Georgia Tech Yellowjackets get stung.

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

GEORGIA TECH YELLOWJACKETS

            Based in Atlanta for the sole purpose of giving Thursday night ESPN games a nice skyline shot.

The 1893 Georgia Tech team pictured here in the beautiful heart of the main campus.  I swear the first man lying down on the right is the late Graham Chapman from Monty Python.  The late Herve’ Villechaize, better known as Tattoo, is third from the right top row.  Stand up, Herve’.  Oh, sorry.

Tech has the best fight song in college football, ‘I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech', despite the fact its melody was stolen from a Lithuanian vomiting ballad.  It’s the only fight song ever used to bridge a diplomatic gap in international relations.    

During the famous 1958 Kitchen Debate in Moscow, then-Vice President Richard Nixon got into an argument with Soviet head Nikita Khrushchev.  In order to find common ground the two world leaders sang the only song they both knew, ‘I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck'.  Nikita had heard the song sung by the Tech Glee Club on the Ed Sullivan Show, although the prudish Sullivan made them sing “heck” instead of “hell.”

            The incident solidified belief on the Georgia campus that the Atlanta school was full of pinkos.  Here are the lyrics:

“I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.

A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, hell of an engineer.

Like all the jolly good fellows, I drink my whiskey clear,

I’m Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.

Oh, if I had a daughter, sir, I’d dress her in White and Gold.

And put her on the campus to cheer the brave and bold.

And if I had a son, sir, I’ll tell you what he’d do,

He would yell “TO HELL WITH GEORGIA’ like his daddy used to do.

I wish I had a barrel of rum and sugar three thousand pounds,

A college bell to put it in, and a clapper to stir it round.

I’d drink to all the good fellows who come from far and near,
I’m a ramblin, gamblin’ hell of an engineer. Hey!”                                 

It’s based on an old tune called ‘The Son of a Gambolier.’  Gambolier is Gaelic for “one who gambols.”  Or is it gambles?  Here is the original song:

“I’m a rambling rake of poverty

From Tiprery town I came.

‘Twas poverty compelled me first,

To go out in the rain;

In all sorts of weather,

Be it wet or be it dry,

I’m bound to get my livelihood

Or lay me down and die.

Then combine your humble ditties

As from inn to tavern we steer,

Like every honest fellow

I takes my whiskey clear,

For I’m a rambling rake of poverty

And the son of a gambolier.

I once was tall and handsome,

And was so very neat,

They though I was too good to live,

Most good enough to eat;

But now I’m old, my coat is torn,

And poverty holds me fast,

And every girl turns up her nose,

As I go wandering past.

I’m a rambling rake of poverty,

From Tippery town I came,

My coat I bought from an old Jew shop,

Way down in Maiden Lane;

My hat I got from a sailor lad

Just eighteen years ago,

And my shoes I picked from an old dust heap

Which everyone shunned but me.”

Not exactly a ditty you’ll hear being hummed down at the Anti-Defamation League office.         

The song has actually been used by many colleges with different lyrics, but it’s the Tech version that holds sway.

Name another college fight song sung by the likes of John Wayne in the movie ‘The High and the Mighty’, which was the movie spoofed by ‘Airplane’, and Gregory Peck in ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’, and Daffy Duck in a cartoon.  It’s even been sung in space and on boats crossing the English Channel on D-Day.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney bought up the copyrights for one version of the song.  Some idiots on a Diversity Task Force at Tech tried to screw with the lyrics in the 1990s to make the song more politically correct.  They were told to suck it by the students and the song remains the same with apologies to Led Zeppelin for that last line.

Their other fight song is ‘Up with the White and Gold’.  Kind of pales in comparison although it does have one memorable line:  “We’ll drop our battle axe on Georgia’s head.”

The official Ramblin’ Wreck car was unveiled in 1961.  It was a 1930 Model A Ford Sport Coupe restored in grand fashion.  There had been several cars around campus over the years that had been called the Wreck and the first one anyone can remember was actually traded in for another jalopy.

Some claim the name comes from Tech grads that plied their living in South America around 1900 and engineered machines to traverse the jungles of that wild continent.  The contrivances were called rambling wrecks by the natives.

