You're Doing it Wrong: A Guide to College Football for SEC Fans
by Avap on Oct 7, 2011 2:35 PM PDT
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PrintHello avid SEC fan,
I don’t know how you got to this website. Perhaps you came to troll, perhaps you just got lost on that long and lonesome road known as the information super-highway (ie. you thought this was a porn site). But how fortuitous it is that you have stumbled upon this blog, and more importantly perhaps, this article. I am here to tell you something you may not know.
You and all people who identify as "SEC fans" are doing it wrong.
I know you might be saying to yourself, "screw this guy and his Yankee elitist garbage, ROLL TIDE!" Not so my confused friend, though I appreciate your misplaced enthusiasm. For you see, I spent my formative years in the south. I always tell people I’m half Scandinavian and half Texan when they ask about my ancestry, which is to say I have deep family ties in that most southern of southern states. I identify as a southerner, and it is out of true concern that I want to teach you what it means to be a fan of college football.
I am talking to SEC fans, not fans of every SEC team. What’s the difference you ask? The difference is the obsession with rooting for an entire conference. Do you root for an SEC team in their bowl game after they whipped your ass? Did you pull for Auburn, even though they shattered your BCS hopes? Are you from the University of Kentucky, and your team is so shitty that you have to talk about how awesome LSU is? Then let me offer a piece of advice. Not only do you sound like a tool, but you are missing out on one of the most beautiful things in college sports: the hatred of rivals.
My college game day attire. via www.theforce.net
Does a Bears fan cheer for the Packers when they get to the Super Bowl? Hell no. How many Red Sox fans wept when the Yankees lost? Not one. Why? Because a true fan’s experience is defined by equal parts love and hate. I cheer for the Ducks, and I have since I was a boy. This means that my football experience is a beautiful tapestry of love for my team and hatred for others.
Like this, but with rage and suffering. via tapestries.125west.com
By others, I mean by any team in my conference who has wronged us over the years. Did you ever stop us from going to the Rose Bowl? Then go fuck yourself, I hope you never win another game. Are you a regional rival? I hope locusts descend on your campus and the angel of death comes for your coach’s firstborn. Are you a former powerhouse team in my conference who beat us for years? Your fall from grace will taste better than the sweetest honey.
You have no idea how much I have enjoyed this. via lightsleepers.net
My point is this: a true college football fan develops a sense of hate for the other teams in their conference. It is natural. After all, these are the asshats who have screwed with your bowl schedule year in and year out. Do you think any UW fans or Cal fans jumped on the Oregon bandwagon last year? Hell no, because they are REAL FANS. I respect them for that, even if I dislike their teams.
You, on the other hand, want to have it all. Sure, during the year you may gripe about some conference team or another. But come bowl season you are always flapping your trap about how awesome these teams are and how much you want them to win. Do you know who I root for in USC bowl games? THE OTHER TEAM! It is beyond obnoxious to hear some UGA alum talk shit when ‘Bama smashes some poor team in the postseason. You are worse than a Miami Heat bandwagoner. You are a plague on the landscape of sport.
In summation, I disapprove. via www.banditobooks.com
But there is a simple cure, my dearest SEC friend. Stop blindly rooting for your whole conference. Pick a team, and cheer only for that team. Over time, your fandom will be enriched by a wonderful web of hate for the other teams in your conference. You may fall from time to time, but you can take solace in the fact that those you despise will fall as well. Come bowl season, their loses will sustain you. Until then, everyone else will continue to view you as the most obnoxious fans in sporting history.
What I cheer for during every SEC game. via upload.wikimedia.org
Sincerely,
Avap
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation or the Addicted To Quack Moderators. FanPost opinions are valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable Oregon fans.
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Fuck washington
Fuck Arizona, Fuck USC, Fuck Cal, Fuck Oregon St. Everybody else… meh.
This is the epitome of why I don't root for conference teams. Ever.
"the putz from that UO blog, Matt Daddy" - Steve Tannen
The Daily Faberian
The SEC fan phenomena
still blows my mind. I was in Lexington KY visiting family for the season opener. You’d figure I was in Baton Rouge from some of the crap I had to listen to.
"All noble things are as difficult as they are rare."
- Baruch Spinoza
Defense....
DEEEEEEFFFEEEEENNNSSEEEE!!!!!!!!
"All noble things are as difficult as they are rare."
- Baruch Spinoza
We had an LSU blogger on our podcast to start the season...
And this very topic came up. And it seems like this is very much an anti-northern thing.
Which is total horseshit. The Civil War was 150 years ago. Get over it.
--AddictedToQuack, SBNation's Oregon Ducks blog
As a long time Virginia resident
and a Ducks fan, anyone who latches onto the whole north/south hate thing is a retard. That one cuts both ways though.
I don’t doubt this at all though, and it embarrasses me to no end. Never mind Oregon wasn’t involved in the “War of Northern Aggression.”
My hope to pass on is this. Don’t hate the south, hate the SEC. We’re not all bad.
"All noble things are as difficult as they are rare."
