golfrewind.com

I'm finally getting around to post in this part of the forum. The greatest time of the year is just around the corner. Since taking care of a golf course course is my occupation, golf is not quite the diversion as it is for many of you; still I love the game - but summer is not my favorite time of year. But when the leaves start changing colors and the preseason predictions have hit the sports magazines, it means 3 things for me; 1)My job gets considerably easier without the 16 hour days 2)Time to get the last rounds of the year in b4 the clubs go in the attic Sept 1st. and 3) It's time to get to the stadiums, break out the tailgate stuff and root for the ole' alma mater!!!

What's your favorite college football team and why? Mine - Michigan State University - Why? I graduated from there and have been a Spartan all my life. Oh yeah, almost forgot, I also met my wife there - I guess that's a good reason too!

This thread should get a lot of action. I know there are a lot of Big Ten fans here. I graduated from the University of Illinois so naturally, I am a Fighting Illini fan. Unfortunately, the football team isn't much to speak about. I think last year, we lost every game except for a lone win against a Division II team. I think I'll wait until college basketball season starts before I start discussing college sports. :D

My wife was born at the Champaign hospital and was raised in a small town called Fisher, about 25 miles from the UI campus. Fisher's school name was the Bunnies!! I never let her forget that.

Hard to ask this since you live in the closest thing to heaven on earth, but do you miss being in Ill in the fall?

We intentially stayed in Mid MI because it was close to both our families (her folks now live in Grand Rapids and I was raised near MSU) and also so we could be just 15 minutes from Spartan Stadium and the campus we both went to college at. Our future plans when the kids are out of school is to attend the MSU-Hawaii game that is scheduled in '06 or '07 (they also play this year, but we couldn't go - darn kids!). I know Hawaii is going to be great, but nothing compares to being so close to the greatest place on earth in the fall - I'm getting pumped just thinking about it

Basketball season is great too - the Illni are probably going to be the favorites in the Big 10(11) this coming season. You guys have been a thorn in the side of the Spartans the last couple of years - I hate when we have to play you guys on the road :mad:

Sorry to say I don't follow college sports. I'm not a real sports man at all, except I watch golf and sometimes hockey (but only really during playoff season). Mostly, I only play golf, but occasionally during the fall I give my basketball net a good month's worth of play until my parents get sick of it and give me the excuse that they don't want me messing up a shot and having to walk on the grass while they're trying to grow it in. Meh, no biggie.

As I've been over before with Ol' Sparty over there, I'm a Michigan fan, have been since birth. Actually, maybe shortly after that, since Woody Hayes punching that kid from Clemson in the '78 (or was it '77) Gator Bowl was my dad's last straw of any kind of respect for Ohio State. After that, it was all Big Blue!!!

I graduated from Bowling Green State University, who has finally brought their football program back from the depths and have had VERY good teams the past 3 or 4 years, including an 8-1 record vs. BCS schools (and had the ball in OSU's territory with a minute left, down 7 last September) since a 2001 win over Northwestern.

And since we brought up the college hoops thing, does anyone know who won the very first game in MSU's Breslin Center?

Ok, I'm going to fall for this bait....I think BGSU beat MSU one year in hoops, but I don't think it was the first game in the Bres, which opened in 1990. Maybe UM won in the first game, as we might have opened it after the preconference schedule was over. I do know for a fact we won the Big 10 that year and was a No. 1 seed for the NCAA b4 we lost the controversial game against Georgia Tech. I tried to do quick search for who won the first game in the Breslin, but didn't find the info. So go ahead tony, fill me in. And like I said, we ended up winning the conference that year and went fairly deep in the big dance, so the old saying that 'it's not how you started, it's how you finish' applies here!!!

One last bit of trivia - Woody punched the guy in the '78 Gator bowl. I remember watching it and saw Hayes punch the guy. Even after the replays, Keith Jackson pretended to not to have seen it as he never commented on Hayes's behavior. But the rest of the country saw it and my mouth dropped to floor in disbelief. And I hated Woody too because he was personally responsible for putting State on probation in 1975 after we beat his greatest team ever in '74. In some ways, we never have totally recovered from that probation.

according to my sources in the BG circles, it was BG that won the first game at the Breslin Center. (If it helps your quick search, a guy by the name of Clinton Venable hit the game winner at, or close to, the buzzer. :) ) And when you're a mid-major, you know how you're gonna finish, so you take pride in swatting the big boys when you can!! Even as a huge U-M fan, I was at the game in BG a few years ago when they beat Michigan, and it was AWESOME!!! Also did radio play-by-play in college, and did a win over OSU in hoops (when they were REALLY bad), and a win over Mizzou in football.