There used to be a race between Atlanta and Athens every year beginning in 1929 called the Flying Flivver, but the cows on the road got thicker the closer they came to UGA, which made it too dangerous.  The Ramblin’ Wreck Parade took its place every Homecoming Week in which students design and build wrecks to drive.  Or they just find a GM product.  Many of these devices have exploded and burned on the parade route.

Dean of Students James Dull decided sometime before ’61 that the school needed an official wreck so he began a statewide search.  The search ended when he walked out of his apartment and found the 1930 Model A Ford Sport Coupe sitting in front of the building.  A little pleading with the owner and the car was theirs.

The Wreck has seen its share of trouble.  It’s been borrowed unexpectedly and without permission twice.  In other words, UGA fans purloined it.  It was painted orange by Volunteer fans in that sickly color they’re fond of.  And it’s even been shot.  An Auburn fan was suspected of the gunplay, but residing in downtown Atlanta it’s amazing it hasn’t been shot more than once.

If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about LSU and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:  Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

The Angola State Prison Tigers, or LSU

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

ANGOLA STATE PRISON TIGERS, or LOUISIANA STATE

            Based in Baton Rouge, which is French for “I did not tell him to spike the ball.”

I would like to tell you LSU was the first college team to play a bowl game outside the United States in the 1907 Bacardi Bowl in Havana, Cuba.  But since anyone who has ever traveled to Louisiana knows it is not really a part of America we don’t want to start off with a lie.  Those will come soon enough.

            The ‘people’ down there speak a version of English that is so akin to gibberish that they might as well still be speaking French.  If you saw the Adam Sandler movie ‘The Waterboy’ you might remember an actor portraying an overall-wearing assistant coach who seemed to be making fun of the way Creoles speak with an over-the-top dialect of mush-mouthed utterances.  In reality he is Dean of the English Department at LSU and a much sought after speaker on the local lecture circuit.

            The fact that all of the middle of the country’s detritus is flushed down the Mississippi River to back up in Louisiana may explain the debauchery and depravity of the denizens of America’s Drainhole.

Their current head coach is Les Miles, who landed the job after failing to replace Curley in the Three Stooges.  Despite having won a national title in ’07 he is always on the hot seat because of his questionable decisions on the sidelines, such as showing up.

He was once caught on camera eating grass and it wasn’t even part of a brownie.

            LSU once hired Vanderbilt coach Gerry DiNardo but he was summarily dismissed because he could never bridge the gap with his players.  Not the language gap, the intelligence gap.  But what do you expect from a ‘people’ who find biting the heads off mud-dwelling insects a culinary delight.

Current Bama coach Nick “Lucifer” Saban once coached LSU but left to seek greener pastures in the NFL in Miami, where in one day he met more people who spoke English than in his entire stay in Baton Rouge.

Their colors are purple and gold, the same color as the bruises they wake up with after a game.  And this is just the fans.

Their mascot is Mike VI, or Mike the Tiger, a Bengal/Siberian mix who lives in his own tiger habitat across from the stadium.  His diet consists of feral pigs, bulldogs (English and regular), elephants, other tigers, yellowjackets, gators, and yankees.

Before each home game an agitated Mike is enticed to enter a cage on wheels.  He is then carted into the stadium with six cheerleaders riding on top of his cage…OH MY GOD SOMEBODY GET A GUN….Make that five cheerleaders.

Opposing players must pass by Mike to enter their locker room…OH MY GOD HE’S GOT THE QUARTERBACK….Tradition had it that every time Mike growled the Tigers would score a touchdown that game so fans took to pounding on his cage to rile him up.  Civilization and PETA complained so that tradition has gone the way of other LSU favorites, like bear-baiting and inbreeding.

Mike used to travel with the team, but that stopped in 1970 when his cage overturned on a highway and he escaped long enough to run for governor.

Mike also appeared at the 1984 Mardi Gras parade…OH MY GOD HE’S GOT THE MAYOR…where he blended right in with the drunken carnage.  Pranksters once cut the locks on his cage before the LSU-Tulane game, allowing Mike to roam freely across the campus long enough to become enrolled in the masters program.

LSUsports.net reported Mike “playfully knocking down several small pine trees” before he was cornered in the track stadium and tranquilized and returned to his cage.  Ironically, this also happened to Huey Long.

