gonna say “It’s a southern thing”… maybe it’s a “boonies” thing. :)

    But I had NEVER been to a college game that looked like an Atlanta Braves game circa 1986 before those Temple games.

    It was pretty weird being in the old Vet with only 1-2K in attendance. We could hear what all the coaches were saying.

  45. 45.

    Jim C.

    The Blue is a big selling point to BSU recruits as a unique attraction, is a part of the school’s tradition, and just another piece of the pageantry of college football. It doesn’t hurt anyone either.

    Lighten up John. Nobody’s forcing you to watch.

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    College football doesnā€™t compute in the big cities, from my observations.

    Don’t say that to anyone from Los Angeles. People around here take their college football very seriously, especially the USC/UCLA (or is that UCLA/USC?) game. Of course maybe that’s a response to getting the finger from the NFL for long enough to stop caring so much about the pro game.

  48. 48.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @khead: I was at a Va Tech-Temple game in Blacksburg about 14 years ago. The crowd was great but it was obvious the Owl players were not interested, not the best way to draw interest at home.

  54. 54.

    Jim C.

    TFinSF:

    As someone who lives in Boise, I can vouch for that. It’s the rest of the state that is impossibly ass-backwards and hickish.

  55. 55.

    The Dangerman

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Please, do not get me started on the fashion atrocities committed by my own UofO Fighting Ducks.

    The UO basketball court has to be one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in sport; WTF were they thinking?

  56. 56.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Roger Moore:

    Of course maybe thatā€™s a response to getting the finger from the NFL for long enough to stop caring so much about the pro game.

    LA is the obvious outlier.

    But huge cities (NYC, DFW, Chicago, Philly, Miami, etc) that focus on college football? Not so much.

  58. 58.

    handy

    @Southern Beale:

    When does she not do that?

    What’s funny is the media treats her like she is or has been in any way considering running. Talk about grifters gonna grift.

  59. 59.

    metalgirl

    I didn’t buy the iMac because My Guy gave me a HUGE screen, mounted on an arm + a great sound system for my previous computer last year so I just didn’t need to buy them again. I’m sure people who buy iMacs are happy with them.

    I also have to say that My Guy has had a mini that’s lived in my kitchen for 5 years and I’ve never been able to really use it. I think I attributed it to it being “different” but I think that it was really an issue of me being unmotivated to learn the differences (I can walk 30′ and use my own computer in the studio) but also that he had a trackball for a long time (which I hate) and he’s left-handed. I could have probably used it when he got the trackpad last year but I had already decided that it wasn’t for me.

    This purchase was initiated by my high school Jr needing a better computer (his is a 2004+ Dell). No way was I buying him a new computer when he could the thrilled with my Acer that is from 2008.

  63. 63.

    Kane

    I did a google search to see what everyone was were talking about. Apparently there’s more than one blue football field.

    Maybe if you play with the color dial on the teevee, it’s possible to turn the field green.

  65. 65.

    khead

    @efgoldman:

    Hell yes. Utah State just scored again.

    College football – for me – is all about the little guy.

    Unless I laid the points against the little guy, of course. Heh.

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    @John Cole:

    I guess what I mean is why buy a mac mini instead of a regular mac?

    I assume the main reason is because it’s smaller and cheaper. If it’s powerful enough to do what you want and you don’t care about upgrading it yourself, it’s a much better buy than an iMac or a Mac Pro. It’s also quiet enough to use as a good entertainment PC, so it’s a good choice to plug into your big screen TV.

  72. 72.

    BillinGlendaleCA (aka 10amla)

    @handy:

    I think the term “other school in LA” would imply that USC is a school rather than a semi-pro football team.

    ETA: There is however a fine university on LA’s westside.

  75. 75.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Amir Khalid:

    Are there really no semi-pro or amateur leagues in American football, as there are in soccer?

    I’ve met semipro football players, so it exists, but not on a large scale. But you’ve pointed to what I as Sports Overlord would do with college football: organize it as local clubs that were for-profit businesses and paid their athletes, and eliminate the last remaining vestiges of the affiliation with educational institutions. If American football were organized like English football, the whole thing would make a lot more sense, and there would be no chronically confused and conflicted NCAA tsk-tsking “student-athletes.” I’d even throw promotion-relegation into the mix, so over time the Nebraska Cornhuskers Football Club could manage to become the equivalent of a major-league franchise, while the Washington Redskins Football Club could end up playing Boise and Arkansas. The illusion that college football has much at all to do with, you know, _college_, that should just be terminated once and for all, IMHO. Just let them be collections of local talent sharing in the millions of dollars their labor produces.

