Avowed “gator-hater” and Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist, Mark Bradley, recently authored a column ranking the SEC’s most obnoxious fans. Naturally, Bradley, an unabashed Georgia Homer, has been forced to sit-through more than a dozen ***kickings meted out by the hated orange blue, who, incidentally, have managed to harness their annual beatdown of his Bradley’s beloved bulldogs into two national titles during this period. In what can only be characterized as a bazaar happenstance, Bradley has ranked the Florida Gator fan base as the SEC’s most obnoxious.
While it would be easy to point out the subjective folly of Bradley’s premise, which is ludicrous on its face, his column has caused SNL no small amount of introspection as SNL, a veteran of a number of SEC roadtrips, tries to ferret out which SEC fans are worthy of the “most obnoxious” label.
For ease of discussion, SNL takes for granted that SEC fans are far and away the most passionate fan bases in college football. This is not to say that fans of OSU, Michigan, USC, Texas and other CFB behemoths are not the equal of any single SEC school, but simply that the SEC, from top-to-bottom, is incomparable for football fanaticism.
1. In General: To have a global understanding of SEC fans, it is necessary to generally understand the south in a DEE-MO-GRAPHIC-SENSE. Our omnipotent Yankee brethren are quick to point out the the South is a vast wasteland of the uneducated, living off of mayonnaise sandwiches, slurping various colored soda beverages, and using cigarrettes as dipping sticks for their ranch dressing. Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be), there is more than a grain of truth to the carpetbaggers general opinion.
Do you mind if we root for your school?
The truth, however painful, is that the deep south is largely without a middle class. Which means that the vast majority of people in the region are dirt-ass poor. The irrefutable corollary is that there remains a discernable and self-replicating aristocracy, made up largely of the ancestors of the landed gentry, who continue to lord over the South much as their great-granparents did 100 years ago.
Don’t believe me? Take Georgia, the home of Bradley, for example. Georgia has Atlanta, a great city by all accounts. Full of culture, diversity, and considered by many of its opiated populace to be the “Paris of the South.” Fine, Atlanta is cool. But from Atlanta, strike out in any direction with a full-tank of gas and you might see this:
The point of this is not to deride Georgia, but to highlight the fact that the South is full of rural types (fine, rednecks)-ergo, ipso facto, each SEC school has a contingent of fans who are somewhat slovenly, uneducated, and often seen fleeing the police to the tune of “Bad Boys.”
In Mississippi, the squalor and desolation of the average resident is palpable, and yet Oxford is a conglomeration of BMW’s and upper-middle class indulgence, a veritable ”oasis” for the offspring of the state’s few well-to-do. Does anyone really believe that Alabama and Louisiana, routinely among the poorest (and fattest) states in the nation, are any different? Even Florida, home of South Beach and 8 professional sports franchises, is eerily rural, and therfore similarly plagued, from Gainesville north. And the Florida panhandle, where your host lived for some time following law school, is rife with illiteracy, litter, pregnant teenagers, rebel flags and overall, every bit as squalid and depressing as its southern counterparts-unless, of course, you’re at the beach!
2. The Students: Naturally, any reasonable discussion begins with the fact that we are talking about thousands of people aged 18-25, who more often than not, drink to excess and exhibit the typical traits associated therewith. In a nutshell, this means simply that the students are obnoxious, drunk, and quick to assault the opposing fanbase with the usual “my team is better than yours, your girls are slutty and ugly while ours are gorgeous and chaste” diatribe.
Which segues nicely into this nugget: The SEC co-eds are HOT, HOT, HOT!!! The only conference that even approaches the SEC for girls is the PAC-10, which in the aggregate, is comparable, but loses ground when factoring the granola crowd at the Oregon schools and to a lesser extent, Washington and Stanford. But let’s not lose the forest for the trees as there are distinctions amongst the students at SEC institutions, which though nuanced, are discernable if you look hard enough.
In general, Georgia fans are somewhat more cosmopolitan than their deep south brethren, which is doubtless attributable to the Atlanta influence. Their thin veneer of decency is quickly tossed aside, however, when UF comes to Jax, which brings out the worst, but this can be explained by the aforementioned ass-kickings they’ve endured after almost a century of domination in this series.
In Alabama, fans of Auburn and Nick Satan’s Crimson Tide, fancy themselves to be erudite (they do bring their talking picture boxes to their tailgates), and in comparison to the remainder of the state, they are. But by national standards, this is not a refined bunch. That said the in-state animus amongst the fans of AU and ‘Bama is unparalleled and makes for great sport. Also, the ‘Bama fans ludicrously cling to their national prominence in decades past, despite the fact that they have won nothing since cell phones were invented.
In Oxford (sorry Starkville, you still bring COWBELLS to the stadium for crissake, which is enough to negate you from serious consideration on any level), the fan base is fairly upscale-the Grove is fantastic-which bolsters SNL’s contention that the concentration of wealth amongst few, most of whom are Ole Miss alums, gives rise to a presentable, though small, fan base. Ole Miss fans are also generally pleasant because, well, they ain’t too good at football!!!
Baton Rouge, fed by the insanity that is N’Aleens, is an ecclectic group characterized by their unified goal of drunkenness-which, unlike most of their peers, is shared equally by the alums.
Tennessee, which benefits from Nashville (don’t even pretend anyone from Tennessee can get into Vandy), is somewhat similar to Georgia-hot girls, nice alums, but a pretty belacose (look it up) student body.
South Carolina: As gracious a student body as I’ve seen. It is difficult to determine whether this is due to their begrudging acceptance of their fate in the SEC east, which tantamount to being a dumpy librarian with four super-model sisters, or whether they’re just nice folks.
Florida, fed by the four major metro areas of Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando and Jax, is another eclectic and evolving fanbase with a discernable schism amongst the latecomers, raised on Spurrier’s flogging of the league, and the old-timers who still feel actual pain when Lindsay Scott’s name is mentioned. Overall, Florida’s students, however, are every bit as drunk and idiotic as their peers on any given Saturday.
Arkansas/Kentucky/Vandy: Don’t know, never been, not going, don’t care. I met some Arkansas folks in the ATL a few years back who were okay, so I’ll give the whole group a pass.
Next: The Rankings
Dr. Saturday’s most recent post centers on Atlanta oil tycoon , Tex Pitifeld, and more specifically, Mr. Pitfield’s position on Saturday’s UGA v. Bama game, which is as follows:
