Defending the B's Football Honor

Stewart Mandel has joined the chorus of those picking on Baylor football, calling it the most irrelevant BCS conference team.

First off, the entire Big East is irrelevant, and wins that honor right out the gate, though he does give a cursory member to Temple, a football team so lousy it got kicked out of the Big East. Which is pretty hard to do.

“I defy anyone outside of Big 12 country to name a Baylor player, recent or current.”

OK, I go to the BLS. But how are national football fans not up on the fact that Sepulveda made two straight All-America teams? Sure, it’s as a punter, but I’m hardly going out on a limb saying an All-American is pretty good.

But if we’re running a contest for the worst team over the past ten years, it is clearly Duke. Mandel tries to sidestep that saying there is interest in Duke’s basketball team and therefore people care about their football team, but that’s just a stupid argument. I also can’t really explain how awful Duke is. But I’ll try.

Their last winning season was 1994. Since then, their highest win total is four, which they achieved twice (most recently in 2003). They have lost at least 10 games SIX times in eleven years (including five times in the last seven). Baylor’s only done that once. And Duke has lost every game on its slate FOUR times in those eleven years. Duke hasn’t won a game of any sort since 9/17/05, when they beat the Virginia Military Institute, a Division I-AA school. They haven’t beaten a team with a pulse since they beat (sorry, Jude) Clemson on 11/13/04. That’s 20 straight losses. Twenty. That's four times longer than the B's longest losing streak in the same time period(five, for those of you who aren't good at math).

But you want to discount Duke because they play hoops? Fine. How about Vanderbilt? Baylor hasn’t has a winning season since 1995. Vandy hasn’t had one since Reagan was in his first term: 1982. Half of the readership of this blog hadn’t even been born yet. OK, Vanderbilt does have their annual “we almost beat Bama” game which is kind of fun, but we’re talking about 25 straight losing seasons. Vanderbilt has never, ever won the SEC. Not once. Baylor is like USC compared to that (and their last conference title was, believe it or not, in 1994, though their last outright title was 1980).

However, this Triumvirate of Lousy all of have one thing in common: they are small private schools playing against the big boys. In effect, they all have an excuse to suck. Also, all have a certain level of relevance as the standard by which sucking is measured. You don’t truly suck until you suck like Baylor, Vandy, or Duke. We’re a yardstick of ineptitude.

So I give the honor of complete and total irrelevance to Indiana.

Indiana’s last winning season? 1994. Or, one year before Baylor’s. Since then, IU has churned out a stunning record of faceless mediocrity, overcoming the inherent obstacles that exist when you are a populous state’s flagship university. Oh, nevermind. If Indiana stopped playing football tomorrow, would anyone care? Hell, I doubt even Purdue would care. IU’s last conference title was 1967, and their last outright title was 1945. And that’s their entire trophy room. We’re talking about a program that aspires to have the kind of success Baylor has achieved. We even got them on NFL Hall of Famers: Mike Singletary to zero. Silly Hoosiers, why don’t you go eat some corn?

Besides, if we eliminated Indiana, the Big Ten would actually have ten teams. Everybody wins. Especially those of us who can count.

I’m sick of people picking on Baylor at the very moment they are actually getting slightly better. Stop it or we’ll send Joe Pawelek to your house to punch you in the face. Who, by the way, was second-team All-Big 12 as a freshman. So he obviously sucks.

Stewart Mandel, you’ve made the B’s Enemies List. When we finally do have a winning season, we’re coming for you. Right after I take care of the entire staff of The Sporting News.