Ask The Pageantry

With college football season heading down to the wire Pride Pageantry Derek and I are having our annual debates. Since he came out with the Paul Poll (which doesn't quite encapsulate my view, but it's flattering), I decided to ask him some burning questions about college football that have come into The Poop's mailbag.

1) Why do you call Texas A&M, “Texas ATM”? – J. Smist, Bangor, Maine

Sometimes the best explanations are the most obvious, it has nothing to do with Dennis Franchione’s “fund-raising skills”, this is Texas A&M’s logo:



It looks like it was originally designed to go on somebody’s hand towel. The untrained eye may think the school is actually Agriculture Texas Mining. Hence the name Texas ATM.

2) Is Les Miles gutsy or stupid? Will these risky fourth down calls catch up with him eventually? –B. Raftery, Lincoln Tunnel Vegetable Stand

Les Miles is everything great about college football. He’s brash in both his press conferences and his play calling. I love how he went to Nick Saban at the end of Saturday’s game and said “You have a great team.” Did he mean the current Alabama team or his LSU team? We’ll never know. But here’s the thing, everyone knows Miles wouldn’t last four games in the NFL. In fact, his personality put off so many of the stuffed shirts at Michigan when he was an assistant that if Lloyd Carr doesn’t beat Ohio State in two weeks Miles probably wouldn’t even get his job. Yet for Cajun Nation, he’s perfect. I hope Miles becomes the Paterno or Bowden of LSU, his play calling can only get more mind boggling with age.

3) Why do BC fans call themselves “Superfans?” –K. Sullivan, Brookline, Massachusetts

Because they pack a 100,000 seat stadium and travel all over the country to see their team…um wait…maybe because the title “Superfans” was so unoriginal they were afraid Syracuse was going to come up with it first. (The real history is here.) Better yet, are those T-shirts waiting for students at their dorm upon checking in or do they cost $5 at the bookstore? How does every student get one and how much money does BC lose on Flutie jersey sales because of it?



4) If Kansas wins out by beating Missouri and Oklahoma would they deserve to leapfrog LSU and Oregon in the BCS Standings? – R.C. Jayhawk, Lawrence, Kansas

First of all, they still have to beat “I’m 40!” this Saturday on the road, which would be the Jayhawks’ first tough test 10 games into the season. But the question isn’t about the first 10 games or Kansas’s putrid out-of-conference schedule, it is predicated on Kansas winning the Big XII and in the process gaining two marquee wins (Missouri and Oklahoma). Aside from the fact that both games would be neutral site games leaving the Jayhawks without one marquee road win, not one, this resume would have to be measured against a team with quality wins over Virginia Tech, South Carolina, Florida, Auburn, Alabama and then either Georgia or Tennessee. They would have to score 76 on Oklahoma for them to pass the “eye test” and get voted over Oregon (the best looking team in the country right now with three quality wins). The polls and computer rankings have made college football less about who someone beats and more about who they don’t lose to. When measuring two BCS conference teams, it may be time to rethink that.

5) If Kansas wins the National Championship how long before Mark Mangino has gastric banding and appears on the cover of People Magazine under the headline “I Can See My Toes Again”? – K. Alley, Thousand Oaks, California

So much Kansas talk…anyway. Mangino winning a national championship would be fantastic and I am rooting for it to happen despite the scenario I outline in question 4. If he did the talk show circuit like the Red Sox are doing now, he couldn’t do Regis and Kelly, Jay Leno would have to switch his furniture. No way Mangino goes through the same procedure that almost killed Charlie Weis, that’s not a fun way to die. In fact I think he goes to White Castle induces a heart attack just so he can “go out on top”, literally.