4/5/2007

ON OUR PLANET THE SKY IS PAISLEY

Run Up the Score pretty much ordered me to make this a new post, so here goes: What college athletic program suffers from the greatest delusions of adequacy and relevance? Who out there is looking for the right combination of coaches and an AD to lead them back to a past that might never have happened? He nominated Arkansas, but noted that they’d have some measure of success recently, if “within the last fifteen years” counts as “recently.” I countered with Ole Miss, based on the notion that apparently Rebel football mattered at some point within the past half-century, but doggone if anybody not named Manning can remember it.

But who else deserves possible mention as “the most deluded fan base in college athletics”? Arizona State comes to mind, seeing as how I can’t think of a single truly significant athletic accomplishment of theirs in recent memory, unless 21 titles in women’s archery counts as a significant accomplishment. (Don’t bother mentioning five baseball titles; if you think that will win you any points around here, thanks for making your first visit.) But surely I’m missing some more. Readers? All six of you?

Posted by Mark @ 2:53 pm | | Permalink
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10 Comments »

  1. It seems to me that to be delusional, you have to have expectations that exceed your ability to actually meet them. I really don’t think Arizona State has any fans, much less ones with delusional thoughts. Ole Miss seemed thrilled at a Cotton Bowl appearance a few years ago.

    Off the top of my head, North Carolina State is a fairly good choice. They really havn’t done anything of note since Jimmy V and the ACC’s ridiculously short three point line got them a pass into the tournament. But since then they have churned through coaches, built nice facilities and had sky high expectations but never actually achieved anything. I think their fans view them as the equivalent to North Carolina and Duke, when in reality Wake Forest’s and Appalachain State’s athletic programs have accomplished more over the past 20 years.

    Comment by Jon — 4/6/2007 @ 7:48 am

  2. That’s a good point about NC State, Jon, but then again they DID win a national championship in a relevant sport. I think that might be a disqualifier, even if it’ll probably never happen again.

    Comment by Scribleris — 4/6/2007 @ 8:35 am

  3. It’s hard to top Arkansas, especially after recent events, but The Crimson Tide of Alabama might be the one to do it. Ole Miss, South Carolina, the entirety of the SEC not named Florida or Rocky Top, hve to be considered. I’d put Washington ahead of Arizona State, but just slightly.

    Comment by Hawkeye State — 4/6/2007 @ 8:56 am

  4. Ooh! Washington! That’s a good call!

    Comment by Mark — 4/6/2007 @ 9:59 am

  5. Hmmmm … Gophers … Bar-bee-cue potato chips …

    Comment by Paul — 4/7/2007 @ 11:56 am

  6. Maryland is a darkhorse choice for this award. For as irrelevant as they are (the now-fading basketball title notwithstanding), they LOVE themselves. Same with Pittsburgh, for that matter.

    Cal isn’t a bad pick, either. When have they really accomplished anything?

    Georgia? Rather sheepish since the Herschel Walker years.

    Comment by Run Up The Score — 4/9/2007 @ 2:07 pm

  7. Gotta be the Alabama Crimson Tide. Ask any Tider: They’re the pre-season national champs every year.

    Comment by Erik — 4/10/2007 @ 5:52 am

  8. As I missing something here? Shouldn’t this obviously be Notre Dame?

    Comment by Elihu — 4/10/2007 @ 7:28 am

  9. Uh, Elihu, “past that never happened”. Does 11 Championships ring a bell?

    Comment by Mike — 4/11/2007 @ 11:51 am

  10. NCSU is one of the first on my list, too. However, they do have TWO mens hoops nat’l championships, one of which marked the end of UCLA’s decade of dominance, so they are probably disqualified as ‘most deluded fan base’–though if we qualified that with ‘most deluded *college football* fan base, NCSU would be right up there.

    I think I’d have to vote for Oregon. They’ve come close to being a nat’l title contender in football once or twice, and this year’s basketball team overachieved by reaching the Elite Eight–but they’re probably never going to win a national championship in either sport. The average Ducks fan thinks that *this* is the year they knock off USC, go undefeated and play for the title. I guess we’ll find out in Week #2 when they travel to Ann Arbor whether or not that’s a possibility.

    Comment by Terrible Tom — 4/18/2007 @ 5:08 pm

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