  81. 81.

    Roger Moore

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    I don’t think it’s just LA; it may be more of an East/West thing. I think the SF Bay area cares a fair amount about Cal and Stanford, Seattle really likes the Huskies, Denver is serious about CU even though it’s in Boulder, etc. Maybe that’s because the NFL was giving the whole Western US the finger for a long time.

  83. 83.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: I don’t think so. It was sorta big when I lived in Fort Worth, because of TCU. SMU was a page 3 game writeup at best. But it wasn’t anywhere near Cowboys levels of insane fan behavior.

    College fans were more focused on UT/A&M than local teams. That might have changed in 10 years, however.

    ETA: I should mention that Chicago doesn’t seem to value Northwestern or U of I, which is not far down the road.

  84. 84.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @Cassidy: When they get their asses handed to them by my dawgs we won’t have to hear about them or the goddamn Horned Frogs anymore this year!

  85. 85.

    handy

    @FlipYrWhig:

    The illusion that college football has much at all to do with, you know, college, that should just be terminated once and for all, IMHO.

    But but but–those strapping young bucks should be greatful they get a full ride to go to prestigious institution of higher learning! Pay no mind to the multi-billion dollar entity called the NCAA behind that curtain, he’s just making sure fair is fair and everyone is Playing By The Rules is all.

  86. 86.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    When the Washington Huskies are on a roll, Seattle goes nuts. When the Seahawks are on a roll, Seattle goes nuts.

    The key thing is to be on a roll. College, NFL, not important. If you’re on a roll, Seattle goes nuts. Applies to the Mariners, too. If they’re hot, and the football teams are cold, then Seattle’s a baseball town, by gum. If the Mariners suck (like they do now) it’s Huskies/Seahawks, baby, and Seattle is a football town, by gum!

  88. 88.

    Roger Moore

    @Southern Beale:

    Death of another right wing meme!

    Ha, ha, ha! You made a funny! Since when have facts gotten in the way of the Right Wing repeating on of their memes? Next you’re going to point out that Clinton Era tax rates didn’t crush our economy, so the Republicans will have to drop the idea that letting the Bush tax cuts expire would lead to the end of the universe.

  89. 89.

    BillinGlendaleCA (aka 10amla)

    @Roger Moore:

    Tend to agree with you about the east-west thing. Remember though; the Bay Area has the 49’s and the Raiders, Seattle has the Seaweeds, and Denver has the Broncos. LA doesn’t have a NFL team, though they are trying to put a stadium in downtown(stupid) to attract a team(the Chargers).

  90. 90.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Roger Moore: could be. i have less familiarity with west coast football allegiances. College football is crazy in the south, though. I know newspapers that make their living off covering the nearby college team. My own personal metric is the number of dumbasses with magnetic logo signs and antenna flags on the streets prior to a game. In my travels, the University of Tennessee has the highest ratio.

  92. 92.

    handy

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    That was my impression of Atlanta when I lived there for a spell. Mid 90s so lot of Braves lids could be seen, but the kids were all wearing either Troy Aikmen or Steve Young jerseys. Whoever the hell was the Falcons QB, not so much.

  97. 97.

    Roger Moore

    @handy:

    But but butā€”those strapping young bucks should be greatful they get a full ride to go to prestigious institution of higher learning!

    Notice that there’s no mention of “learn from” in the above statement. I’d have a much easier time accepting the NCAA’s claims about the integrity of student athletics if they bothered to take the student part nearly as seriously as the athlete part.

  100. 100.

    arguingwithsignposts

    personally, i’m glad some teams are playing high-stakes games early in the season, even though it lessens the potential BCS fuckups later when the “title” is on the line.

  101. 101.

    Yutsano

    Utah State just did a play that took massive huevos. They deserve to win this just on that basis alone.

    EDIT: And now Auburn is forcing stuff. This could get entertaining.

  110. 110.

