The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
Talk to me about the PAC-10
Lewisham
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey guys,
So I'm off to UC Santa Cruz in Autumn, and I'd like to get into the American sports a little bit more past NFL. I'm looking forward to seeing the San Jose Sharks and catching a couple Giants games, but I'm still needing to know more about college football.
College football seems more exciting than the NFL, with all the big rivalries and the marching bands and all that. So I need to know more about the PAC 10.
Where do I start learning? I'm more interested in the Californian teams. My CA girlfriend, who comes from a USC family says:
Cal - "Dicks."
Stanford - "Dicks."
UCLA - "Biggest dicks in the whole of the country."
I think we can assume she is biased
Tell me about the teams! I am not such a fan of USC since they rejected me, but I do get a feeling if I walk into the gf's mothers house and scream "WOOOOOOOO BRUINS!" there is going to be some issues
So I'm off to UC Santa Cruz in Autumn, and I'd like to get into the American sports a little bit more past NFL. I'm looking forward to seeing the San Jose Sharks and catching a couple Giants games, but I'm still needing to know more about college football.
College football seems more exciting than the NFL, with all the big rivalries and the marching bands and all that. So I need to know more about the PAC 10.
Where do I start learning? I'm more interested in the Californian teams. My CA girlfriend, who comes from a USC family says:
Cal - "Dicks."
Stanford - "Dicks."
UCLA - "Biggest dicks in the whole of the country."
I think we can assume she is biased
Tell me about the teams! I am not such a fan of USC since they rejected me, but I do get a feeling if I walk into the gf's mothers house and scream "WOOOOOOOO BRUINS!" there is going to be some issues
Lewisham on
0
Posts
As a California college student not 30 minutes from UC Santa Cruz, I agree completely with your g/f.
I am a fan of Michigan, so I'm somewhat biased because you assholes keep beating us in the Rose Bowl. (by you assholes, I mean PAC 10 schools, usually USC)
But I'm also a college football nut, so here's my brief summary:
Each school in the PAC 10 is paired with basically a natural rival, they are:
Washington and Washington State
Oregon and Oregon State
Arizona and Arizona State
California and Stanford
UCLA and USC
As for the schools/teams themselves:
USC is the best of the bunch in football by a fairly wide margin. Pete Carroll is the coach, and he is frequently derided as "sneaky Pete." USC and Carroll have a certain reputation as tolerating agents on campus and one of their recent stars, Reggie Bush who won the Heisman Trophy, is accused of accepting a large payment from agents before leaving school. Additionally USC has the single most annoying and repetitive band on Earth. Even more annoying than Ohio State's or Notre Dame's (remember, Michigan fan, so this is a strong statement). There is one acceptable reason to root for them: you go there. Otherwise, you're a bandwagon jumper, and that's no good. If you do decide to root for them (I guess helping getting laid might be reasonable) you must also hate Notre Dame, as they are actually USC's biggest rival.
UCLA has one major thing going for it: awesome uniforms. Something about powder blue on a football player just looks excellent. UCLA has been a major power previously, but USC has always overshadowed them. Recently, they have been decidedly mediocre. 6-6 to 9-3. Two seasons ago they upset USC to take away a shot at the mythical national title. UCLA fans got frustrated after this recent season because after that win they expected more, and pressured the university to fire the coach. Unfortunately, they hired Rick Neuheisel who has a bad habit of falling victim to NCAA investigations and leave destruction in his wake after temporary success. So pick UCLA and you're reasonably likely to have a few seasons of rooting for a good team, and then have a crushing realization that the program was dirty. Which would suck. Plus side, you get to be an annoying elitist because UCLA is such a badass public institution which you can lord over USC, preferably with the phrase "University of Spoiled Children."
California traditionally sucks, but Jeff Tedford has made them a damn good program. They have not yet quite gotten over the top and put a full season together. They and Stanford have a fun rivalry nicknamed the "Big Game." That rivalry featured one of the most famous plays in NCAA history, the "Stanford Band Play." Search that on YouTube, it's pretty awesome. Stanford still insists it shouldn't have counted, which is probably accurate. Cal is increasingly rivals with USC as they are frequently the top two teams in the conference. Problem with Cal is you have hippies in trees preventing the construction of better facilities (don't ask, search if you must) so not sure how high the limits of the program is and how long Tedford will stick around. Plus side, you get to be an annoying elitist because Cal is such a badass public institution which you can lord over USC, preferably with the phrase "University of Spoiled Children."
Stanford also traditionally sucks, and they still suck. They have a new coach, Jim Harbaugh (Michigan guy! Wooo!). He got them to beat USC in a huge upset last year, so perhaps they will improve. They were getting better by the end of last year, but it is Stanford, and traditionally it's harder to build a truly excellent program at an elite private institution. Notre Dame football (which is a special case, and not entirely true anymore) and Duke basketball are the only prominent examples I can think of. So Stanford would be rooting for lovable underdogs and disliking those losers at Berkeley.
