T1B

Mgo, I gotta stick up for Sam there, 'cause I know exactly what he means, literally, about the "grayness." It seems that every time I watch an Ohio St-Michigan game, it's always just plain gray. Ugly, dour, gray. Gray skies don't make the game better, or more interesting. They just make everything look more somber and dull.

It's not a clear, crisp and toally bitchin' autumn day, perfect for college football; no, it's being shipped out to the Eastern Front.

Snow...rain...sleet...that's "real weather," in terms of bad weather, for football. Gray skies, but no precipitation, and everyone's bundled up like it's South Park?

Dreary. Then, combine the dreary look and feel of the place with dreary, stone age offense and yeah, a lot of Big 10 football looks awfully bland and desultory to people from other parts of the country.

I think that's why I prefer the Notre Dame-Big 10 match ups. Those games are always held earlier in the season, often times beneath brilliantly blue Fall skies. Those games just look more exciting. Those games just make you wish you were there. They stir the soul, just clicking on the tv and seeing the pre-game.

Clicking on a late season Big 10 football game, it's like flipping through the channels and landing on Schindler's List.

Van, I get what you are saying, but if that is the case then only shots from Air Force, Hawaii, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico need be shown. Every game in every big city has the required blimp shot with the urban jungle and smog. Smog hardly makes me think of football.

Lefty, most big cities don't have BTPCF programs. The large majority of college football powerhouse programs are located in medium to small sized towns.

Lessee here..

Norman, Ok
South Bend, IN
Lincoln, NE...

Hell, screw it. Just call it every Big XII, SEC, Pac 10, Big 10, Big East and ACC team, with the exceptions of USC, UCLA, Washington, Cal, Stanford (debatable), Arizona St (debatable), Rutgers, Boston College, The U and Georgia Tech.

Smog is typically not a problem near Puget Sound, San Francisco Bay or the desert in Tempe. I doubt smog is a problem in Broward County, Fl.

I dunno, maybe smog is a problem for the Red River Shootout? I couldn't say.

Besides, smog can actually make for some bitchin' refracted light blimp shots! You sorta get these cool "fire in the sky" scenes, at sunset, over the Coliseum.

Gray skies? They're just pure enthusiasm (and, apparently, offensive play calling) wet blankets.

Come on man, Norman is a suburb of OKC. As is Tempe, as is Palo Alto. Just because it has a different name doesn't mean it isn't part of the overall metroplex.

Left Seater wrote:Come on man, Norman is a suburb of OKC. As is Tempe, as is Palo Alto. Just because it has a different name doesn't mean it isn't part of the overall metroplex.

Norman has arguably only been "a part" of the OKC metro area for less than 10 years. i would still argue that it isn't. Edmond is a suburb of OKC. when you are driving on 1-35 it may seem like that because the commercial interstate culture (Burger Kings and Chilis and stuff) is somewhat continuous .....but, as a townie, i would disagree that Norman is a suburb of OKC. Norman certainly doesn't see itself that way. There's a town with 2 high schools in the largest state classification *between* Norman and OKC.

if you get off the interstate, there's 25 miles of wheat land and horse ranches between OKC and Norman. increasingly, the horse ranches are turning into subdivisions but i still say no suburb.

King Crimson wrote:

Left Seater wrote:Come on man, Norman is a suburb of OKC. As is Tempe, as is Palo Alto. Just because it has a different name doesn't mean it isn't part of the overall metroplex.

Norman has arguably only been "a part" of the OKC metro area for less than 10 years. i would still argue that it isn't. Edmond is a suburb of OKC. when you are driving on 1-35 it may seem like that because the commercial interstate culture (Burger Kings and Chilis and stuff) is somewhat continuous .....but, as a townie, i would disagree that Norman is a suburb of OKC. Norman certainly doesn't see itself that way. There's a town with 2 high schools in the largest state classification *between* Norman and OKC.

if you get off the interstate, there's 25 miles of wheat land and horse ranches between OKC and Norman. increasingly, the horse ranches are turning into subdivisions but i still say no suburb.

agreed with KC here.

there's been a massive boom of stores and apartments, office buildings etc in the last 5 yrs alone.



my boy still asks me "where's king kong's grave?" when we pass norman on our way to OKC.


(for those who are familiar with the area, you get it)

Lefty, I'm from L.A. I don't consider OKC to be a large city. I sure as hell don't consider those blimp shots of OU's stadium in Norman to be evidence that their stadium is situated in a large city.

Don't see a lot of smog there, either.

Palo Alto is also not a large city. It's down the peninsula, being neither San Francisco nor San Jose, and Stanford Stadium is in a fairly bucolic setting.