    Roger Moore

    @metalgirl:

    My Guy just explained to me what thunderbolt is. Cool when thereā€™s something that I want that uses it :)

    It’s typical Apple technology leadership/forcing. With any new thing like Thunderbolt there’s a chicken and egg compatibility problem. Nobody wants to pay for the new feature until there are compatible devices that work with it, but nobody is willing to pay extra for compatible devices unless their computer has the new feature to take advantage of it. Apple just goes ahead and sticks in the new gizmo and counts on there being compatible devices soon enough that buyers will eventually be able to take advantage.

    It helps in this case that it’s backward compatible with their mini-Display Port plug, so it’s already a good way of connecting to external non-HDMI monitors. If you have a monitor that requires Dual Link DVI, for example, it’s a very nice way of connecting it. I doubt that there are going to be too many consumer-level non-display devices that really need Thunderbolt speeds anytime soon, especially with USB3 already available, but it seems like a neat feature anyway.

  112. 112.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Villago Delenda Est: Speaking of the Huskies, they will be playing the defending National Champions(Div 1-AA) Eastern Washington whose field is RED!!!. An offense to the eyes why isn’t the ghost of Vince Lombardi destroying it with fire?

  113. 113.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Roger Moore:

    It helps in this case that itā€™s backward compatible with their mini-Display Port plug

    Don’t even get me started on apple’s display port bullshit.

  114. 114.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Oh and one more thing I pray to the football gods that Notre Dame sucks donkey balls so bad that NBC drops them and broadcasts an big conference games.

  117. 117.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Another college football related note: most all of the games are available for streaming on ESPN 3 (or whatever they’re calling it now), including the Ga./Boise State game!

  121. 121.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @The Dangerman:

    It’s all due to Phil Knight’s influence. What Phil wants, he gets, because, frankly, he pays for it, and the UofO is not going to to turn down all that infrastructure he’s donating.

    He started, in an insidious way, with the Library and the Law School, then pounced on the athletic department like no one’s business.

    Now the Ducks are basically the runway models of Nike Sports Fashion, no matter how hideous that might be.

  123. 123.

    Roger Moore

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Donā€™t even get me started on appleā€™s display port bullshit.

    FTFY. Their display plugs are only the worst example of their more general disregard for backward compatibility. Apple will sometimes make a weak attempt at maintaining some kind of compatibility, but their general attitude seems to be that it’s worth abandoning their existing approach if a new one will give them a marginal improvement. I think they’re a little bit better with software compatibility than hardware, but they certainly care less about either one than just about anyone else in the industry. It apparently helps with their goal of making the latest, shiniest thing, but the idea that Apple will decide all their existing stuff obsolete is one of the things that makes people into Apple haters.

  126. 126.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:

    iā€™ve been in chicago when notre dame was relevant.

    In the 1950s? :) Somewhat seriously, I never said there weren’t alumni from various schools packing sports bars. I’m saying that the teams themselves aren’t often located in big cities. Look at, for instance, the University of Georgia ;) and compare the devotion it elicits to the devotion to Ga. Tech, which is located in Hotlanta.

  138. 138.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): did you just reference Boston College? Also, Austin is sort of a weird mix because it’s part college town, part political shit. Columbus might qualify as that too.

    Again, depends on what you mean by “city.” I am more talking about metropolis, vs. just a city. Houston, for example, doesn’t give a shit about rice or u of h.

  139. 139.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Mr Stagger Lee: Oh, c’mon. UM isn’t a football school.

    ETA: Arizona is a good example. Perhaps it’s more an east-west thing, because the Cardinals are shit.

  143. 143.

    superdestroyer

    Considering that there is no way that Boise STate will end up in one of the four 16 school superconferences, no one will be seeing the smurf turf unless they are a fan of I-AA college football.

    The real question is which current Division I-A school (old term) will be the first to drop football after that school is excluded from the four power conferences.

  145. 145.

    arguingwithsignposts

    FWIW, most state schools are not located in big cities, esp. in the south. That’s a broad statement, but generally true. Except for the schools that are located in state capitals (like UT and South Carolina)

  147. 147.

    Roger Moore

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:

    are there any state flagship schools located in a city?

