re: What's the deal with Southerners and college sports?

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The South, as a whole, is usually the butt of all kinds of jokes. College football is pretty much the only way we can fight back.

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Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Back in the early 1900s the South had, within living memory, fought a Civil War against the rest of the country and lost. We were dirt poor compared to everywhere else in the States. Like today we were the butt of everyone's jokes.

When we discovered that our football teams could whip their football teams it gave the South something to rally behind. It was a way to give a hearty "frick y'all" to the rest of the country.

Considering the deck was stacked against us in national rankings (to win a natty back in the day a Southern team had to go undefeated and hope that every Northern school had a couple of losses) that the South still managed to rack up national titles was a tremendous source of pride. Its carried on to this day.