Running CFB playoff thread

It doesn't have to be an anniversary to do it. Just do it for the hell of it as a unique thing.
Although if they wanted to schedule it for 2029 for the 160th anniversary that might could work.

 

In 2015 or so Oregon State broached Duke about playing a 75th anniversary game of the 1942 transplanted Rose Bowl, to be played in 2017 at Wallace Wade. Duke wasn't interested, didn't want to give up the big game with NC Central, or something like that. I think they still hold a grudge for losing.

Interesting trivia: Tommy Prothro coached OSU's last Rose Bowl team (1964 season). he played for Duke in the 1942 game, OSU's only Rose Bowl title.

"Fields of Battle" is a great book about both teams, the pre-game drama, the game itself, and the post-war lives of the players.

 

In Texas, Cowboys are first, right? Then Longhorns football next?

 

Don't know. I specifically didn't mention Texas because it's so big, it might be an outlier. Louisiana might be different, too, because of its size with the Saints and LSU. I can't say.

 

The Saints are a big deal in Louisiana, especially New Orleans and Baton Rouge, but LSU and the SEC are still No. 1 by a wide margin. Same with Mississippi. The Saints are pretty popular at least up into the Jackson area, but if you give someone the choice between free tickets to a Saints game or an Ole Miss or Mississippi State game I'll put folding money on them taking the college game eight times out of 10.
I think the Shreveport area is more Cowboys country than Saints country, as well.

 

I sort of left Mississippi off my list because I wasn't sure. I felt pretty certain north of I-20 was a solid college lock, but I'm not familiar enough with the southern part of the state to comment.
I guess Louisiana is sort of an odd mix because New Orleans and Baton Rouge are so close together. Even if not by physical miles, my guess is Shreveport and New Orleans are pretty distant.

 

Shreveport to New Orleans is 320 of the worst driving miles imaginable. I’ve done it too many times down and up.

The cultures are completely different between North and South. The North is practically an extension of East Texas.

 

I've posted this here before I think, but the oddity is that Boston, the world's biggest college town, is the country's worst college sports town precisely because there are so many schools here that the potential fan base for a big school is atomized. BC is the only FBS football school, but the grads of BU, Northeastern, UMass, MIT, Harvard, etc. are not about to ever root for BC in anything.

 

Plus, what percentage of Bostonians actually went to any of those schools? All either highly selective and/or private. I checked, UMass has 73 percent in-staters. Higher than I thought.

 

Northeastern and BU have thousands and thousands of alums in greater Boston.

 

Northeastern and BU are private but large, and both aggressively market their graduate programs.