    In the PAC 10 12 there certainly are. Cal is in Berkeley, UCLA is in Los Angeles, UW is in Seattle, and UU is in Salt Lake City. CU is in Boulder, which is close enough to Denver that fans can make it to the games easily. That makes about half the public schools in the conference either in or within easy traveling distance of big cities.

  148. 148.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:

    As I indicated in an earlier post, Seattle tends to go with who is winning, and that applies to different sports entirely as well. In the 80’s it was mostly Huskies with some Seahawks thrown in early on (particularly in 84, when the ‘Hawks went 12-4). Then the Huskies fell on hard times in the post Don James era, getting routinely thrashed by their former whipping boys from Eugene. Obviously a few years back it was all Seahawks Seahawks Seahawks.

  151. 151.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): Just far enough to get the kids out of the city. :)

    That really seems to be where they located the schools back in the day. Check out where Clemson (Clempson in SC dialect) is, for instance. Just far enough that it’s not an easy drive.

  153. 153.

    Roger Moore

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    FWIW, most state schools are not located in big cities, esp. in the south.

    There’s actually a good reason for that. Most of the big state schools started out as land grant colleges that were explicitly supposed to be teaching farming and engineering. You can teach engineering in a big city, but farming pretty much has to be taught out in the country so you can have real farms. Some of the originally rural schools have been swallowed by big cities, but more often than not they’re still in smaller college towns.

  154. 154.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @SiubhanDuinne: UT falls into the state capital category. How many Vandy fans are there in Nashvegas?

    For a counter-example, check out Ole Miss, which is in the middle of fucking nowhere.

  156. 156.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Roger Moore: Well, in the south, there seems to be both flagship and land grant, so it’s a little different. USC/Clemson, UT/A&M, Ole Miss/Miss. State/ LSU, La. Tech/VT, UVA, etc.

    ETA: There’s also a military component. esp. at A&M and VT, but that’s another discussion.

  158. 158.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    I go up to Clemson (Clempson! Haha!) every few weeks and I always think it’s not a place anyone would just happen to be passing. You really have to intend to go to some of these unis.

  159. 159.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @SiubhanDuinne: Oh, indeed. I used to live in Greenville, and we knew you had to be going to that uni to actually go there. Still, lots of people with their orange/purple gear. Even preachers on Sunday talking about a Tigers win.

  160. 160.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    I’m confused. You said in your #152 that UT was in a state capital and I said no it’s not because it’s in Knoxville which is not the state capital. What am I missing?

  161. 161.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @SiubhanDuinne: You’re missing me being WRONG ON THE INTERNET! I always thought of Knoxville as the capital. Not sure why, think I got it mixed up with Charleston, WV for some reason. So you are correct, and I am wrong in the sense of state capitals. And UT fans are still crazy (I’ve listened to enough Tenn. Sports Radio to establish that fact).

  163. 163.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Roger Moore:

    Most of the big state schools started out as land grant colleges that were explicitly supposed to be teaching farming and engineering.

    Depends on when the school was founded. Michigan State University is such a school (and the largest, by area, of all of the land grant universities, iirc), but the University of Michigan, founded in Ann Arbor decades before the land grant legislation passed through Congress, isn’t.

    Sometimes it’s just a political decision: Grand Valley State University, located in Allendale, MI, is located in Ottawa County, MI, as a reward from a Republican state government to an area of hardcore Republican support. That has to be true elsewhere as well.

  166. 166.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @SiubhanDuinne: argh, don’t even start. I had enough students who went to other schools who wore clempson shit near game day. I kept wanting to ask: why advertise you weren’t good enough to get in there?

    ETA: We are all signposts now. :)

  170. 170.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jager:

    WordPress has an auto detect system that looks for particular strings associated with spamming. For example, a brand name for a male enhancement pharmaceutical is a string it looks for, which happens to be imbedded in a political term which right wing idiots routinely use to describe the polices of Barack Obama. This particular six word string is also in the more formal nomenclature of a political movement in central Europe some 80 odd years ago that resembles in many ways our contemporary wingtards.

  171. 171.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Yutsano: The question was about the flagship universities located in big cities. Interesting how there are few, take University of Arkansas, which I think is closer to Kansas City than Little Rock. Is LSU both the flagship and land grant of Louisiana?

  173. 173.

