ShareThisMany in the college football intelligentsia have cooed over the rise this early season of schools that actually graduate their players.And yes, it is stunning to see the likes of Wake Forest and Vanderbilt ranked and Duke, Northwestern and Stanford (a combined 12-5) with winning records while such football factories as Tennessee, Michigan and Clemson (a combined 7-11) can't even get a single Associated Press Poll vote.But this "Revenge of the Nerds'' theme isn't going to turn the BCS standings upside down. Quite the contrary. Like the evil, preppy Omegas from that 1984 classic, the truest indicator of college football success is its fans' ability to party.Want to sign that big-time quarterback? Make sure your frat guys can down plenty of tequila shots. Need a game-changing linebacker? Make sure your scantily clad coeds wind up in Maxim magazine.The proof lies in the annual Princeton Review's annual ratings of the top party schools in the nation. The magazine surveys 120,000 students annually to figure out which school winds up the most wasted each year.This year's winner was Florida. And having experienced a couple of Gainesville hangovers, it's hard to argue the choice. And by the way, the Gators, fifth in this week's A.P. poll, are also the only school in the nation to win a national title in the 1990s and the 21st century. UF students will drink to that.Elsewhere, winning and partying go hand-in-hand. Texas, the new No. 1 team in the nation this week, lands 8th on the Princeton Review list. Second ranked Alabama gets hosed by the Princeton folks at No. 19 (trust us, way too low). Penn State is third in the nation in both football and partying. Georgia (10 in A.P., 7 by Princeton) enjoys similar symmetry.The biggest surprise in the Princeton list is No. 6 Randolph-Macon College, a Division III school with an enrollment of 1,176 located in Ashland, Va., about 15 miles north of Richmond. The Yellow Jackets are 2-3 following a 28-16 loss to Washington & Lee -- no doubt leading to much drowning of sorrows around campus.Times were much better last year when RMC went 8-2, the best record of any college in Virginia and marking the biggest turnaround in the nation after the Jackets went 2-8 in 2006.At least Randolph-Macon plays football. Princeton's No. 9 school, California-Santa Barbara, doesn't even have a football team.And once again, West Coast bias shows. The Pac-10 gets little respect nationally for partying with No. 17 Arizona State the only Princeton pick -- compared to five for the SEC, four for the Big Ten and two for the Big 12. Coincidentally, those three leagues have 10 of this week's A.P. top 15.However just as they are by the feudal NCAA system, this partying-to-success corollary leaves players out in the cold. Think about it. Just about any normal student at these party powers can get busted for any offense and no one really much cares.But if an actual football player crosses that legal line, all kinds of alarms sound. The program is out of control, the media says. Your players are lawless thugs, your rival's fans say. Why can't players behave like in the good old days, out-of-touch alums say?It really is a big stink about nothing.Then again if one really wants to find an odorous smell, just walk through the main drag of any Big Ten, SEC or Big 12 school at about 7 a.m. the Sunday morning after a huge night game the night before.The mounds of garbage, empty beer cans, smashed liquor bottles and various bodily functions and excretions create a scene similar to Oscar-winner George C. Scott's assessment of battlefield carnage in "Patton.''"I love it. God help me, I do love it so.''UPSET PICK: Mississippi State got us to 3-4. And .500 awaits when No. 11 Missouri, a 6-point underdog, gets off the deck to stun top-ranked Texas Saturday night in Austin.LINDSAY'S LOSER: After being told he was pretty much fired, Clemson coach Tommy Bowden stepped down Monday. Tommy (72-45 in 10 years at Clemson) is now the second of Florida State icon Bobby's sons to be bounced midseason (Auburn canned Terry Bowden in October, 1998).That part we get. But then there's the cheap shot of Clemson QB Cullen Harper who said "(the firing) is what he deserved.''Of course, this is the same Harper who was preseason choice as ACC offensive player of the year and has already equaled last year's interception total (six vs. only four TD passes after throwing a school-record 27 last year). And we're sure Harper had no axe to grind following Bowden's final decision to bench him for the Georgia Tech game Saturday in favor of freshman Willy Korn.(John Lindsay is sports editor for Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com. Contact him at lindsayj(at)shns.com)
Want to win? Party harder
Submitted by SHNS on Tue, 10/14/2008 - 18:41
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