re: Arkansas and LSU are playing Texas in football soon, why not A&M?

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Can't imagine why

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Me neither, you would think all those pictures of fine upstanding gentlemen should thaw out their hearts.

Oh well, their loss. The SEC, easily the most power brand in college football with good reason, had no hesitation to let us join the conference.

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Lets leave it at that.

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Okie dokie, friend

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None taken--it's a cogent example

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Yeah, in reality college football is "better" when the big games are competitive no matter who is playing in them. Also it might be better for say a Michigan fan if Michigan is good, but it drives me nuts when I hear southerners say that kind of crap.

Honestly prior to our SEC move I didn't pay that much attention to college football as a whole because I knew enough to know that as it was my program wasn't going to be relevant anyway so why pretend to care? Since the SEC move I have paid attention to the sport and I see a setup very akin to Latin America- full of dictators, uneven advantages, longstanding biases, and an aversion to a capitalist way of doing things.

Honestly it does remind me a lot of politics, in particular all those poor people that refuse to support tax hikes for the rich because "they might be rich one day." Paying players, for example, could really even the playing field and make the sport more fun to watch but too many people are against it because they feel it might hurt the sport. Sure it might hurt a Bama or a Michigan that would get those players without paying, but for everyone else paying the talent would be a great way to even the playing field. But that isn't even considered because of the nature of the fans.

Maybe one day the sport will realize it's at its best when its most inclusive, like most things.

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Honestly this entire SEC move and the fallout for A&M (where random people have attacked us for just TRYING to improve our lot in life) makes me feel real sympathy for the scorn heaped on top of Boise St during the BCS Era for trying to crash the party. Not only is college football a caste system, but it seems most fans LIKE it that way even though it means 100 out of the 120ish teams never have a chance to compete. If everyone would support the program they are closest too, or they actually graduated from, instead of the programs with the most success the entire sport will be better.

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I don't think anyone has scorn for A&M for not trying to improve their lot in life. My scorn is reserved for anyone on either side who tries to create a false mythology about why A&M left.

I also think you are way overstating people's reasons to be nostalgic about Michigan or Nebraska or for a while there Notre Dame.

There is no nostalgia for teams like Stanford or A&M because they don't have a particularly interesting past. They weren't hated because they weren't dominate in any recent history.

I want the real USC to be just dominate to matter when my team beats them.

That's completely and totally different from me not wanting my team to become good or dominate. But when my teams won a big game, I would rather they play Alabama or Notre Dame or USC because those schools simply have more storied histories and are thus more interesting. If A&M wins a few conference titles, that story will change.

For a Stanford grad, you have a hard time differentiating between the action verb dominate and the adjective dominant.

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For a Stanford grad

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Nice punchline

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I don't think anyone has scorn for A&M for not trying to improve their lot in life.

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You must have missed the dozen or more national articles in 2011 that basically called us idiots for wanting to move to the SEC just to live at the bottom of the SEC West. Or called the SEC idiots for inviting us to do it.

I would understand if you did, no one says that anymore when the SEC Network money is so obvious to tangibly account for.

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My scorn is reserved for anyone on either side who tries to create a false mythology about why A&M left.

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I don't understand why someone would do that. We all know that without the LHN Texas A&M never leaves. It is to A&M realignment what slavery is to the Civil War.

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I also think you are way overstating people's reasons to be nostalgic about Michigan or Nebraska or for a while there Notre Dame.

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I wish I was, but when you compare the media exposure programs like Michigan, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Texas, etc. get during down cycles compared to the programs that are actually doing well in their place it is clear that "the people" just want to hear about the same programs win or lose.

It was very depressing for me last year that the national media had higher expectations for Texas ("Charlie Strong will be fired after this season") than the leaders of the program had for itself. When you have the media backing you it is hard to lose long term.

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There is no nostalgia for teams like Stanford or A&M because they don't have a particularly interesting past. They weren't hated because they weren't dominate in any recent history.

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Sure, but what about a program like Miami? They were VERY good, downright legendary for a while, but once they fell off they were an afterthought. Miami fans flew banners to get the national media to grab onto the idea that Al Golden should have been fired, while the national media were more than willing to write off Charlie or get Brady Hoke fired for free.

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But when my teams won a big game, I would rather they play Alabama or Notre Dame or USC because those schools simply have more storied histories and are thus more interesting.

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I would rather beat LSU than Notre Dame, because we compete in recruiting with LSU every year. Beating Notre Dame is at best a gee wiz talking point that you bring up and people laugh off unless it's part of the story about how your program won a national title that year. College football fans overrate history to extreme degrees, as if those teams of the past magically make the modern players play better.

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If A&M wins a few conference titles, that story will change.

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No it won't. Even if we had the success Nick Saban has had at Bama there is nothing that can happen in my lifetime that would would allow us to catch up on the total national title count- or even just the national prestige- programs like Bama and Notre Dame have. There is nothing measured in "few" that can change the perceptions of who is or who is not a college football blueblood. I am cool with that.

What I wouldn't mind is a place in the national conversation like Texas or Michigan has though, as they considered blue bloods despite winning only one national title the last 40 years. I think they prove more than anything the biggest advantage a program can have is a strong journalism department that cranks out graduates that get placed across the industry.

I would argue last year Northwestern got WAY more coverage than the quality of their program deserved (WE would have killed them) and Syracuse got a Power 5 ACC invite that their football program sure as frick didn't earn.

The problem with Syracuse and Northwestern is they have less to work with.