The first live tiger mascot, Mike I, was purchased in 1936 from that world famous tiger haven the Little Rock Zoo.  He reigned for 20 years before dying of pneumonia in the midst of a six-game losing streak in 1957.  So great was the love for Mike that school authorities were afraid fans would give up hope, so they were not alerted to his death until after the losing streak came to an end.  Then they gave up hope.  When LSU fans yell “Tiger bait” at you, take them at their word and run.

In 1958, Coach Paul Dietzel decided to motivate a group of players who didn’t get on the field much by giving them a cool name to rally around.  He chose the term ‘Chinese Bandits’ because according to the comic strip ‘Terry and the Pirates’ they were the most vicious people on earth.  The players lived up to their name and the team went on to win their first national championship.  The group even got their photo in ‘Life’ magazine:

                              This photo led directly to our entanglement in Vietnam.

If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about LSU and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:  Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1

THE MIAMI HURRICANES---KEEPING THE NCAA INFRACTIONS COMMITTEE IN BUSINESS SINCE 1952

     This is a chapter from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for under a buck on Kindle at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

      If you like what you see here, wait until you see the chapters on FSU, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M, and all the SEC teams.

MIAMI HURRICANES

            Definitely NOT  based in Ohio.

Reborn under coach Howard Schnellenberger in the early 1980s the Canes became the team of the decade under first his and then Jimmy Johnson’s hair.

            The mascot is an ibis, a gawky, white bird representing northern transplants found on local beaches.  Recruiting is easy at Miami.  Young men are taken to South Beach, handed a one hundred dollar bill then told to meet their chaperone back at the mojito stand in 24 hours.  The ones who show up the next day are immediately sent back home.  The rest are rounded up at local jails and made to mark their X on letters of intent.

            I don’t want to say this program attracts trouble like a cow attracts flies, but they first went on NCAA probation in the 1950s.  I don’t think the NCAA even existed at the time.  But when they did finally convene their first order of business was to deny the Hurricanes any bowl games for two years just on general principles.  The NCAA Infractions Committee has a branch office in South Dade County.

            Sports Illustrated printed a story in 1955 about Miami in which it was pointed out the school got caught giving transportation to prospective recruits because Coach Andy Gustafson was too “…aboveboard in his methods.  He knows better now and will let the alumni do the inviting. This method has worked for years, even in the Ivy group…”

            Wink wink, nudge nudge.

            Many illustrious coaches have come through Miami, including Dennis Erickson, Butch Davis, and Lou Saban, whose short-lived reign ended when some of his players tossed a Jewish man into a lake.  Fortunately this is one fad originating in Florida that failed to catch on with the general public, although I am to understand that in Australia dwarfs have been substituted.  Butch Davis left for the bright light of Cleveland and the NFL.  That bright light is the Cuyahoga River burning.  (Yes, I know, old joke.  But too easy to pass up.)  Butch was fired there, so he ended up at with the Tarheels.  He immediately instituted a plan to make UNC as successful as Miami.  Which explains why they are now on probation and Butch is at loose ends.

            The campus is set in a high crime area of the city, which may explain the mobster-like names of their two Heisman Trophy winners, Gino Torretta and Vinny Testaverde.  You usually find names like those in the credits of movies where Joe Pesci’s character has murdered and stuffed their bodies in a trunk.  Oklahoma legendary coach Barry Switzer called Testaverde the best quarterback he ever saw.  Switzer was famous for being color blind when it came to race relations with his players.  Testaverde became famous for just being color blind, which he revealed after becoming famous for throwing lots of interceptions with Tampa Bay.

Illustrious players include Jim Kelly and Ray Lewis.  Lewis has been called the most badass player in the NFL despite crying like a baby when questioned by Atlanta police after a killing involving his posse during a Super Bowl party.

Florida is a big rival.  The two schools vie for the War Canoe Trophy.  If you go to the official website of the Miami Hurricanes football team, Hurricanesports.cstv.com, and look up this trophy in the Traditions site you’ll see this nugget of joy:

“An authentic Seminole war canoe, hand carved and painted by Seminole Indians from a 200-year-old Everglades cypress tree felled by lighting...”

