A Family Affair

My Uncle Jim and I email a lot during the college football season. He's an Arkanas/SEC fan, and of course I'm a Texas fan, so we have plenty to jabber about and we do our best to give each other grief when the others team struggles. Needless to say, there was plenty of grief going around this season. Anyway, in light of last night's yawner of a 'championship' game, I'm just gonna post a couple of the emails we sent to each other yesterday. Besides thoughts about the BCS game, our reactions to other bowls, as well as coaching situations for the Hogs and Horns are included. There will be little to no editing, so you can see just how off we are in our pre-game thoughts. I'll put Jim's messages in italics, to try and keep things straight. Here we go:

Jim: I’ve been out of pocket until today and wanted to send you some emails about some of the games. Relative to the Hogs…I told Payton the only thing more depressing watching that game would have been watching knowing Houston Nutt was still our coach! I have come to the realization the staff Nutt (including him) had are just a bunch of no good liars. They talked for four weeks about how they were going to run a different offense and they would really “open” it up. It was the same crap as Nutt would have called. If Reggie Herring had any opportunities to be a head coach they went out the window because of that game. Anyway, we have a new coach, staff and it will be three years before we get past what Nutt created here. Boy I get riled up just reviewing even after this amount of time. It is simply a disservice to the kids, they are the ones that suffer and have to take it. Anyway…You have to love what West Virginia did to OU. How about Michigan beating Florida? That was a surprise, I think Michigan was like Georgia this year, slow out of the gate, but vastly improved. Of course everyone seems to think this Florida team was strong, if you look at what they lost last year they are definitely not and if they didn’t have Tebow they would have been a below par team.
I like LSU tonight, but OSU has lots of motivation and with that kind of emotion any given… so we’ll see. Let me know if Mack made any changes. I have to go look and see who Petrino has hired. He has hired a couple of guys that can give us a national presence recruiting wise so he’s already so far ahead of Nut there it’s not funny.

Me: Glad to hear from you, I was worried you were taking the hogs performace a bit too hard and may have in fact, gone off the deep end.
As far as 0u- umm, yeah I was happy, probably a bit too happy, but any time they lose, I'm smiling. I know I've made it clear that I don't really care about the Big XII as a whole, but my buddy Garrett, a big Oklahoma fan, brought up the point that if they had won, the b12 would be looking pretty decent at this point. UT and Mizzou won semi-big bowls, and KU won a major bcs bowl, and had the sooners won, that gives the b12 four pretty nice looking wins against good competition.
I was shocked to hear about the michigan-UF game. I don't know if UF forgot to bring their SEC speed or what, but i didn't think michigan would be able to even keep it close. (I do agree though that the gators aren't as good as last year's team, and w/o TT, they'd be pretty mediocre.)
I'm pretty interested to see tonight's game. I'm going for lsu, but I wouldn't be surprised if the buckeyes give them all they can handle. LSU's defense isn't playing as well as they did early in the year, their offense is overall pretty vanilla, and OSU has been sitting around for two months (literally) hearing how they're slow, and undeserving of playing for the championship.
Also, how awful were the bcs matchups this year? I mean really, way to go Rose Bowl, for taking Illinois over UGA or Mizzou. Way to put tradition over competition. I know the Sugar didn't really have a choice in taking Hawaii, since they were the only undefeated team left, but wow, that was an overmatched team if i've ever seen one. The Fiesta wasn't really anyone's fault in particular, they had two legit conference champs, and before the game, it looked to be one of the most evenly matched games. I thought it'd be pretty exciting, and well played, and even though I liked the outcome, it was the third straight not-close bcs game in two days. Turns out the Orange Bowl, which I figured wouldn't be close, was the most competitive and exciting out of the four so far. Go figure.
The Horns got a new DC last week, which will be a welcome addition after this years debacle. He's a young dude from Auburn, Will Muschamp i believe, and from what I've read, he's for real, so hopefully it'll be a welcome addition to the defense. No word yet on anything on the offensive side.

Jim: A couple of things to think about. Who did LSU lose to in their last game and you know how pitiful was that team? Could it be the SEC is not as strong this year as I have always boasted? Possibly. Watch out, here comes OSU with the motivation…
Secondly, can you think of a better case for a playoff system? Do fans every year beg for that after seeing the atrocity of the BCS bowl system? Yet another year of mismatched bowl games.
Muschamp is the real deal, he is an excellent pick for Mack for DC. After the ACC kept turning down the Hogs it was rumored we were looking at him for head coach. Also did you notice how many points Tulsa put up last night? He would be great for TU as OC.

Me: Ha, yeah i guess you could use the logic that if Ar-Kansas (as les miles likes to say) beats lsu in baton rouge, and mizzou puts a hurtin on the hogs in the bowl game, then UM could make the case that they should get NC consideration. Of course that theory gets shot out the window when you consider that they lost twice to a team that got beat soundly in their bowl game to a team who lost to Pittsburg at home with a trip to the National Tile game on the line. So yeah-playoff people-playoff. As far as the SEC maaaayyyybe not being quite as tough as previously thought-yeah i'd say so. Top to bottom it's still the deepest and most competitive conference without a doubt, but I'm not sure it's as top-heavy as a lot of people give it credit for (Of course after i say that, watch them go out and win by 30 tonight)
Something else to think about that i heard on the radio a few weeks ago. College football, besides being the only sport without a playoff, is the only college sport whos champion ISN'T AWARDED BY THE NCAA!! Think about it-all these champions since the advent of the bcs have been the bcs champions. You've heard "The 2007 NCAA men's basketball champion, Florida Gators," but you've NEVER heard anyone say, "The 2007 NCAA football champion, Florida Gators." There's something inherently wrong with a sport whose champion is not only partly determined by a computer, but the winner isn't even awarded as such by the very organization it plays for. That'd be like the Super Bowl winner being crowned as the "Football Committee of Competitive Competition Champion." Doesn't have the same ring as NFL Champ, does it? That's my rant for the day, I guess.
As far as Muschamp, it's good to hear from an sec guy that he's for real, and yes, i saw the tulsa score, and would be thrilled if the horns get him. I haven't heard anything since that first email i sent you, so i'm afraid it may be just a pipe dream, but one can dream, can't he?

Well that'll do it for now, I guess the Buckeyes didn't use the long layoff to motivate themselves properly quite like i thought they would. As far as the SEC maybe not being as great as everyone gives them credit for, well, I don't think they're untouchable, but they are the only conference to have a team in at least two BCS championship games, and be undefeated (4-0, with the Big XII at 2-3, the Big East at 1-2 when Miami and VaTech were still there, the ACC at 1-2, Big 10 at 1-2, Pac 10 at 1-1). So I guess you could say, when push comes to shove, the SEC is without a doubt the deepest, and most clutch conference in the nation by a mile.

And with that, another college football season comes to a close, can't wait for 0h-eight.
-Twig