- Baruch Spinoza
Michigan fan here,
and I’ll co-sign 100%. I was not shedding any tears when Ohio State was getting curbstomped in BCS Championship Games, and I’m not about to pull for the likes of Michigan State or any other conference member when they’re playing against the SEC. I want them to lose every single game.
I don't really agree.
I want Pac-12 teams to do well outside the conference. It makes the conference stronger, and makes every team look better.
This is not to say I jump up and down with excitement if washington beats Nebraska. I’m not “happy” per se, but I know that Oregon beating, or even losing to, a strong conference team means more than beating a team that lost to, say, Sacramento State.
If the rest of the conference was as bad as you apparently want them to be, we’d end up like fBSU, whining about nobody respecting our 12-0 record against a bunch of 3-9 teams.
"You could almost imagine Ducks coach Chip Kelly walking to midfield among the bloodied Bruins and shouting in his best gladiator voice, 'Are you not entertained?'" - Ted Miller
by CougarDuck on Oct 10, 2011 9:30 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs
I understand this point of view, and I used to share it, but I don't anymore.
We’re in the AQ club already, that isn’t changing anytime soon, and the fact is we have to win the conference to even be considered for the BCS NCG. Beyond that it’s entirely out of our hands and depends on what happens in the other conferences. And if we win the conference and don’t make the NCG, we go to the Rose Bowl. It’s a perfectly good runner-up prize.
The conference looking better after that only changes which Who Fucking Cares Bowl we might get invited to.
I suppose you could make the argument that recruiting is helped by strong conference perception, but I don’t think USC’s loldynasty ever landed us a single recruit.
Now with mustache guarantee!
by HoodRiverDuck on Oct 10, 2011 1:26 PM PDT up reply actions
Yes and no for me
On the one hand, I completely agree that rooting for the conference and chanting S-E-C is just about the most pathetic and insecure thing in sports, I can’t generate HATE for the majority of the teams in the Pac12. I would rather see UW lose to Nebraska then worry about how the conference is perceived to be, but I don’t feel the same way about WSU or Utah or whoever, Or even USC. To me, these teams are not true rivals, just conference teams we have to go through to get to the Rose Bowl.
UGA fans who root for Florida or Auburn in their bowl game are stupid because those are actual rivals. Now, if you’re a Kentucky fan and you have no opinion either way about the teams ina given game, I don’t care if you want to root for Mississippi St instead of Michigan St as long as you don’t puff your chest out and chant “S-E-C! S-E-C!” or brag about ESS EEE CEE SPEED. Sir, you are Kentucky, and you lost by 45 points to the good SEC teams.
Now from time to time, certain teams will shift around on my personal list of unfavored university status with the coaches they hire like Neuweasel or Stoops, or with the fans behavior (like with the bottle throwing incident at Zona a few years ago). I’m sure there are more than a few fans of other schools that have decided they hate Oregon for our fans booing injuries in the last two years, or they believe that Chip is some classless asshole who runs up the score (I’ll admit that I’m biased, but I don’t see that).
I know I’m kind of rambling here, but my point is that I don’t hate Arizona. I just dislike Stoops, and my feelings for Arizona or UCLA will most likely trend back to neutral with their next coach. in 2020, maybe I’ll watch a bowl game between Arizona and Boston College and with no reason to care about either team, I’d probably root for Arizona unless there’s some amazing human interest story about a BC linebacker who ran into a burning orphanage to save six children and then cured herpes while overcoming Parkinson’s. But, assuming that BC does not have an orphan-saving, herpes-curing linebacker with Parkinson’s disease in the year 2020, there is absolutely no effing way that I would talk shit about how awesome the Pac-12 is to everyone I meet because the Arizona Wildcats can beat Boston College in the Sun Bowl.
"I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out."-Bill Hicks
by Linoleum Knife on Oct 10, 2011 1:41 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Or maybe 2012.
"Fuck you UW. How many days since you last beat us?" -skywaker9
by QuackQuackAttack on Oct 11, 2011 4:22 PM PDT up reply actions
I agree with Cougarduck on this one.
I root for Pac teams first when it comes to ooc or bowl games. It is with a heavy heart that I root for Washington when they play ooc or bowl games, but I also find that drinking makes that easier. I feel when the Pac wins it makes Oregon look better. I will have to admit that Utah was my (other favorite team) and I did root for them over the Pac teams that they have beaten the last few years in bowl games. I will never beat my chest and shout PAC! like some SEC fans do though, because it is really, really lame and says nothing about being a college football fan. In fact, it is the dumbest thing I have ever seen in sports.
Come along now, Cabot!
I don't root for the fuskies or bavers to win
I root for them to lose by less than their opponent. 8-]
¡Me gustan las tortugas!
And Cliff Harris was like, "VRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
by DuckUntilDeath on Oct 11, 2011 5:25 PM PDT up reply actions
i completely disagree
and i know i’m late to the party, but all pac12 fans should adopt the sec policy. except for supporting washington. they can go fuck themselves.
www.searchingforakilismith.com
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