The SEC: Why you should root for each team
Hello, Mr New SEC fan.
You’re looking for a team to root for, and here at the SEC Football Blog we’d like to give a guide.
For the record, all of our fanbases get loaded and cook good food before a game on a Saturday. Our fans are obnoxious and quasi-respectful. Our stadiums are monstrous theaters, and our players are generally pretty great. Know this: The school you root for will probably get into trouble with the NCAA – college football’s governing body – at some point, and you’ll try and deny that your guys pay players. It’s not true. They do. Oh, and don’t talk to people about politics, and y’all will be fine.
Enjoy your Saturdays in the Fall.
If you’re consistently winner/you’re a bandwagon fan: Alabama Bandwagon fans love winners, and Alabama is a team that seem to win all the damned time. Nick Saban has produced a machine like nothing else. It’s loaded with people you’ll have on your fantasy football teams in years to come (apart from quarterbacks), and they pretty fun to watch. They enter the stadium with AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’, which is generally how opposition’s feel when they have the 33rd NFL team coming at them. Also, you won’t just be able to hate Auburn, but you’ll be able to be nasty about Clemson and Ohio State, too, because they are your fellow National Powers. Prepare for everyone else in college football to absolutely despise your team. Also, I hope you enjoy wearing your Dodgers and Patriots gear, too.
If you love a small comeback story: Arkansas. Arkansas has been crap for the past few years, but the Razorbacks are making a comeback, thanks to Sam Pittman. If you come in, it’s still a relatively low bar. The whole “Whooooo Piiiiiig” will seem really ***ing weird, but the more you go to SEC games, it’ll seem normal to do it.
If you love bats**t craziness: Auburn For years, Auburn had a strange knack of winning batshit crazy games in nutty circumstances (see any game versus LSU, plus recent wins against Alabama). Jordan-Hare, Auburn’s home on Saturdays is a weird and wonderful place, and the local mascot even flew into a Skybox window. We aren’t joking. Auburn hates Alabama, by the way. And also, if Auburn win, you get to roll (clean) toilet paper and throw it on some trees – one of the cooler traditions in college football. Warning: Female members of the fanbase have been known to get caught in hedges.
If you love trashy fans but good football: Florida Honestly, I can’t think of any team that remotely likes Florida apart from Florida fans. UF fans are trashy, wearing jean shorts and mullets, and doing a stupid chomp signal (YOU KNOW: “GATOR BAIT!”) that is a mocked every time they lose, and the fact that they talk an awful to crap. The good side is that the unis are cool, and they have a lot of ultra-talented folks, and their student fanbase is not uneasy on the eye. Oh, and the stadium – The Swamp – is plenty loud. Also, if you’ve got the money, you get to go to a great game against Georgia called the “World’s Loudest Outdoor Cocktail Party”, where one side of the stadium is in Georgia red, the other side is Florida blue. It’s quite the sight. Oh, and the team’s pretty damned good, too.
If you love being close to Sportsgasms but cut off every damned time: Georgia The Bulldogs have an untold amount of talent, but manage somehow manages to choke every single year when it comes to winning a National Championship (haven’t won since 1980). Still, Sanford’s one of the prettiest stadiums in college football. The red and black unis are cool, and then come out to The Who’s “Baba O’ Riley”, which should be a major plus if you have any taste in music. The bad bit: Georgia Bulldogs fans bark at you like a dog.
If you love being Little Brother: Kentucky This team from Lexington is a basketball school. So when the Kentucky Football Team’s winning, you get to talk about how important Mark Stoops and his team is to you, and how you’ll beat Tennessee over and over again. Listen, there will be good times. But generally, you’re going to be rooting for a .500 school, and if you get really excited about the University of Kentucky, you can send your kids there (Even the dumb ones – it’s got a 96% acceptance rate!).
If you love good food and blackouts: LSU: We told you earlier that fans get obliterated at college football games, but with LSU, getting obliterated is an everyday thing. It’s called “functional alcoholism”. LSU’s got the coolest name for a college stadium (Death Valley) in the SEC and the party around the place is second to none. Try the fried oysters and enjoy the gumbo. You’ll be offered the latter – plus very strong mixed drinks a lot, because LSU love a party. And night games at LSU – particularly when Alabama is in town and/or LSU’s doing well, are off-the-chain loud, and crazy Cajuns scream blue murder behind their ‘Tigahs’. Oh, and at times the football’s pretty great too. Just don’t root for LSU if you are passionate about women’s rights, because sure as f**k, LSU’s not.
