Nebraska Vrs. Colorado

[GreatestShowOnEarth]

oops i forgot to do this (sarcasm)....

Every one of the major confrences is competitive. You cant really argue which one is better...so DONT!

[knapplc]

My first post was serious, my second was a little tongue-in-cheek. Maybe I used the wrong icon to indicate that. There are big rivalries outside the SEC. But it takes such games to even rival a normal SEC atmosphere at the prominent SEC programs. If you take the top SEC teams - Auburn, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee. Match any of those two up. The atmosphere is greater or equal to that of any game in America. Collectively, you can't beat it. Some years you may even include Ole Miss and Arkansas into that goup. Some of you have stated that some fans in the south don't believe that football exists outside of the SEC. That furthers my point. It doesn't exist...to them. It's all that matters to them.

Which is exactly why they don't understand college football. If you take such a myopic view of the sport you'll never learn anything. To say that the SEC has SO much more atmosphere than any other game in any other conference is just nuts. It's a great conference with some great fans and some really good games, but there's nothing more and nothing less special in the SEC than Texas/Oklahoma, Michigan/Ohio State, Cal/Stanford or any other marquee matchup across the nation.

It's like reading the middle 200 pages of War and Peace and saying that it's the best part of the novel. You've read some good stuff, but there's way more that you haven't seen that would also knock your socks off.

[gogogadget]

The people that only care about SEC football are not making the argument that it has the best atmosphere in the NCAA. I am. I have lived in Iowa for three years and I have attended an Oklahoma - Oklahoma St game. I am making the argument. I say the fact that SEC football is life to some folks where I live now(Northern Ga.) adds to the atmosphere to an SEC game.

[Free Bagel]

I'm sorry, but it's not exactly just biased SEC fans saying the SEC has the best atmosphere. There are countless articles that all affirm the same thing. It's no coincidence that in ESPN's college stadium rankings (along with Sportis Illustrated among many others) 3 of the top 4 are SEC stadiums that hold 20-40 thousand less people yet are still twice as loud.

What's the nickname for Michigan's stadium outside of Ann Arbor again? Don't they call it the quietest 110,000 people on the planet? I've been to several big games (rivalry games) of top teams outside of the SEC, and also talked to many fans of other big name teams that then came to school down here in Florida and went to a big SEC game and couldn't believe what they were seeing.

Those type of games have great atmospheres, and I know that teams like Ohio State, Texas, Nebraska, etc have storied traditions and great atmospheres (hey what else is there to do in Ohio or Nebraska ) but until you've been to an SEC rivalry game, you really just don't know what you're missing. It's not even necessarily something to be proud of (I mean a part of it is just that there's plenty of drunken hicks from the trailer parks going absolutely nuts...which isn't necessarily a good thing), but it's just the way it is.

[HskrPwr13]

I think what seems to separate the SEC from the other conferences in terms of rivalry is that the level of competition in them is usually pretty equal. Seems like the years that Alabama isnt great, neither is Auburn. When Tennesse has a championship team (obviously not this year), FLA has a championship team. Thats what makes these rivalries seem like they're so much stronger than other ones across the country.
OU v OSU is no big deal nationally because most years OU is clearly the better team. I would argue that when NU and CU were both challenging for titles in the '90s, Memorial stadium rocked as loud as I've heard any SEC stadium. The only reference I have of a Tennessee was against NU in the Fiesta Bowl. Us Husker fans were far more vocal than the Tennessee fans. As a Husker fan, I'll take a back seat to no one in any conference when trying to determine who's loudest, best, etc.
Bottom line, it all comes down to the hype behind the game. If theirs a championship on the line, conference on national, that came is going to be louder, more watched, etc. than if one team is clearly dominant over the other, or if they both suck.