Post by King_Gamecock on Jun 1, 2020 22:16:04 GMT -6
The old GSC was great not only because of the four Alabama teams, but because of the two Georgia teams.
I said it many times on GJS, especially in the old days. When you graduate from an Alabama high school and have multiple high school classmates attending a rival school, it makes that game matter more. As an alumnus, when you have coworkers who attended a rival school, it makes the game matter more.
Coming from Georgia, I didn't know squat about una, and even less about livingston. But I knew a couple people at troy state, had some cousins at valdosta state, and knew about half the campus of west georgia. Those games mattered to me. I once worked in an office with a rabid troy state fan and former sots member. We had some times during troy week.
We don't get that in the OVC. I'd be OK with that, if the OVC were a dominant power in football (a la MVFC or 1980s-early-2000s SoCon) but it's not. I'd be willing to give it a pass as a "basketball conference" if it were truly dominant (in mid-major terms) in hoops. But it's not. It's a basketball conference only in the sense that most OVC fans care more about hoops than pigskin. This isn't reflected in on-court success.
I'm over the realignment conspiracy theories. It was fun when it seemed like there was hope. Now we're just stuck. On the plus side, our hoops have improved enough to make us competitive in the OVC... and our football team has backslid just enough to do the same. Now we can be on pins and needles every game, even when we're playing some of the worst teams in the country.
...not to mention 2 schools from Mississippi. Beating Delta and the cheaters was always a nice thing to do. I remember yelling "There's no snow today!" from the stands in 1991.
The last paragraph you wrote is painful to read because it is true. We need to get back to mud-holing the weak sisters.
On a side note, it is great to see you back posting, old friend!