If you love bells: Mississippi State: Starkville may not be most beautiful place on Mother Earth, but the fanbase owns cowbells. A lot of cowbells. You would think you’re at a damned ski meet. Anyway, being a Mississippi State means that you’re generally a sucker for punishment, but you get a local neighbor to despise in Ole Miss. And YOU GET A COWBELL TO CLANG.
If you love snark: Missouri: I mean, the Journalism School’s probably more famous that the College Football Team. Also, Missouri’s nowhere near the Southeast. The Tigers are literally there for the money….and they are quite happy with it. Having worked out Twitter quite quickly and listened to the excellent ‘Mizzodcast’ podcast, Missouri fans are snarky bastards. And it’s not ‘clever snarky’, and they don’t get involved with the whole: “Oh, I hope everyone has a great time today”, they want to beat your ass, and make you feel miserable about it. The funniest thing about this is that this doesn’t really happen at Missouri.
If you love fun: Ole Miss. The University of Mississippi was the funnest school in the SEC when it came to football last year. The offense – led by Lane Kiffin – scores a ton of points, and the defense – not run by Lane Kiffin – gives up a lot of points. So basically, you’ll be going to a ping-pong game. Tailgate-wise Ole Miss have a place called ‘The Grove’, and Oxford is one of the prettiest college towns in the Southeastern Conference. We’re not sold on Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium as a place to go watch a game, but hell, the bourbon’s going to be good, the football’s going to be fun and stupid things are going to happen.
If you love cool entrances: South Carolina. The Garnett and Black come onto the field to the tune of ‘2001’. It’s awesome. The noise in Williams-Brice is intense, and South Carolina can be a very fun place to watch ball…if they are winning. Again, don’t expect to beat Georgia and arch-rivals Clemson a lot, but expect some pretty good fans. Also: When people run around with signs, caps and T-Shirts with “Cocks”, they are talking about the GAMEcocks, not their appendages, or their personalities. Also, be prepared that with your South Carolina fandom to take licks from Clemson. The cross-staters are very, very good.
If you love being in an eternal grump: Tennessee When Neyland Stadium’s full, Tennessee has one of the best atmosphere’s in football. The ‘Running Through The T’ is a spectacular college football tradition, even if the color’s a bit of an eyeful. You’ll be reminded that this is Peyton Manning’s alma mater often, and don’t mention Steve Spurrier, the most hated man in Knoxville (he owned Manning throughout his career and talked non-stop s**t about the Vols). So why the grump? The Vols haven’t won their division since 2007, let alone the conference (1998) or nationally (1998). Tennessee has high expectations, but doesn’t seem to realise that it’s no longer a big fish. The good things is that you’ll be able to see different coaches coming on board every few seasons, and maybe you’ll get to get blasted on a boat on a river before stumbling up to Neyland to watch 3 1/2 hours of enraging football.
If you wanna be in a cult: Texas A&M Texas A&M have more traditions at their game than you can shake a stick at. The students never sit down – even on a baking Texas afternoon. This is because they are the ’12th Man’, ready to jump on the field at a moment’s notice (Don’t ask!). They worship Lassie (OK, her name’s Reveille), and they have an army group called the corps. They have what are called ‘Yell Leaders’, who look like Dolph Lundgren circa 1985 (muscly and generally white) and there aren’t any female cheerleaders (No, we don’t know why either). But if you can get past all of that [stuff], Texas A&M fans are pretty nice. Kyle Field is a very noisy place to watch a football game. They despise the University of Texas because of ancient rivalries, but secretly everyone wants the two teams to play each other – every year. Oh, and they are going to be good for years to come. They paid their coach $75m over 10 years to make that happen.
If you have a death wish: Vanderbilt: Vanderbilt is a terrible SEC football team. The alumni seem for the most part non-caring about how the Commodores progress, no-one seems to go to game apart from the away fans, the generally sparsely populated ‘student section’ is full of preppy kids from the Northeast who pay hundreds of thousands to go to school there. But here’s what is going for it: It’s an easy game ticket, and Nashville’s really, really cool. Oh, and the baseball team’s really damned good, too.