October already? ...and rambling about football

Is it really October already? Seems September slipped by while I was waiting for better football games to come. Hopefully October will bring a fresh start for Tennessee. This has been an odd football season, to say the least. Who would have ever thought that, next to LSU, Kentucky would be the highest ranked SEC team? And South Carolina just below Florida? (South Carolina is overrated if you ask me...) It seems certain teams are climbing the polls through attrition more than anything. And in defense of my Tennessee Volunteers, who are getting no love from the AP poll, their two losses were to Florida and Cal, currently ranked 3rd and 9th, and yet they remain unranked. I guess if they beat Georgia they should jump to the middle of the top 25 like South Carolina did.

And while I'm fussing about South Carolina let me share one of my biggest pet peeves... I hate when you are listening to a football game on the radio and the announcers keep referring to the team as "we" instead of South Carolina, or Tennessee, or whoever. You are an announcer, and while you may solely cover South Carolina, you are not part of the team and shouldn't call them we. Maybe I'll give a pass to the former player who is now an announcer, but for tubby in the press box eating his cold cuts and watching the game in the air conditioning, no you are not part of the team, so act like a professional and not a fan and call the game right. (Maybe I was spoiled by John Ward calling games for Tennessee and the class of broadcasting he brought.)

Also, I hate to tell South Carolina, but their little magic show set to 2001 is not "the most exciting entrance in college football," as the announcer said Saturday as I listened to the start of the game on the radio. Sure, I guess it's unique, but I've been to two games in the three years we've lived in Columbia (both UT wins) and I find myself thinking, "I've seen this magic trick before. He's hiding in the base." And how can nine guys running in with flags spelling out Gamecocks after a chicken magically appears in a box to the theme of 2001 compare to running through the T at Tennessee, of Bevo leading the team in at Texas, or dotting the I at Ohio State, or the Sooner's stagecoach or Purdue's largest drum in the world, or Howard's Rock in Clemson? I could go on and on... but thankfully I won't. Just had to get that off my chest.

(OK, here's a collection of team entrances, and they do hype South Carolina and Virginia Tech as the two best, so go, watch and you be the judge...)