Georgia fans rooting for Florida, Wisconsin fans rooting for Minnesota, and Ohio State fans rooting for Michigan.
What is this world coming to?
This, however, is one of the most basic realities of the modern world of college football. The rich historical animosity that characterizes and enlivens college football rivalries is put aside on gameday for the more collective goal of conference strength.""
And this idea of conference strength is not a tangible thing. It can be affected by non-conference record and bloated by big wins over good teams, but in the end it comes down to amorphous feelings and general opinion.
This idea gets further molded by dogmatic media members and angry fans on online message boards, who whip the slightest edge in talent, preparation or coaching into the most indomitable of advantages.
A prime example of this came in the 2004 Holiday Bowl, in which the Cal Golden Bears fell to Texas Tech. The game was an upset, as Cal had been close to going to the Rose Bowl, but broadcaster Craig James saw the game through a different lens.
The Texas native spent much of the game explaining to fans that this performance was proof the Big 12 conference (which includes Tech and three other Texas teams) was simply superior to the Pac-10 (Cal's conference). He then implied this conference strength question would come into play in the National Title game when Oklahoma (again Big 12) would play USC (Pac-10).
The Trojans went on to slaughter the Sooners proving James quite wrong, but the whole incident represents this overwhelming concern with conference strength.
Debate about conference strength mostly affects the Big Ten through one team: the Ohio State Buckeyes. On the dawn of New Year's Day 2007, the Big Ten was considered to be in the top half of BCS conferences.
It had produced the Orange and Fiesta Bowl champions the previous season, the national champion in 2002 and, most importantly, the only undefeated major conference team (OSU), which many presumed would roll over one-loss Florida for the title.
Only it didn't happen.
The Buckeyes lost, and the next season they earned another title berth only to fall to LSU, the first two-loss BCS champion. By that point, the old stereotype reigned as the Big Ten was derided as ""too slow,"" using archaic offenses, and was ridiculed in print, on the air and across the Internet.
With quick swings in opinion such as this, fans of conferences end up banding together in rooting interests for their own purpose. Fans figure if their conference looks better, their teams look better, and they move up in terms of bragging rights and whatever joy comes from being a fan.
The problem here is that this kills some of the most fundamental parts of fanhood, namely ragging on geographic rivals and vindictively hoping they fail most of the time.
Packer fans do not root for the Bears, Brewers fans don't root for the Cubs, but in the NCAA rooting for conference foes is just par for the course?
Simply put, this must stop. Those who write about and cover college football should just cool it with the debates over which conference is better.
If teams take care of business and win all their games, send them to the title game, if there is some doubt, push the debate to the end. We do not need to go through scenario after scenario, when each prediction is rendered meaningless after another weekend's slate of games.
And fans, just allow the petty anger toward your rivals to bubble up. Put aside debates over the real meaning of ""SEC speed"" and just let your passion take over.
That passion is what makes college football exceptional, so really, why keep it under wraps?
Will you be rooting for Ohio State to blow their chance for a BCS bowl against Michigan this weekend? Tell Ben at breiner@wisc.edu.
