Wednesday, November 28, 2007

closed minded college football fans

In the airport recently, I decided to pick up a USA TODAY and see what was going on in the world. Of course, the first section I went to was the sports section. After reading the majority of the articles, I found a comment from an SEC football fan stating "I say we discontinue football at all other schools but those in the SEC. There's no reason to continue competing. I suggest the rest quit. Take the budgeted money for football at those universities and send it to the SEC so they can recruit even bigger, faster, more talented athletes. And five some to all their people who keep all thsoe statistics on wins/losses versus other conferences, etc."
Personally, I know a few fans of the SEC, and their view is that their conference is better than all others. But the same goes for fans of the PAC-10, the Big 1o, the Big 12, the ACC, and all other conferences which hold the 119 Division 1 collegiate football teams.
What i don't understand is why someone would cut competition. Competition is a good thing. Day after day, people compete for jobs, athletes compete against other athletes, students compete against other students for better grades, and in election time, candidates compete against candidates, and along the way doing what they must in order to gain whatever legal advantage they can.
Over the past seven years(not including the destructive 2007 season), I can think of two SEC teams that have either won or split the national championship. 2003 LSU split with USC, as voters from USA Today and the Associated Press, the two main polls, voted different champions at the end of the season. In 2006, Florida rolled over Ohio State, leaving no doubt that Florida was the best team in college football at the end of the season.
When you look at the big picture, eliminating all other conferences would maked college football dull. Out of the last 5 Heisman trophy winners, not one of those winners have came from an SEC school, while 3 have played for Southern Cal. One cannot say that the SEC is the best conference, because without any of the other conferences, college football as we know it would be as dull as a tumbleweed, with schools like Arizona and Stanford and Arkansas defeating top ranked schools such as Oregon, USC, and LSU.