V's Way Out There, Left Coast-Style

Throughout the NFL season, The Art of Creative Misfortune will feature guest posts by my good friend, Scottie V, a raving mad fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Oregon State Beavers. His Way Out There, Left-Coast Style columns will appear most Thursdays to be followed by his BEAVERS! How Can You Not Love Them This Week? columns on most Fridays. I ask your forgiveness ahead of time for any extraneous hyperbole found in these columns…

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go in the Water
(ECFE – A Cautionary Tale)

There’s something about being stuck on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic that just kind of helps people to get along. My wife and I returned about a week ago from Florida… SEC country. Aboard one of Royal Caribbean’s splendid, but aging, vessels we had the pleasure of dining with a few people who had a severe case of East Coast Football Elitism. ECFE, as I’ll call it, is a debilitating, headstrong, and irrational belief that the quality of football played gets stronger the further east you are in the United States. Cases of ECFE seem to be most severe in the southeastern corner of the United States: SEC country.

Upon meeting these people (‘Bama boy, his Gator wife, and Gamecock man), I immediately struck up a conversation about football. Forgetting where I was, I began extolling the virtues of the Pac-10 and my beloved Oregon State Beavers. ‘Bama boy, who was otherwise friendly, quickly dismissed my banter and steered the conversation back to SEC-talk. I could tell he had little respect for any team west of the Mississippi. It got me to thinking how awfully convenient it must be to be an SEC fan. Somehow, someway the SEC has gotten a free pass. I don’t know how it happened or when it happened, but it is disgusting.

PLAY SOMEBODY!!!

I am so tired of hearing the excuse that teams in the SEC don’t need to play a tough non-conference schedule because their conference games are already so tough. How do we know that to be true? Why is their conference given a pass for being tough, but USC can be lambasted on ESPN for losing to Oregon State on the road? It makes no sense. Look at USC’s non-conference schedule and record the last 5-10 years and you will see that they play some very tough non-conference games and win virtually all of them. Does anyone with a case of ECFE ever stop to think that losing that game to Oregon State is more of an indication of the strength of the Pac-10 and less a condemnation of the quality of USC?

Here are some of the non-conference juggernauts the SEC will be facing this year:

     San Jose State, Tennessee Tech, Duke, Arkansas State,
     Jacksonville State, Chattanooga, Alabama-Birmingham,
     Georgia State, McNeese State, Alcorn State and
     Louisiana Monroe x3 (the Warhawks will have the distinct honor – and payday – of
     being trounced by three SEC teams this season)

By the way, all of these are home games for the SEC.

For comparison, here are some of the non-conference legitimate powers the Pac-10 will be facing:
     Iowa, @Wisconsin, Colorado, @Nevada, @Tennessee,
     @TCU (technically at Cowboys Stadium), Louisville,
     Wake Forest, @Kansas State, Virginia, @Minnesota,
     @BYU, Syracuse, Nebraska, @Oklahoma State,
     @SMU (ok, this is a stretch for a “power” team),
     @Boise State, @Texas, @Hawaii (doesn’t sound menacing, but check out their
     home record and you’ll change your tune), and Notre Dame x2 (Stanford plays
     @ND, USC plays them at home)

The teams of the Pac-10 have shown that they will play anyone, anywhere… And, on most occasions, they will win. The teams of the Pac-10 do not hide behind an imaginary cloak of superiority. They pursue the best teams and they play them, home or away. Oregon State has possibly one of the toughest non-conference schedules in Division I this year: @TCU, home against Louisville, and @Boise State. The stupid Oregon Ducks (oh, how I hate them) chose to schedule Tennessee in Knoxville – a very daunting task. But not only will they win that game, they will destroy the SEC’s precious Volunteers on national television… Ok, just had to go throw up after writing that last bit.
 
My point being, until the SEC schedules some quality non-conference games, the treacherous ECFE will go untreated. My SEC-lovin’ cruisemates can run their mouths all they want, but eventually that ship has gotta land and you gotta play someone.
 
 
Tomorrow, Scottie V returns to tells us how his beloved Oregon State Beavers will fare against the rabid Horned Frogs of TCU...