The rest of the PAC 10 is hit and miss, with most of the teams frequently sucking but sometimes being very very good. Washington was dominant in the early 90s, and pretty good through Neuheisel's reign, but his last few years largely destroyed the program. Tyrone Willingham is trying to rebuild it, and not doing great though they have a promising young quarterback. Washington State is inexplicably good once every few years, though not on any consistent basis. Examples would include 1997 when they gave the national champions (fuck Nebraska) probably their closest game in the Rose Bowl. Oregon has hideous uniforms, is frequently good, and a really tremendous crowd and a loud stadium. They were a potential national title contender until their quarterback's knee exploded last season, and it was very sad because besides the Nike sponsored horrible uniforms, I like them. Oregon State is similar to Washington State, frankly. Tend to be a little bit better recently, making a bowl game, but only rarely actually being a good team. Arizona is basically the definition of mediocre. I don't have much of anything to say about them, besides they have a nasty habit of upsetting a top ten team in November, thus frustrating their fan base. Arizona State is coached by a mercenary who wins everywhere he goes. Don't expect him to stick around terribly long, but until he leaves, they should be pretty solid. Word of warning: he coached at Miami (FL) so discipline/NCAA problems are possible.
I suggest you root for UC Santa Cruz in whatever lower division they play in. In D1, root for Michigan! :P We have an awesome fight song, awesome tradition, and a big ass stadium that sucks for actually being loud cause it's a giant bowl. Woooo!
Uh, if you want to root for a team in California, Cal seems the most likable without being intentionally inflicting pain upon yourself (Stanford) to me, without pissing off the girlfriend's family too much. If you root for USC, I will be sad, because they're annoying.
So ends my treatise, in summary, go Big Ten, screw the Pac 10 in the Rose Bowl.
Oh, as for biggest dicks in the whole country, it's not UCLA, and the USC/UCLA rivalry sucks compared to some of the really good ones and your girlfriend sucks at hatred. Consult Michigan/Ohio State fans or Alabama/Auburn fans for some good old fashioned hating. (Michigan's legendary announcer Bob Ufer on the crowd at Ohio Stadium: "10,000 students and 90,000 truck drivers")
In fact, if you want the truly greatest football experience America can offer, come down to Alabama for the Iron Bowl (Alabama vs Auburn), the best rivalry in college football. That's right, fuck off enlightenedbum.
I'm going to look into Cal, after USC strung me along for a while, then saw the need to reject me. The taste... so sour...
Rooting for the team that's destined to win without attending there... feels so... dirty...
Now that's the sort of rivalry I'm talking about. Never get people telling others to fuck off in H/A over the NFL
Nobody likes watching Oregon football because of those migraine-inducing uniforms.
UCLA is a good choice, and they're going to be more competitive in the coming years. Just be prepared to endure a lot of "Couldn't get into USC?" jokes from people who pretend they have degrees from there. Also from your girlfriend's family.
In reality, you're not going to have any strong ties to any teams, so I'd say pick a saturday in October, flip between the games that are on and see if any team grabs your attention. These days, with TV and the interwebs, you can follow just about any team from anywhere, so having a local one really only helps for attending games/tailgating.
Oh, and if it happens to be on the second weekend in October, watch the Oklahoma/Texas game. That one, Alabama/Auburn, Ohio State/Michigan, and Army/Navy are the best of what college football have to offer.
I'm kidding, but seriously, don't worry too much about rivalries and having to know them. You'll just learn them via news/osmosis/watching on TV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIykYoM260
What you're seeing here is one of the greatest teams in college football, year in and out, playing the Oregon Ducks. Leading by 4 with just around a minute left, Oregon decides to kick an on-side kick to get the ball back. The rules are the ball must go 10 yards before the kicking team can recover it or that a receiving team player touches the ball before it goes 10 yards before anyone else can touch it.
Clearly the ball is touched by an Oregon player before it goes 10 years (indicated by the yellow line.) Not only that, but it is clear that the ball rolls through the pile and Oklahoma's Allen Patrick recovers it.
The Pac-10 is over rated year in and year out. They have one team and that is USC. They're a bunch of cocks.
I'm not bitter at all.
Hey, I mentioned you guys. It's #2, though there might be slightly more actual hate between those two schools. Michigan/Ohio State matters more, and if the Big Ten would stop sucking (damn Buckeyes making us look awful, Michigan can at least beat SEC teams, God) it would even more so. Maybe someday Saban will resurrect Alabama (and promptly leave for someone paying more).
Oh, the other thing you should know about college football rooting is that if you are not a fan of the SEC, you should hate them because they're elitists who think all real football is played down south. They are annoying. ;-)
I agree with the thing about the SEC. Elitist dickwads.
I must disagree with the rivalry, though.
If you want to see passionate hatreds of not only two schools, but of two states come watch the Oklahoma v Texas game. Half the stadium is a sea of Crimson and Creme. The other a puddle of Burnt Orange whatever their other color is.
I think it's hilarious that Texas' chant is, "TEXAS! FIGHT!" Man. At the Cotton Bowl the Texas fans fuel us.
"TEXAS!"
"SUCKS!"
Cal sucks!
(but yeah, Stanford's been pretty bad the last couple years... oh well, we have a good basketball & baseball team)