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Right Now...
... we're watching the Sugar Bowl, a game where we wish both teams would lose. On the one hand there's OU, a team I love to hate... mainly because of my former association with OU fans while I was stationed at Tinker AFB in OKC. OTOH, there's 'Bama, a team I love to hate because it's part o' the SEC, whose fans I find to be just as insufferable... if not more so... as those Boomer-Sooner people. It would give me a great deal o' satisfaction to watch 'Bama go down to the underdog Sooners... just to shut up those SEC homers that think football begins and ends in the SEC.
So, here we are at halftime and OU is up 31-17. I think that's OK (ahem), given the fact I'd be rooting for the underdog in any event. There's still a lot o' football to be played and no one with half a brain would count 'Bama out at this point. But we can hope.
Wow. . . did not see that coming. . . Gosh, maybe the SEC ain't quite as elite as they think they is. . .
ReplyDeleteHere in Spartan Nation, we have, um, issues with Coach $aban, and the way he left us back in the day. . .
... we have, um, issues with Coach $aban...
ReplyDeleteI imagine there are folks in Baton Rouge with the same issues. ;-)
It did my heart a WORLD o' good to see those Okies come away with the win last evening. I slept like a baby.
"I imagine there are folks in Baton Rouge with the same issues."
DeleteProbably so, but that's more a case of 'what goes around, comes around', if you know what I mean. . . Those that go after other teams' coaches shouldn't be surprised when somebody else comes after their coach. I actually had a conversation with an LSU guy after they hired $aban, and I told him it was just a matter of time before $t. Nick moved on from them, too. . . (for that matter, I won't be completely convinced that he's not going to Texas until they announce that they've hired someone else. . .)
Who were the biggest traitors? a) when Paul Deitzel left LSU for Army after declaring he would "never leave LSU, then returning to So Carolina when it was in the ACC?" but eventually retiring to live in Baton Rouge? b) The "Univ Fla Heisman Trophy grad "old ball coach" Steve Spurrier when he jumped ship at U of Fla for the pros and then returned to SoCarolina in the SEC? to coach against his old school?, or c) Nick Saban who abandoned MSU without a seconds thought, did the same to LSU for the $ and the pros, then returned to coach LSU's biggest rival Alabama? Discuss..
ReplyDeletePS: And yes, I LUUUUUUUVVVVVVED the Oklahoma win! Only because of Saban!
ReplyDeletePPS: My thinking goes: Deitzel was a West Point grad in the days when "the call" meant something, so his decision can be excused--especially as he did not return to the same conference to oppose LSU on an annual basis and showed his love of Baton Rouge by retiring there, Spurrier on one analytical level, could be thought the worst, as he came back to coach against both the former team he coached, but also against his alma mater as well. Spurrier was a native of the South, however, and reports are that the desires of his wife to relocate there played a large role in his decision--pressures that cannot be dismissed. However Saban, to my mind is the worst even though it can be argued that he, almost single-handed, brought LSU back to national promise and laid the foundation for its subsequent success. This is because, unlike Deitzel he had no "higher" call on his emotions as Army had on Deitzel when he (Saban) left for the pros, and he also had no permanent attachments to the South to limit his pick of coaching slots nation-wide when he chose to return to college coaching. There is an unwritten rule among coaches that one does not return to the same conference when one changes jobs if only out of deference to the opinions of the graduates of the institution at which one had previously coached unless family ties, etc, are involved. (i.e., when Eastern Illinois' highly successful Basketball coach Bill Healey left for Northern Illinois in the 50s all was forgiven because it was widely acknowledged that it was due to pressures from his wife, who hailed from the Chicago area near NIU.)
ReplyDeleteYou are SO much more cognizant of SEC ball than I ever wanna be, Virgil. You make some very interesting points and filled in a lot o' gaps in my knowledge. More useless information to clog up my already badly-in-need-o'-defragging brain, in other words. ;-)
DeleteMy favorite coach? Wait for it... Holtz. Heh.