And I'm 7 1/2 days away from moving out of Woody Land. These people in Columbus are sick when it comes to OSU!! Sick, I tell you!!!

I definitely miss it from time to time. I went to most of the UH home games last year but it doesn't compare to Big Ten football. The problem is, our games don't sell out and there isn't the great student support for the team because UH is mostly a commuter school. On the bright side, you don't need 8 layers and we play a lot of night games but then again, Hawaii uses 4 or 5 receiver sets mostly and with all the incomplete passes, games can go LATE in the night.

I forgot that UH and MSU actually have that arrangement. I know UH and Northwestern are supposed to play, too. Should be interesting. June Jones runs a high octane offense and it should be a shootout.

You didn't throw that last bit in there to remind me of how the Spartans broke that Illini home winning streak did, you? The best atmosphere for a college basketball game I ever attended was at Assembly Hall in 2001 for the Illini/MSU game. I believe both teams were ranked in the top 5 and it was later the Sportscenter Showcase for that night. Just had to throw that in there.

Why?: Sooner born, Sooner Bred . . . not yet Sooner dead.

Despite the resentment that Ohio State's thrashing of other Big Ten opponents over the years has generated, it is still the premier team in the conference! Go Buckeyes!

I won't even dignify the criticism of Columbus and Woody Hayes with a response.

Oh, I almost forgot: I had to become a Notre Dame fan when I married into an Irish family 25 years ago! I really have a penchant for selecting the most hated teams in college football, don't I?

Geaux Tigers!! LSU all the way! 2003 National Champions! We bleed Purple and gold down here !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, I got to hear a lot of "Geaux Tigers!" from LSU fans before the Sugar Bowl (not this year's) when they played the Illini. Anyway, it wasn't a good way to start off the year for me but I'm sure LSU fans thought differently. Anyway, you definitely have a lot to cheer about. Looks like Saban's building a fine program there. I've read they brought in another great recruiting class this year.

Yes they have, the nice thing is that more and more local boys are staying because of Saban. Hope they can repeat, or at least get to play the spartans. The championship game last year should have been USC and LSU. Hope they can fix this problem.

I should qualify my statement of Woody - I hated him while I was growing up during high school. One of kids that grew up next door from me got a job at Channel 6 (I think) in Columbus after graduation as a production engineer. One day he calls me up and says 'guess who I met today at the station?' So I ask who and he says "Woody and he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet". I couldn't believe it. At the time I liked hating him and couldn't stand the fact that he could also be a good person ESPN Classic did a very fine biography on him and the passing years have mellowed my opinion on him. You can't help to appreciate the many great things he did in helping young men in life and really opening the door for minority students at OSU - as conservative as Woody was, he didn't have a prejudice bone in his body - he helped everyone and never cared what color their skin was. He's a lot like Bobby Knight - you kinda of love him and hate him at the same time.

I joined the military right after high school and was stationed in Wichita, Ks from 1976-1980. Since no college team in Kansas at the time was worth following, I always tuned in listening to the OU games on radio - only a few of their games were televised back then. In '77 a friend of mine and I went down to Tulsa to watch the OU-Texas game on a big screen overhead in Oral Roberts University's B-ball arena (the Maybee Center?-something like that.) All I remember is that Texas ended up having to play their 3rd string QB that game. On a golf side note - afterwards we visited Southern Hills (where the US Open was held that year - Hubbie Green won), went right in the clubhouse and asked the people if they minded if we just walked around the course a little. They couldn't have been nicer, gave us an Official U.S. Open scorecard, a regular scorecard and a US Open program and we walked 10, 11 and 12 and then back up to the clubhouse. I still have that stuff they gave us.

Barry Switzer, the wishbone, Billy Sims, David Overstreet, the Selmon brothers- great teams. Can't remember the other running back and the QB those years - I remember JC Watts, but he wasn't the QB the years I am thinking of. In '77-78, OU had the fastest backfield in the history of college football and wouldn't throw the ball to save their lives! Now lwc, I'm going to test your age and your Sooner trivia with this, but I'll never forget one year against Nebraska, OU was down late in the 4th quarter and had like a 3rd and 20 something fairly deep in their own territory. You had to think that surely they would pass the ball in this situation, but no, they handed the ball to Simms who broke it for 30 yards, got the first down and later in the drive scored a go ahead TD. Never laughed so hard in my life - they were going to run that Wishbone Option no matter what!