Opening Kickoff

Cheers, all. I'm the self-proclaimed College Football Guy. Pretty original, I know. I thought of it when I decided to start a blog. I thought about going with College Football Genius, or Guru, or some other word that starts with G, but only a douche bag would proclaim himself a Genius or a Guru. So I'll go with Guy.

I assume you like college football, too, or you wouldn't be here. Good for you. It's great isn't it? Until a team like Georgia starts complaining that they should be in the BCS Championship game, even though they didn't even win their division in their conference. Then it's not sweet. Then you want to tell them to travel more than an hour to play a game every once in a while (I know, they go to Tempe this year). But mostly it's sweet.

Just so you know where I'm coming from, here's a little history...

I grew up in West Des Moines, IA rooting for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

...

Sorry, I just threw up a little in my mouth. Back to the story...

These were the Hayden Fry years, and the Hawks were semi-frequent visitors to the Rose Bowl, though they were never actually able to win one (1982 - Washington, 1986 - UCLA, 1991 - Washington).

I played football (not very well), but baseball was what I excelled at growing up. So when my dream of a baseball scholarship to Stanford didn't pan out, I had to look for other college options. When it came time to pick a college, my budget pretty much limited me to in-state tuition. That left Iowa or Iowa State. I don't count UNI - it's basically a JuCo for teachers-to-be that happens to have a decent D1 basketball program and a great D1-AA football program.

Anyway... I was pretty set on Engineering, so Iowa State was clearly the better choice. The doctors, lawyers and hot chicks went to Iowa. The engineers, scientists and farmers daughters went to ISU. At Iowa, they had (age) 19 bars, guys and gals drank shots of Jaeger, and tried their hardest to look as cool or hot as they could doing it. At Iowa State we drank beer. Like, a shit-load of beer. The Beast was a favorite. Or Natty Ice if you wanted a quicker buzz, coupled with the worst headache of your life. Iowa talked a lot about partying, and they did. We just did it, and shut the fuck up about it.

This pretty much helps explain it:

Girls of the Big XII - Iowa State

No. 1 Pastime: "Drinking. If you don't like alcohol, go to another school."

Atta girl. Way to represent.

Shortly after starting at ISU, my high school football coach got hired on as an assistant there, and he helped me get a job as the assistant to the Video Director for the football team. I filmed every practice and game, traveled with the team, cut tapes for coaches, etc. Pretty sweet, except that I was working my ass off, and had very little time for "the college experience", if you know what I mean.

I worked that for a couple years, then left and lived off of some less time-consuming jobs, then I graduated and moved to Orange County, CA (possibly the only County in the country that you can refer to like a city, and everyone gets it - except maybe Humbolt County, but that's a whole other deal...)

Because my allegiance is to a team that has only once even smelled the national limelight in College Football (2002 - when Seneca Wallace lead the #9 Cyclones into Norman to play the #2 Sooners and were absolutely crushed, 49-3), and I now live in the heart of USC/UCLA territory, and I travel quite a bit for work (I could see the blue turf from my hotel room in Boise once), I feel like I have a pretty fair view of the college football landscape.

Did I mention I have a fridge in my garage that's dedicated to booze. Pretty sweet, huh.

OK, my hands are cramping. I think I just gave myself carpel-tunnel. I'm out.