Do East Coast Fans Like Apples?

Saw over on Conquest Chronicles that College Football News has their top NCAA football players list out. Guess who placed the most players in the top 50 with ten? The Pac-10 baby!! So how do you east coasters like them apples? The Big 12 had nine, while the SEC and Big Ten both had eight players in the top 50. Ahh, the shockingly refreshing taste of validation. It’s even better than an ice cold Sierra Mist.

Over on ESPN (I may sound like an ESPN shill right now because I keep referencing them, but I’m really not. I swear. No, really.), Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach debate which conference is the best. Schlabach ranks the SEC first and the Pac-10 second. Ok, he has his opinion. Auburn, LSU, Georgia, Florida - it’s a pretty good conference. I don’t know if they are better than the Pac-10 top to bottom, but at least it looks like ESPN.com is having less and less of an east coast bias and that, like Borat says, “is nice.”

Then we take a look at Mr. Maisel’s half of the column. He has the Big 12 first and the Pac-10 fifth. I’m sorry, what?! Fifth place! As in four spots behind first, fifth place? He ranks the ACC fourth and even says that they are “the leader among conferences in mystery teams,” and he singles out both FSU and Miami. So you’re telling me that the two “best” teams in the conference have major questions marks, the conference routinely fields two or three other teams that have no business even being in Division I, and they’re ranked ahead of the Pac-10?? Give me a break.

He thinks that “the rest of the teams might be gaining on USC.” So we have the premier program in the country and perennial national champion contender in our conference, which has in turn elevated the competition in the rest of the Pac-10 to the point that they are approaching a championship level, and yet the Pac-10 is worse than a conference headlined by three-loss teams, who he has referenced as riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas, not to mention the perpetual tomato can that is Duke. I think Ivan pays less attention to the Pac-10 than Bobby Bowden does to FSU when he’s sleeping through practice. Doesn’t anyone in the media realize that there are no doormat programs in the Pac-10, unlike every other conference? Unbelievable. And just when I thought ESPN and I were making some progress.