Felled by ‘lighting’?  Are even the trees in South Beach so fashion-sensitive they swoon when lit by bad lighting?

The canoe is now on display in Miami’s Sports Hall of Shame when it’s not being used to run contraband by hospitality majors.

Back to that bird mascot the ibis.

On the official website it’s described as a bird of strength, of speed, of knowledge, and of courage.  A leader of its species.  It’s a wonder it doesn’t come with its own cape and alter ego.  All this hype for a fowl that looks like a pelican that lost its pouch in a jai alai bet.

            This ibis is wise because it’s the last member of the animal kingdom to take cover before a hurricane hits.  The last?  How wise is that?  After the alligators have amscrayed upstate, after the manatees have migrated to safer coves, after all the panthers and bears have booked flights out, the procrastinating ibis is found loitering in building supply stores in Homestead buying what’s left of the plundered plywood and nails.

            The ibis is also believed to be the first animal to reappear after the storm passes.  Sounds like looter mentality.

            The ibis was announced as the school’s official mascot in 1926 on Larry King’s local radio show.  His name is Sebastian after the butler from the 1960s TV show ‘Family Affair’ played so brilliantly by Sebastian Cabot.

            But before Sebastian the Ibis there was Hurricane I…the dog.

A friend of the school had moved from New Haven, Connecticut to Miami.  He provided a boxer with a fine pedigree to be the mascot of Miami.  His name was Hurricane I.  The dog that is, not the owner.

            The prize-winning brown and white canine’s real name was ‘Beaubo of Box Haven,’ so he readily accepted his new name and the other dogs stopped making fun of him.

            Well, that is until they saw him in his mascot costume.  It consisted of an orange and green blanket with his name in huge letters on it.  He also had a helmet to wear. 

Hurricane I right before his final flight.  Since he left no note it’s not sure why he pawed open the escape hatch and leaped out of the moving plane.  Maybe the cape made him believe he was Superman’s dog Krypto.  Maybe he was distraught after leaving Handsome Dan VI.  Maybe it was the sheer embarrassment.  Either way he was last seen sailing over the Everglades.  Local folklore tells of a pack of feral boxer/panther mixes roaming the swamp, biting unsuspecting Florida and Florida State fans.

            No word on why the school stopped using dogs as mascots but there was a nasty rumor floating around in the 50s that Hurricane I had lived with the Yale mascot Handsome Dan VI for two years up in Connecticut.      

            This was decades before the movie ‘The Birdcage’ made it okay for this sort of relationship to be had in Miami.

            Orange, green, and white are the school colors.  They represent the orange tree with the orange for the fruit, the green for the leaves, and the white for the pasty tourists on South Beach.  The orange is known as ‘pylon orange.’

      If you like what you've read please check out all the other teams in the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:

         amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

Texas A&M Report

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for just 99 cents on Amazon.com's Kindle at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

 TEXAS A&M AGGIES

            Based in College Station, Gateway to Boot Camp.

In 1957 Texas A&M Coach Bear Bryant had five of his own players executed for sneaking a swig of water during practice.  Even he realized that was a tad over the line and resigned to take the Alabama job, where such practices are not only still accepted but  encouraged.

John David Crow cracking up the Heisman Trophy voters with his "Two-Face" routine.

Aggies are known for their colorful and politically correct chants.  When they play Rice they have one they use against the Owls.  It goes something like this:  “What comes out of a Chinaman’s ass?  Rice! Rice!”  

No wussy pep rallies here, they have yell practices at midnight before home games in the stadium and thousands attend.  There is a lot of humping going on during this time, but not because it’s at night.  Humping at A&M is when you lean forward and put your hands above your knees and yell.  This is reason number two why the pregnancy rate at this school is below the national average.

           When yell practice is over they turn the lights out and two cannons go off.  Then all Aggies kiss their dates and several thousand small cannons go off.  If you don’t have a date then you flick your lighter, so to speak, to look for a willing partner.  A school where mating rituals copy the lightning bug may have trouble breeding.     

            The school started admitting women in 1973.  They still haven’t received the memo that good-looking girls can attend now too.

            In fact, the best-looking girl on campus is Reveille the collie mascot.  This is reason number one why the pregnancy rate is so low in College Station.  Reveille is a five-star general and even attends classes.  If she barks during a class it has to be cut short.