Sun Devil Stadium ain't exactly in downtown Phoenix, either.

None of these stadums have much in the way of big city smog to deal with, is the point.

I can give back Norman, but Stanford and ASU are part of huge metroplexes. There is plenty of smog and fog in both. You might not notice it when looking straight up from the ground, but trying to pick out a runway thru it lets you know just how much there is.

Lefty, I'm telling you, there's no discernible smog, not where Stanford Stadium is located. It's in an elevated and wooded part of the peninsula.

Same with Cal. Cal is in a more heavily populated/more heavily built up area than Stanford, but due its location adjacent to SF Bay there's no discernible smog there either.

Typically, for there to be discernible smog (as in discernible in a stadium blimp shot, or on the field) a city needs to be located within a valley.

Stanford isn't, and neither is Cal.

Sun Devil Stadium is, but it's not like L.A. Tempe and Sun Devil Stadium don't receive anything like the degree of smog you see in L.A.

Above and beyond all that, look how few schools were talking about here. The vast majority of major power football schools don't deal with smog issues, and they also aren't plagued by the incessant gray-ness of so many televised Big 10 games.

Ok, I eject.

I meant to discuss how you didn't think most large cites had BTPCF. Somehow that became a smog discussion.

Smog aside, most of the large metroplexes do have college football.

Each of the 10 largest Metropolitan Areas have BTPCF.

Jesus, 'Spray, what was up with Bama's punt block protection there? In both cases the kicker looked like he was too close to the line of scrimmage and in both cases it looked like three Auburn guys could've been credited with the block! They were simply swarming that poor punter! They could've literally gang tackled him.

Wtf?? Where were Bama's blockers??

Kinda like "Run, Forrest, run!" huh?

I was just razzing you Sam, but since you want to get all serious and shit...

Sudden Sam wrote:HA! Actually I like cold weather. But not 20 degrees, somber gray skies, rain/snow, and chicks all bundled up so much that you can't tell if they weigh 115 or 315!

Hey, I never said it was pretty, just that it's football weather...or at least football weather as I've known and appreciated it. Rough and ugly conditions for a rough and ugly game.

Thing is though, I'm sure your version of football weather would remind me of frollicking in a field Sound of Music style. 75 degrees, bright sun and humidity, that just doesn't scream football to me. Sure, it's generally more desirable to be outside in that, but that's not really the point here. The Frozen Tundra at Lambeau Field doesn't remind me of flowerbeds and picnics either, it reminds me of football weather, albeit at its most extreme state. There's nothing wrong with bundling up, it's all part of the experience. And let me tell you, if said chick weighs in at 315 bills, it's probably best she's covered anyway.

Anyway, it's not rough and ugly all the time. Yeah, you'll have some cold and gloomy days (like you will other parts of the country), especially later in the season, but you get a lot of good days too - stuff you probably don't see on tv, since I'm reasonably certain your eyes aren't glued to Big Ten football during the season. Late August - Late October is generally all pretty deece weather, and that's the majority of the season right there. Remember, by the time winter hits up here, the Big Ten season is already over. The bad stuff doesn't even come until late December and onward. Average temps late in the Big Ten season are closer to high 30s, low 40s than they are in the 20s. I'm sure a tough lookin' biker guy like you could handle that, eh? :)

Take it from a guy who has spent almost equal time in the state of Florida and the state of Michigan. There wasn't anything memorable at all about CFB Saturdays down there, weather-wise. Probably because it was the same old thing, all the time, bright and sunny with just slightly varying degrees in temperature. Up here though, there is nothing quite like waking up on a Fall Saturday morning. The air is cool and crisp and you can just smell Fall in the air. It's sort of a woodsy, rustic smell. The trees are turning their colors and the ground is littered with orange and red. And most games all you'll need is a nice, comfy hooded sweatshirt. That, to me, is football weather, and that's how it is most of the year -- and trust me, you won't give a good goddamn if the skies are a little gray.

Yeah, you just might get a little snow, or a little sleet, or wind, and you're probably not gonna be workin on your tan, nor is it gonna look very pretty on the tv. But who gives a flyin fock? It's FOOTBALL, damnit, not surfing or gardening.

Check Van's post for more details. He summed it up well.

Like I really need to be lectured by a SoCal guy about "football weather?"

I'll get rrrrrrrrright on that.

98 MSU at #1 OSU. Hands down.

You probably should, Mgo, since you just repeated what I said, nearly word for word.

Except the purpose of your post, in large part, was to disparage...so in reality, no, our posts were not similar.

