Thoughts on College Football, Conference Rivalries....

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a college football junkie. To me, it's the greatest sport in the world hands down. After watching a full Saturday slate of college football, NFL Sundays are a huge letdown. The NFL may be football played at a higher level, but it cannot come close to college football's tradition, pagaentry, spectacle, passion & intensity. College football has rivalries that span over 100 years, involve in state rivals, entire regions of the country, conferences and neighboring states. Families are raised on a particular team and it is passed down from generation to generation. NFL stadiums are antiseptic corportate boxes that average around 60,000. College football is played in historic stadiums, some that seat 100,000 rabid fans and up.

Speaking of conference rivalries, as someone that was born & raised in the Northeast and spent most of my adult life on the West Coast, I lean towards the Big East and PAC 10. Both of which get overshadowed by the other conferences. How does this relate to this week's AP poll? How the heck does West Virginia drop a spot after dominating Maryland on Saturday? How does Pitt, after losing on the road by a field goal at current #13 Utah (one of college football's most intimidating home fields) drop from #15 out of the Poll completely in week 1? Bias against the Big East, that's how. Year after year, the Big East gets bashed. You'd think that after suriving the raid by the ACC earlier this decade and seeing WVU beat the almighty SEC's Georgia in the 2005 Sugar Bowl in Atlanta and beating down highly touted Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, people would give the conference a break. Not to mention, Louisville's '06 Orange Bowl win over the ACC's Wake Forest. These BCS bowl wins (compared to the ACC's pathetic BCS bowl record) ought too be enough to give the Big East the benefit of the doubt when they have a down year.

I welcome your comments.....