Posted on 12/05/2008 12:54:10 PM PST by bamahead
College football has been conquered, in nearly every respect, by the Deep South.
The Southeastern Conference, a 76-year-old coalition of 12 universities in nine Southern states stretching from Louisiana to Florida, has won three national college football titles in five years, including the last two by blowout, and has an unrivaled 11-4 record in the Bowl Championship Series since 1999.
Its teams lead the nation in average attendance, have five of the 12 highest-paid coaches in college football and just signed two broadcast deals worth as much as $3 billion over the next 15 years. Tomorrow, Alabama and Florida, ranked No. 1 and No. 2 by the Associated Press, play for the conference title -- with the winner likely heading to the national title game.
The engine of this success is college football's unshakable primacy in Southern culture -- plus the recent shifts in population and wealth, the protection of politicians and some prescient financial moves by the conference that have reinforced it.
In recent years, the South has undergone rapid growth. Twenty-seven of the 50 fastest-growing metropolitan regions in the country in 2007 were in the South, while personal-income growth in the region outpaced the national average over the past decade. These changes have added muscle to the South's historic passion for college football. While they rank low in many measures like per-capita income and educational achievement, states like Alabama and Mississippi rank close to the top in the percentage of high-school students who play football. And among states that have more than 10 native sons playing in the National Football League, the top six producers by percentage of population are Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida and Georgia...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Should be a good game.
I can understand your feelings.
How do you think Kiffen will do there?
Now be nice. You are showing your having problems with this last season bringing up the “Bear”.
Saban could walk on water and feed Tuscaloosa with one or two fish and he still would not be able to approach the “Bear”.
Is ignorance still bliss where you live ... OU is most certainly in the Big 12 South.
I have relatives in Corbin, KY and they tell me football is more popular than basketball. Of course basketball is king in other parts of the state.
NCAA Men's Sports National Championships
Southern California: 73
UCLA: 70
Stanford: 58
Oklahoma State: 48
Arkansas: 41
Michigan: 30
Yale: 25
California: 23
Indiana: 23
Iowa: 21
UTEP: 21
Wisconsin: 21
Who do you have in mind
College sports is huge in the south because pro-sports were so late comming to the south (even baseball didn’t arive till the mid-60’s in Atlanta.)
I will say that most people from outside the south don’t get it, especially when they say some southern city is a “bad” sports town. What they usually mean is bad pro sports town.
I had a friend from NJ come down and see a Tenn. home game. He was a huge Giants fan and thought nothing could top seeing the Giants play at home. He said he was stunned. Not only was the crowd BIGGER at the Tenn. game, it was way more exciting.
Many people don’t realize that in little towns in the south like Clemson, Auburn, Athens, and Knoxville more people show up to see college football on Sat. then show up for ANY NFL game on Sunday. These are stadiums that hold 100,000+ and they are packed (in the good years and the bad.)
There are only an handful of college programs outside of the south (Michigan, Ohio St. are two) that can compete with they TYPICAL southern college football program as far as the number of fans that follow each team.
Heck, even South Carolina averages more fans than national power Notre Dame.
I’m a freeper, you think I’d read the LA Times?
Thank you for your opinion. I stated mine.
The standards could be worse. I know of one football player who couldn’t get into the University of Miami because of his criminal record.
He didn’t have one.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
So, if southerners had allowed the slaves to fight for the Confederacy, they would have won. *ducking and running*
If you don't mind me asking, are there any rumors about Bruce Pearl and Pat Summit being an "item", eaither now or earlier? Seemed awfully interesting that they both divorced their spouses within a couple of weeks. It struck me a very strange that he would get all painted up in TN orange for a women's home game and then she showed up in a TN cheerleader uniform at a men's game.
No. I’ve heard that Bruce has been seen at football games with a young lady lately, but not Pat.
Nice story. Are you saying that the reason the SEC is so good is because they can recruit yankee players? I don't think that will fly to far with SEC fans!
Consider yourself signed up.
You talking about the team that lowly Ohio State spanked 28-10? hmm.
I’m late to this thread, but you have to add Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma to the list of schools from the Confederacy that are in the big leagues.
Let me add this about attendance - A few average Tennessee teams have gotten higher bowl bids than would be expected simply because of the numbers of rabid Vol fans that will go to the game.
Also, several years ago the Knoxville area was assigned a new Area Code, 865, and 865 spells VOL in telephone letters.
Good morning, Rip Van Winkle. You must have been asleep since about the middle of the last century.
By the way - would you like a really cheap deal on some tickets to watch the Los Angles NFL team play?
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