Plus if you're basing your criticism exclusively on "late season" Big Ten games...that covers like what, two games?

Yep, pretty much, and rightly or wrongly two late season games are usually all the rest of the country ever sees of the Big 10. So, it's no coincidence that except for ND-Big 10 games the majority of our Big 10 perceptions are based on Ohio St-Michigan, which are nearly always blah, gray affairs.

ESPN2 carries nationally televised Big Ten games throughout the season. Though I'm sure you're probably not down with watching Big Ten ball at 9 A.M.

Weather at "The Game" means little anyhow, one way or the other. It's The Game for christ sakes, it transcends everything else going on. You shouldn't need your television beaming with extra light in order to get into that one. Or any game for that matter...but maybe that's just me.

Of course not, but it does color one's perception of the game. The bland offenses require an explanation, and the obvious conclusion is that they seem to be driven by the dreary conditions.

We're always hearing how Big 10 teams are built for cold weather, with more big plodders. For all that, dammit, I want some actual snow games. I don't just want gray skies and dreary conditions. I want sloppy ass mud games in driving thunder storms. I want blizzards.

I want the Ice Bowl. I want the Vikings' old Metropolitan Stadium playoff games. Those conditions are my idea of Lambeau style bad weather football.

As for ESPN2 Big 10 games, I dunno, I don't think I get those here; not on any regular basis, anyway. I seem to always get Big XII games on Fox Bay Area, plus the CBS package for the SEC. NBC only shows ND, ABC usually seems to show the Pac 10 and ESPN might show anything under the sun. No pun intended.

I get a fair share of Big 10 games, but I want to say they could be on either ESPN channel. Yeah, I prefer the early season games, just for how they look. Of course I prefer the bigger late season match ups, since they're more important games, but those early games actually show cheerleaders who aren't wearing parkas.

Gotta say, Big 10 cheerleaders are (relatively speaking) the suck, and not in a good way.

Van wrote:Of course not, but it does color one's perception of the game. The bland offenses require an explanation, and the obvious conclusion is that they seem to be driven by the dreary conditions.

We're always hearing how Big 10 teams are built for cold weather, with more big plodders. For all that, dammit, I want some actual snow games. I don't just want gray skies and dreary conditions. I want sloppy ass mud games in driving thunder storms. I want blizzards.

I want the Ice Bowl. I want the Vikings' old Metropolitan Stadium playoff games. Those conditions are my idea of Lambeau style bad weather football.

In any event, the conditions in the upper midwest are certainly more typical (or stereotypical) of "football weather" than what you get in L.A., or what you get down south. I understand we all have our personal preferences when it comes to weather, but that's another discussion entirely.

What it comes down to, weather-wise, is that you'll get a little bit of everything. You obviously wouldn't know that though since you admittedly base your "perceptions" on one or two games a year.

You'll have some warm, t-shirt weather games early in the season. You'll have some classic Fall games in the middle of the season, and the dreary stuff in November, and yes, sometimes snow, ice, freezing rain, and howling winds. Sometimes all wrapped into one.

I don't think change in the weather throughout your conference season is a bad thing. It's certainly a lot more unique than heat and sunshine, all the time, every game. Like I said, there wasn't anything memorable about that growing up in Florida. And then you throw in the humidity on top of all that? Blah, no thanks. It's sort of the antithesis of football weather, imo, though it can be nice weather in general.

I went to two MSU games last season. One in E. Lansing vs Wisconsin:




and one in Evanston:





Gosh, look at those dreary, gray skies! Yeah, and they actually scored some points too and didn't have to "plod" their way into the endzones! It was AMAZING!

Actually, I wouldn't have minded a few gray clouds for either game -- they were both noon games and I had to squint through the sun for 4 quarters, with sunglasses on. Never fun.

In person: Two great games in two weeks in '93 when i lived in Madison: Wisconsin 13, Michigan 10 (the stampede game for anyone who remembers), and then Wisconsin 14, Ohio State 14 a week later. It ended up being UW's first Rose Bowl season in 30 years.

On TV, i could think of a million but my personal favorites are ND-FSU '93, the Bush Push, Mizzou-Nebraska '97, Florida-FSU '97 (knocked FSU out of an Orange Bowl w/ undefeated Nebraska), and Northwestern-Notre Dame in '95 (laughed my ass off for a solid three months at any ND fan I could find).

Sparty doesn't fill up Northwestern's stadium? Shit, when Iowa plays there it's 75% Hawkeye fans. That is the worst atmosphere for college football in the country. The stadium is a dump and the Northwestern fans are so fucking quiet. Not only that but geez.......that is one ugly ass student body! Been there for 3 Iowa-Northwestern games. I literally fell asleep in the 4th quarter of the 2001 game. Iowa was up by about 40 and it was lame as fuck.