            During games all Aggies kiss their dates after every score.  Reveille hides after every score.

            A&M was a member of the now defunct Southwest Conference, joining in 1915.  They have one national title and play at Kyle Field, which used to be known as Kyle Maclachlan Field in honor of the fine talents of the actor in such works as ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet.’  But late one Friday night some students happened to catch his stumbling debut in the horrific ‘Dune’ movie from the 1980s and voted to remove most of his name forthwith.              

          

            A&M has one Big 12 title in 1998 and 17 championships of the old Southwest Conference beginning in 1917 when some opponents supplemented their meager rosters with roadrunners and rattlesnakes.

            The stadium seats over 80-thousand and the student body stands for the entire game due to constipation problems brought on by their corn-fed diet.  Aggies are known as the ‘12^th Man,’ even the women, which a closer glimpse soon shows why.

            This tradition began in 1922 when a tough game brought the Aggies close to running out of healthy players.  Student E. King Gill was called down to the field by Coach D.X. Bible and told to don football gear and get a second initial.  He did and waited on the sidelines, never playing, but ever ready.  Afterwards the coach and all the ‘real’ players got a good laugh about punking Gill.

            A walk-on student gets to wear number 12 and participate in kickoff coverage.  Coach Jackie “Probation” Sherrill used to let all the players on his kickoff cover team be walk-ons.  Then again, he let players do a lot of things other coaches cringe at.

            Within the Corps of Cadets, seniors can wear knee-high brown leather boots known as ‘Senior boots,’ a style made popular in the 1930s by New Jersey State Patrol Motorcycle Units and Italian fascists.  These cost about a thousand dollars, roughly the annual income of an Aggie alumnus.  When needing help removing their boots seniors yell “I need a fish!”  On most campuses this would bring:  A) Startled looks.  B) A fish.  C) A visit from the local N.O.W. chapter.  But in College Station it brings freshmen, and in the same over-exuberant and naïve tradition of E. King Gill many of them come running and fighting amongst each other for the privilege to help the senior out of his boots.  What comes off after that is a case for the authorities.

             If you like what you've read so far then read the rest of it in 'The Totally Biased Guide To Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Amazon.com's Kindle at: 

amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

Time for Texas A & M to have some fun.

This is an excerpt from 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for e-readers for the cost of a Whopper Jr. at:   amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

TEXAS LONGHORNS

Based in Austin, where the A stands for A-holes.

He stands on the sidelines slowly chewing his cud and gathering in all he sees with an air of detachment as he watches the players practice.

But enough about Coach Mack Brown.  The same could be said of Bevo the longhorn steer mascot.

The University of Texas.  It’s the only name that’s both a college title and an oxymoron.

They like to brag about their 49 bowl games.  What’s the big deal?  Alabama has more than that and look how small a state they are compared to Tejas.  Starting in 1943 Texas has been to 22 Cotton Bowls, 3 Sugar Bowls, 2 Orange Bowls, 2 Rose Bowls and 2 Fiesta Bowls.  The constant bowling got so tiring they decided to take 2010 off.

The bowl games do allow Longhorns fans to travel to other countries, like California.

And the Longhorns don’t just show up, eat well, and lounge around the hotel swimming pool like beached belugas.  They also like to shop for items they can’t usually get in Austin, like toilet paper and PhDs.

Let’s face it.  Austin is a great place if your idea of fun is melting some velveeta and dipping your....finger in it.  But football?  It stops at the high school level.  Kind of like most Longhorns.

 There’s something about just the mention of the Texas Longhorns that can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up like a saguaro cactus.  Maybe it has to do with all the pricks.  On the cactus.

This is a team that before 2005 for all its bragging hadn’t won a national title since Nixon was making mixed tapes in the Oval Office.

Their rivalry with the Sooners is so big it’s called the Red River Shootout, held annually since 1900 when Oklahoma was still just a territory founded by the, and I’m not making this up, Indian Intercourse Act of 1834.  The Indians have been getting intercoursed ever since.

Their annual Torchlight Parade is held the week of the game.  This has been the source of much joy and pain since the cheap plywood that makes up most of the town is ready tinder for flame.  A recent fire that burned half of the buildings on campus caused hundreds of dollars in damage.