    Steeplejack

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Yes, it was huge elsewhere and you missed it. New Jersey was a college football sinkhole then, and may still be.

    In the Southeast, college football is not huge, it’s a religion.

  174. 174.

    superdestroyer

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    In a few years, there will only be 64 college football teams in Division I. Georgia Tech will be in that 64 even though they have few, if any, hangers-on (Wal-Mart Alumni) because Georgia Tech will be in the combined ACC/Big East Conference. However, none of the four remaining conferences is going to want Boise STate. Thus, Boise STate will be back in Division I-AA playing James Madison or Delaware for a national championship.

  176. 176.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    \@Steeplejack: Yep, and it’s my religion. I’ll always be an Illini and I married into a VaTech family but there is nothing like the Dawgs and another SEC team playing between the hedges.

  177. 177.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Has it always been this massive, or is ESPN the tail wagging the dog? I donā€™t remember much passion for college football as a kid growing up in NJ in the ā€˜70s and ā€˜80s. I assume it was huge elsewhere and I just missed it.

    I…I…[holding head in hands crying]

  178. 178.

    adolphus

    @78 FlipYrWhig

    Iā€™d even throw promotion-relegation into the mix, so over time the Nebraska Cornhuskers Football Club could manage to become the equivalent of a major-league franchise, while the Washington Redskins Football Club could end up playing Boise and Arkansas.

    I have often thought this was a good idea, but “Cornhusker” (And Gator, Buckeyes, etc etc) are intellectual property of the schools. If we spun off NCAA football teams into semi-pro teams they would either have to find new names or pay a small fortune to the schools. Also, I just don’t see, over time, semi-pro teams being nearly as popular as top tier NCAA teams are now with their built in rabid-fan base and wealthy donors in alumni who not only spend enormous sums on game tickets but also spend millions on merchandise and related crap. I see Florida Gator shit all over the country and UF makes millions off of it. 20 years after implementing your plan, who but locals would buy Gainesville Alligator crap?

    I like your idea, but the people who make millions now would not make millions under it.

    Maybe I misunderstand.

  180. 180.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @Bnut: Chickenshit motherfuckers. National champs and half of em left when they fell back 10. Fuck em, go Dawgs!

  181. 181.

    Thymezone

    Original post question: For the same reason the govt can’t make WV keep its mines safe, I reckon. Not enough people give a shit, apparently.

  182. 182.

    Corner Stone

    C’mon you fucking UofH Cougs! Finish off these punk ass Bruins!

    Yeah! Recover that onside kick! F U UCLA!

  186. 186.

    Strandedvandal

    @Jim C.: And now you know why the rest of the state hates Boise/ The great state of Ada county. The arrogance exhibited by some people here is astounding.

  191. 191.

    khead

    Weird.

    I have seen not one (Michigan)…

    Not two (South Florida)….

    But THREE (Ole Miss) turnovers returned for TD’s from inside the 10 today.

  192. 192.

    FlipYrWhig

    @adolphus: You’re right, the biggest obstacle would be the schools themselves, who as it stands benefit massively from an utter racket. But I don’t see why the Gainesville Gators would have a problem remaining viable; a huge number of Gator fans have nothing to do with the University of Florida as it is. College football culture reminds me of soccer culture, so I can easily imagine people walking around with Gainesville Gator gear after the whole thing was split off from U of F. But, by and large, I’m sure you’re right that the schools would never allow anything like it.

    @Corner Stone: Turns out I was in a trough where college football wasn’t anything anyone cared about to the same degree they do, um, nearly everywhere else. Different region is different!

  197. 197.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @Corner Stone

    Speaking as a WSU alum, you can just condense that to FUCLA. Since we play them every year, we get it on T-shirts with lettering that matches theirs. Just in case there’s any confusion, or anything…

  198. 198.

    Seanly

    @Jim C.:

    I am about to drive 2400 miles to start a new job in Boise. Wife & I fell in love with the place when we went out there for my interview. I gotta say that the place looked less hickish than my current locale of Columbia SC area.

    Was told that the smurf turf is much better in person.

    RE: driving out there – I get to do it in a couple of days with my mom and then fly back in a month to do the drive again with wife and dog. Wife staying here to train her replacement.

Comments are closed.