College Football ad similitudinum: Eastern Bracket
It's time for something completely stupid.
Hi, everybody! Thanks to the generosity of AlmaOtter and BoilerUp89, it looks like I’m going to be joining the ranks of the “writers” here at the Republic. I’m delighted to have been given the opportunity, and determined to make them regret it.
Let me start with a quick introduction. I have never been an athlete. In fact, I’m about as far from being an athlete as it is possible to be. I played one year of varsity tennis in high school, sucked, and gave it up for drama club. I was a band geek. I’ve never been able to kick a football 40 yards through the air (something I have in common with Ohio State’s punter). But I did develop an unhealthy obsession with college football during my school days in Columbus in the mid-1990s, and let’s face it, there’s no end of material to work with regarding our stupid, beautiful, maddening sport.
So…what am I going to be doing here?
Damage, mostly. But hopefully we’ll have some fun along the way.
Google Translate tells me that “ad similitudinum” is Latin for “to resemble.” And everybody knows that stuff sounds smarter when you say it in Latin, so that’s what I’m going with. In one of the game threads early this season, a poster (apologies, I've forgotten who it was– if it was you, please claim your prize in the comments) asked a fascinating question. Which college football coach, current or former, best embodies their school’s fanbase? I’ve decided to pick that idea up and run with it.
There are several worthy candidates. So we’re going to settle this the old-fashioned way: by polling a collection of random strangers on the internet. You can’t get more scientific than that.
Today, I’m rolling out our first four matchups. Only schools located east of the Mississippi River will be considered here. If AlmaOtter hasn’t come to his senses and revoked my writing credentials, I’ll tackle the western half of the country in a future article. Note that I have not made any attempt to seed the candidates in these matchups, because I know even less about how to accurately seed matchups than the College Football Playoff Committee. Also, seeding feels like way too much work.
Record your votes in the comments. Voting will remain open until midnight, EST on Saturday, October 18th (that’s 11:00 PM for you “God’s Time Zone” weirdos). Just give me the names of the winners of each matchup, please. I will tabulate the results, and the “winner” of each face-off will advance to the next round.
Game 1: Bret Bielema (Wisconsin) vs. Tommy Tuberville (Auburn)
Wisconsinites are known for their love of all things cheese. The bigger, rounder, and….orange-r a cheese wheel is, the happier they are. I mean, there is an actual, no-I’m-not-making-this-up Cheese Castle in Kenosha. Barry Alvarez resuscitated an absolutely moribund Wisconsin football program during the early 1990s, and his Badgers developed a deserved reputation as a physical, hard-hitting, brash program. But not even Alvarez embodied that attitude as comprehensively as his successor, Bret Bielema. Armed with a perpetual swagger, “whatcha gonna do about it?” smirk, and a galaxy-class trolling game, Bielema picked up Alvarez’s legacy and ran with it (because, you know, passing just isn’t a Wisconsin thing are you paying attention, Luke Fickell!!!??). It probably didn’t hurt his standing with Wisconsin fans that, much like a cheese wheel, Bielema is also big, round, and orange.
Auburn fans are used to perpetually living in Alabama’s shadow. Alabama fans look at Auburn fans like they’re poor, unwashed, and unwanted relations (so, you know, basically the same way the rest of the country looks at Alabama). Auburn has always had to get by on whatever Alabama didn’t want. Alabama got Nick Saban, and whatever you think about him as a person, he’s arguably the most successful college football coach of all time. Auburn had Tommy Tuberville—derpy, awkward, and just a little bit off. At least those qualities stood him in good stead when he embarked on his quest to become the dumbest man in the U.S. Senate.
Game 2: Dabo Swinney (Clemson) vs. Greg Schiano (Rutgers)
Look, there’s just no way to minimize Dabo Swinney’s accomplishments at Clemson--and believe me, I’d love to. He led the Tigers to two national championships in the playoff era, as well as several other playoff appearances. But you get the sense that if he weren’t Clemson’s coach, he’d either be a revival preacher or a used-car salesman. And Tiger fans would eat it up either way.
In the other corner, it’s the State University of New Jersey. Home to the Jersey Shore, leather jackets, slicked-back hair, and godawfully grating accents. No one in Rutgers’ “storied” history (sure, let’s go with that) has led them to the heights that Greg Schiano has—in either of his stints as head coach. From the perpetual scowl to the chiseled chin, he’s New Jersey all the way.
Game 3: Mario Cristobal (Miami) vs. Charlie Weis (Notre Dame)
The tens of fans that follow the Miami Hurricanes have a certain reputation. Sure, they live in a tropical paradise (though one that’s going to be underwater in a couple of decades thanks to global warming), and they’re often well-dressed, rich, and attractive. But there’s just something indescribably, inappropriately smug about them, especially since their team hasn’t achieved anything of note since Ohio State broke them in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl. Mario Cristobal looks slick, confident, and ready to party at a moment’s notice. But there’s the lurking fear he’s going to call a draw play instead of just kneeling out the clock, leading to a fumble that plunges the hearts of ‘Cane fans back into purgatory.
One of my major beefs with Marcus Freeman is that he’s too damned likeable to be Notre Dame’s head coach. A Notre Dame coach should inspire proper hatred among all true Big Ten loyalists. Notre Dame fans, on the other hand, have a well-founded reputation for unjustified arrogance, particularly since their most recent national championship (1988) is a lot closer to the time when the U.S. flag still had 48 stars on it than it is to the present day. If there is any Notre Dame coach who embodies that aura of unfounded arrogance and self-confidence, it is Charlie “decided schematic advantage” Weis.
Game 4: John L. Smith (Michigan State) vs. Ed Orgeron (LSU)
Fans of other Big Ten teams often chortle “Sparty, No!” every time Michigan State loses a game. But that’s not the proper usage of the term, something that MSU fans are quick to point out. “Sparty, No!” requires a specific set of circumstances, a tragic (or hilarious, depending upon one’s perspective) event or sequence of events that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory (see: the blocked punt fiasco at Ohio State in 2005, the Notre Dame meltdown in 2006 that inspired Mike Valenti’s epic radio rant, the entire fourth quarter of the 2023 Rutgers game…you get the idea). MSU collects these sorts of disasters like Ash Ketchum collects Pokémon. To be an MSU fan is to always be waiting for the other shoe to drop—probably onto your head from a great height. Whether he was screaming “the kids are playing their tails off, and the coaches are screwing it up!” or slapping himself during a press conference, if you were trying to put a face on “Sparty, No!”, that face would belong to John L. Smith.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is home to gumbo, natural disasters, and a Cajun vernacular so thick that it can be very hard for speakers of Midwestern English to understand. LSU’s fanbase embraces this dialect with enthusiasm, so much so that they manage to insert three vowels and an “x” into the word “go.” Ed Orgeron has to be the embodiment of the LSU fanbase, insofar as he may be the only coach capable of communicating with them in their native tongue. And no, it doesn’t matter how hard Brian Kelly tries, he’s never getting there.
Who’s going to advance to the next round? The power is in your hands, people. Use it wisely.
