Easy.... SEC fans that absolutely hate Florida with a passion are slobbering all over Tebow and the Gators right now hoping they win for the conference. Big XII fans that hate OU hope they get absolutely drilled by Florida tonight and don't give a **** about Big XII versus the SEC. Conference pride is lame and overrated and pretty much only exists in the SEC. No one else cares. Get over yourself. Go Gators !
I am a HS coach near the TX/La border, and we have several coaches here originally from La. There are all LSU homers and are all SEC jacking bigtime right now. Even after Alabama got their asses handed to them. Every other coach that roots for Texas is pulling for the Gators tonight too. F OU. And F all of the LSU bandwagon jumping, SEC jacking, fair weather Gator fans.
There are some ACC fans who go in for the group thing. They don't seem to get as many chances to chant, though.
I thought the conference pride thing seemed fairly cool, so I gave it a try for a season. No mas. There's absolutely no pay off.
Not every fan shares that sentiment. Have a friend who is a UGA grad who's rooting with every fiber of her being for oklahoma. Wanted me to root for ou as well. I told her to think of the team she hated most, multiply that by about a million billion and that's how much I hated ou and wanted them to get slaughtered. She wrote back, "that's Florida for me."
Don't discount the Good Ole Boy syndrome and the fact that outside of Arkansas these teams have been together for quite some time..Actually AR fits right in w/ the stereotypes..
I live in TN and absolutely do not understand it. I guess it's a way to feel better about your own team if it sucks. Kind of like, "well we got our asses handed to us but let's root for the team that did it."
There are certain benefits to having your conference be successful. Let's look at two conferences, the SEC and the Big 10. Let's say I'm a UGA fan, and UGA and Penn State both finish with one loss, but only one will make the MNC game. Who do you think the pollsters are going to vote for? UGA - based off the SEC's success over the past few years, coupled with the Big 10's demise. Having the same record in the SEC is seen as much more difficult to accomplish than in the Big 10. And that reputation comes from success during bowl games. This year's Florida team was probably helped by past success from SEC teams. If I'm a fan of team that finishes 6th in the SEC, I get in a better bowl if two teams from my conference make BCS games. And I get more money from the conference, hence better facilities, better recruiting, etc. If Alabama loses to Clemson to open the season, they might not have gone to a BCS bowl. So the SEC loses out on $13 million and everyone in the conference moves down a bowl. So, I root for Alabama when they played Clemson. Same thing in basketball. For example, SEC basketball sucks right now. So not nearly as many teams make the Tourney every year. The SEC's reputation in hoops has dropped dramtically over the past 7-8 years. This hurts everyone in the conference. Because of that, I will be rooting for all SEC teams in the postseason. Does that make any sense to you?
Don Johnson's got it. SEC fans care the most about college football, follow it more closely, and thus know more about it, so they understand those things. Pushback against the media is part of it, too. Media types like flag football, and prefer it to the sort of football that wins championships. SEC success proves them wrong.
Eh, it depends ... for example, I rooted for every other Big 12 school in their bowl games, but I won't root for OU because they're our most hated team (I was a bit ambivalent about Tech this year, though). Still, having your conference perform well does do good for you in the long run. That being said, conference pride is overrated, and lots of people in the SEC have taken it way too far. However, as some of the earlier posters have indicated, there are large exceptions for hated rivals. Take the Georgia fan that will not be rooting for Florida tonight - I bet there are many others. I'm sure there were plenty of Auburn and Tennessee fans that loved seeing 'Bama get beat, too. Bottom line, conference "pride" can be good sometimes, but it's gotten way out of hand with the BCS and all the poll rankings/SoS analysis that has to go into it nowadays. Chalk up another argument for a playoff.
My Georgia Friend said the exact same thing. He went almost as far as saying he hates florida more than i hate Oklahoma.
Until they award crystal footballs for Best Conference, I will continue to pull for UT and whoever's playing Blow U.
I get how a stronger conference can subsequently make your school look stronger, but I'll never understand hearing the S-E-C chant by fans/players at the stadium right after a win. I think I remember LSU players and fans doing this after they won the title last year. So you care more about the conference than your own team? Really?? Seems like an L-S-U chant would be more appropriate. Ridiculous.
Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to tell you "How" when you don't even have the courtesy to answer the question that I asked you before hand? WTF is up with that?
My two diplomas say.... The University of Texas at Austin NOT The University of the Big XII. Because we are Texas, if we take care of business, we will be there.
From a Poke perspective: Last night's game was a lose-lose situation. If Oklahoma wins, I have to hear all GD year about how great these morons think they are and see 500,000 new t-shirts every day walking down the road on the gypsies that roam the area. If Florida wins, I have to hear all off-season from the SEC circle jerk that has somehow permeated into the national media. Also, the SEC gets to sign billion dollar TV contracts that allow their member institutions to have massive recruiting budgets, massive budgets to steal our assistant coaches, and their inbred fans can get into games for about 1/4 of the cost of going to a game in Stillwater. However, the satisfaction of hearing every single local media moron (including news anchors and weathermen) whine about every aspect of last night's competition and contemplate firing Stoops is truly priceless. I can simply turn off the ESPN or whoever is pimping the SEC at that time, while the Sooner labor force is something that I have to deal with and employ every day of my life. So I congratulate Florida.
Don Johnson - I understand everything you're saying. I root for everyone in the Big 12 outside of ATM and OU when they play. What I don't get is the S-E-C chant right after LSU wins the NC. When I was at the Rose Bowl for UT's win over USC, it never occurred to me to chant Big-12 (Big-one-two?) at that time. I realize that the history of the SEC is deeper than the Big 12, but even back in the SWC days it wouldn't have struck me as something to do or revel in.