Mgo,

Why no photos of the N'Western hotties??? I guarantee you if you searched the entire student section you could have found at least 1 or 2. Sure, they probably would have been wearing a Turban but still......

Degenerate wrote:Northwestern-Notre Dame in '95 (laughed my ass off for a solid three months at any ND fan I could find).

It always cracks me up when people take joy in the misery of others, to the point that they completely go out of their way to rub it in.

It's like we're all just one big R-Jack.

Mgo, I already said I preferred the early season Big 10 games, for the exact reasons you described with your pics. I just prefer the late seasom match-ups.

Cool, crisp, clear, midwestern Fall football = totally bitchin', and all is right with the world.

Snow storms, ice storms, pouring rain, nasty, tumultuous, zero visibility and even worse field conditions midwestern football in late Fall = Must See TV.

Gray, dark, overcast, cold but dry midwestern football in late Fall = unless it's Michigan vs Ohio St I'm flipping over to Texas vs Taco Tech.

I also said I don't mind bad weather football, at all. I love it, actually. I just want it to be real bad weather; i.e., not just gray dreariness. We get that soul dampening overcast gray here in Sac, for three months straight, every winter. Hate it. I hate to see it on my tv, too.

Degenerate wrote:In person: Two great games in two weeks in '93 when i lived in Madison: Wisconsin 13, Michigan 10 (the stampede game for anyone who remembers), and then Wisconsin 14, Ohio State 14 a week later. It ended up being UW's first Rose Bowl season in 30 years.

That was a fun season, Degenerate. At the time, Wisconsin football was a complete joke and that was the year Alvarez really got things going. I remember the aftermath of the UW-UM game and how some of the players were up in the stands helping out the trampled fans. I believe UW's lone loss was against Minnesota that year, but they had a nice team-- Darrell Bevell, Brent Moss, Terrelle Fletcher, Lee Deramus to name a few. Thanks to tOSU's 28-to-zip-deer-in-headlights loss to UM in Ann Arbor, the Badgers got the Rose Bowl berth based on the "who hasn't been there the longest" rule. And beat UCLA 21-16.

i've never explicity noticed the gray skies in a late season big ten game. probably because i was too busy watching the actual teams play football. as far as all that rain, sleet, snow, and other visual stimuli needed to enjoy the game, it's still pretty fucking cold. you'll have to content yourself with the fact it hurts a lot more getting tackled onto a carpet in november than it did in september.

TheJON wrote:Shit, when Iowa plays there it's 75% Hawkeye fans.

OMG IOWA REALLY??

Yes, NOJ, you fucking idiot. As the average GPA rises, the number of hotties fall. Look at scU-M and compare it to Wisconsin. Anyone who can correctly spell their name on their admissions form to UW can get in. At scU-M, it's a little more difficult.

2nd for the comments on NW-ND 95. Still laughing about that one.

Arizona State?

Gray grass? Yeah, that does pretty much suck.

Oh, and hey, who's the one team we most often see, whenever we tune in to watch a Big 10 game?

Why, it's Ohio St!

What are Ohio St's colors again? Scarlet and, ummm, help me out here...it's not gold, which works great with scarlet...it's not silver, which is what most teams choose, at least from that certain family of colors...no, it's something else...

mgo's already covered it, but it's not like the game's played in a gray vacuum. the tv looks just the same as it does outside my window, and now that i no longer live in the midwest those sorts of games stir a bit of nostalgia in me.

Kinda like potato soup and striped pant suits, for Holocaust survivors, huh?

It ain't just the sky. It's the grass, the faces of the coaches, players, fans.

:?

Ok, now this is just getting stupid...

Van wrote:Kinda like potato soup and striped pant suits, for Holocaust survivors, huh?

no, not at all.

the upper deck of N'western's crib is some weird (and seemingly inefficient) architecture. the distribution of the benches is pretty asymmetrical (probably a better word for it, but i can't think of it). i have a buddy from grad school who finished his MA at CU but went to NW for the PhD and says the Evanston campus has some pretty exciting architecture inspired by Carrier roof-top air-conditioning units. Cold War architecture at its finest.

Yeah, I hear the design is a major reason the stadium remains so quiet...despite the fact there's rarely much to cheer for anyway.

Screw_Michigan wrote: Anyone who can correctly spell their name on their admissions form to UW can get in. At scU-M, it's a little more difficult.

Right, at Michigan, they actually require you to use a pen and capital letters on your application.