Tuesday, April 01, 2008

How could you let me forget the tally?

It occurred to me the other day that I never followed through on a promise. I never bothered to add up the numbers from the weekly college football report.

OK, so it's not timely in any possible way. But maybe you just have a hankering for thinking about college football - a sort of hot stove, if you will.

And if not, just play along anyway.

This was only taken from six weekends; therefore it represents about half of the games I actually watched this season. Bowl games didn't count.

So long as I saw one scrimmage play, that qualified as having "watched" a game.

On with it, already...

I saw every team in each of the following conferences at least once: ACC, Big 12, Big East and the SEC. (Remember, this is just based on the weekends I recorded. I know for a fact that I saw every team in the Pac 10; the one team that didn't show up on the list - Oregon State - I saw play against Washington. I remember the game because they carted UW's stud quarterback, Jake Locker, off in an ambulance. Thankfully, the injury turned out to be nothing serious.)

The team I saw the most - and this surprised me - was Penn State, a total of six times. That's unusual, since we're not in Penn State's market. Or a Big 10 market for that matter.

I saw the following teams five times: Florida, Iowa, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

Of all the I-AA teams, I saw Richmond the most: four times.

Some conferences were woefully lacking. In Conference USA's West Division, I saw only one game from half of the schools (Houston, Tulsa, UTEP) and none from the other half (Rice, SMU, Tulane).

(A quick aside: the last one hurts considerably. Back when good buddy Keith and I battled on NCAA Football on PS2, we built our respective schools into powerhouses. Keith turned Rutgers around - back when turning around Rutgers was laughable - and I did likewise with Tulane. We particularly enjoyed Lee Corso's pronunciation: TOO-lane!)

A similar situation occurred with the MAC West. I saw one game from half the teams (Ball State, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan) and none from the other half (Northern Illinois, Toledo, Western Michigan).

But no conference fared worse than the Mountain West. Were it not for a Utah-TCU game I stumbled upon, I would have seen exactly zero contests from the entire conference. For heaven's sake, I saw more Idaho games than I saw MWC games!

A breakdown by conference:

ACC: Most frequent viewings: 4 (Clemson, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami-Fla., North Carolina, Virginia Tech); least frequent viewings: 1 (North Carolina State)

Big 10: Most frequent viewings: 6 (Penn State); least frequent viewings: 0 (Minnesota)

Big 12: Most frequent viewings: 4 (Colorado, Texas); least frequent viewings: 1 (Baylor, Oklahoma State)

Big East: Most frequent viewings: 5 (Rutgers); least frequent viewings: 1 (Louisville)

Conference USA: Most frequent viewings: 2 (East Carolina, Southern Miss); least frequent viewings: 0 (Memphis, Rice, SMU, Tulane)

MAC: Most frequent viewings: 4 (Miami-Ohio); least frequent viewings: 0 (Northern Illinois, Toledo, Western Michigan)

Mountain West: Most frequent viewings: 1 (TCU, Utah); least frequent viewings: 0 (Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Wyoming)

Pac 10: Most frequent viewings: 4 (Cal, USC); least frequent viewings: 0 (Oregon State)

SEC: Most frequent viewings: 5 (Florida, Tennessee, Vanderbilt); least frequent viewings: 2 (Arkansas)

WAC: Most frequent viewings: 4 (Fresno State); least frequent viewings: 0 (Hawaii, New Mexico State)

Independents: Most frequent viewings: 4 (Notre Dame); least frequent viewings: 0 (Western Kentucky)

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Now, next year we'll have to do it from the start of the season...

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