The event has become so huge that Jay Leno of NBC’s ‘The Tonight Show’ sent his entertainment reporter/monkey Ross the Intern to cover the game and the Texas State Fair which is held next to the Cotton Bowl.  He was extremely impressed by two things on his visit:   Getting to play drums with the Pride of Oklahoma Marching Band, and the sheer monstrous obesity of the average Longhorn fan.  You can still find these reports on youtube.com.

Enough corn dogs are consumed during this fair to circumnavigate the earth five times.  For you UT grads, just look up ‘circumnavigate’ in the dictionary, you can borrow one from your neighbor flying the OU flag.

Their fight song is ‘Texas Fight’ which is actually a faster version of ‘Taps’, which is played at military funerals.  And you thought ‘Rocky Top’ was depressing.  It was written in response to Texas A&M’s fight song which is similar, except the Longhorns now incorporate part of the song ‘The Eyes of Texas’. their alma mater, in their version.  This blatant lifting of both lyrics and musical riffs to blend into other songs led directly to hip hop.

Fans love to use a hand signal called ‘Hook ‘em Horns’, first used in 1955.  The index finger and pinky are extended while the two middle fingers are held by the thumb.  Once again, this was a response to a Texas A&M tradition called ‘Gig ‘em’, which makes one wonder if folks in Austin call College Station for permission to pee as well.

If you like what you've read so far you'll love the rest of the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis.  Read more about Texas, all the SEC schools, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and Miami.  And Texas A&M.  Just 99 cents at:  amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

College football: New Blood in the SEC

College football: New Blood in the SEC: "Based on 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now for under a dollar at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRF..."

New Blood in the SEC

Based on 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now for under a dollar at:   amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW

    Or should I say 'blood in the water'.  Rumor has it that Texas A&M will announce shortly it is joining the Southeastern Conference.  That's fine, good school, good rep, the next president of the U.S. might hail from there.  Makes sense until you realize that would make the conference uneven.  That is until you add 3 more teams! 
     The Seminoles, Clemson, and.......Missouri?  Why not Georgia Tech? Why not the Yellowjackets before Clemson? Did they not want to join? Were they out studying when the phone rang? Or do some teams still hold a grudge against GT for leaving the SEC back in the Sixties?
     Clemson is the bigger school but GT the bigger market.  Tech has a better tradition.  The Tigers have a more rabid fan base.  It'll be very interesting to hear all the behind the scenes gossip as to how this goes down, when and if it does, and it probably will.
     A 16-team Super Conference, the first but not the last.  If this is true and these are the four teams to join, just think of the confusion.  The SEC already has two teams called 'Tigers' and two teams called 'Bulldogs'.  Now there will be FOUR teams known as the Tigers.
     Here's my solution to this name numbness:

LSU becomes the Bayou Bengals, which they’re known for anyway.  Auburn ends the confusion and adopts War Eagle as their cry and their team moniker.  Clemson will have to keep the name Tigers because their fan base is too 'challenged' to learn another word at this point. 

            Which leaves us with Missouri.  I give them two choices, let it never be said that I am not a fair arbiter in these matters.  Either they become their other nickname, Mizzou, or the James Gang, for the state’s greatest citizens, Jesse and Frank James.  Or maybe a third option is possible.  Since they’re famous up there for the James boys and Josey Wales maybe the Outlaws would be apropos.  Then when the NCAA hits them up for their biannual probation they truly can say they are indeed an outlaw program.  Problem sol-ved as Inspector Clouseau would say.

            Or is it.  Let’s face it, Missouri being in the Southeastern Conference makes about as much sense as Auburn being part of the National COLLEGIATE Athletic Association.

            Is it even really a state? What inhabits the area between St. Louis and Kansas City? You leave the Arch, set the cruise control, settle in for a nap and wake up a few hours later in K.C.  Nothing in between but billboards and bovine.

            It is known for its school o’ journalism, but given the state of the media today that may not be something they want to crow about.  It’s like Texas A&M bragging about their coeds, some things are better left tied up in the stockyard.

            Check out more on the SEC schools, including the newbies Florida State, Clemson, and Texas A&M in the new book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for under a buck at:    Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW