Since I live in Boise and my dad has season tickets for BSU, I’ve been following college football more closely. It’s hard, though. Know why?
Because they won’t give colleges different @#$%ing names!
“I thought Boise already played Idaho?”
“No, they played Idaho State University. This is the University of Idaho.”
“THAT’S THE SAME @#$%ing THING!”
If I call this Frank’s Blog, is someone going to correct me and say, “No, this is the Weblog of Frank.”? No, because they both mean the same thing. And could someone come out with a fast food chain called “Of McDonald” and not get sued? So why can’t colleges which cost millions of dollars and teach thousands of people be bothered to come up with actual different names? It’s all over, too. Like there’s Florida State University and University of Florida. I know one of those teams is the Gators (and I guess the other is probably the Alligators), but how am I supposed to keep track of which one? I bet even the players get confused when teams with names like that play each other. Perhaps the fans even leave the stadium not quite sure if their team won or lost.
You don’t get this problem with Ivy League schools.
“So he went to Harvard University like you?”
“No! He went to the University of Harvard.”
So that’s what those extra tens of thousands of dollars pay for.
“You don’t get this problem with Ivy League schools.”
Mostly…
The best way to get under the skin of a UPenn grad is to ask them about Joe Paterno.
My dad was a police officer in Boise when I was a little girl. I remember he used to bring us to the Boise State games when he would patrol them. Now I’m in Arizona and got to see when Boise beat OU at the Fiesta Bowl. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. (Family’s still in Boise. I’m still a BSU fan.)
If they have to come up with more original names for schools, they may have to resort to actually, gasp, naming their schools after people who did something. Professors can’t have that, at least the ninety nine percent of professors who will never discover anything useful, during their careers. They don’t need us reminding us their is a one percent that can make a useful discovery every time they step out of the shower.
I went to Harvard State.
Let me help you with this. The only “Idaho” University you need to pay attention to is The University of Idaho, in the small north Idaho town of Moscow (Pronounced MoSS Kow). Do not confuse this town with Moscow (Pronounced Mosk-Va) Russia. Both are infested with communist, Love harry women, and are from territories know as “Red States”. Just our version of red state is different than theirs. The easiest way to tell which Moscow you are in is by asking the drunken person closest to you (in both places they are everywhere). If they say they are a student, then you are in Moscow, Idaho. If they tell you they are the Prime Minister, then you are in Russia.
The University of Idaho football team are called “The Vandals”. They are easily identified by their gold and black uniforms. The University of Idaho Alumni are also easily spotted. You can recognize them as the only person in your office not having any BSU paraphernalia in their work area. It is also noted they will not display any U of I stuff either, not even their Degree, for fear of reprisals. They are also especially quiet the day after the BSU/UI game.
Now Idaho State University is a smaller university in the small eastern Idaho town of Pocatello. Their football team is, the Bangles. I think their colors are white and orange, and college fight song is “Walk like an Egyptian”. I don’t know because I never pay attention to that game. I’ve seen “Faces of Death XXVII” I know what a senseless slaughter looks like.
ASU = Arizona State University
UA = University of Arizona
………You can tell by the abbreviated lettering.
NOTE: I am just starting to read Amity Schlaes: “The Forgotten Man” a new history of the great depression. Its a must read given todays circumstances.
“So he went to Harvard University like you?”
“No! He went to the University of Harvard.”
A similar situation happened to me when I spoke to an Ohio State alum.
Me: “So you went to Ohio State?”
Him: “No, I went to THE Ohio State University.”
The guys that run around on the Smurf Turf are the only ones that matter. ISU and Idaho are irrelevant. Anybody that confuses them is also irrelevant. Smack their heads together like the Three Stooges and be done with it.
Now for the weird metaphysical aspect of all this – Frank moves to Idaho, where his dad has season tickets to BSU, where a few years ago there was a stud running back named Brock Forsey, who has a brother named Nick Forsey who has a friend with the blog-handle “innominatus” who posts stupid comments on Frank’s blog.
Oh, Marko, don’t get me riled… There’s a group called NIRSA that sponsors intramural sports events all over the country, and my company does the awards for the winners. Ohio State got all freaked out ‘cuz we didn’t put the “THE” in their name and demanded the awards be redone.
You should know, innominatus, that I will be e-mailing that story to my tOSU friend before the PSU-tOSU game next year.
Same thing here in CA. I got into a discussion with my son about the state college in Hayward, and he explained, no it’s not UC Hayward, it’s Hayward State. Yep. Same thing here in San Jose, apparently, it’s not UCSJ, it’s San Jose State.
Innominatus. I can tell you arent from Boise. Here is a compairson of local dialect:
Person not from Boise: “There was this player named Brock Forsey.”
Person from Boise: “There was this player who was one of the greatest Running backs in college history. Second only to Emmet Smith in rushing yards, and one of only three people to ever make over 30 touchdowns in a season, named Brock Forsey. I remember him when he played down the road at Centennial High.”
Marko, when that game’s over, and PSU is in their locker room picking bits of vanquished buckeye out of their cleats, that distant sound you hear will be me pointing towards tOSU and giving my best Nelson Muntz “Har Har” impersonation.
#10 BRS – You’re right. I’m in Corvallis. A few days ago I was thinking ROSE BOWL! and now I’m thinking about changing my name and denying I ever went to Oregon State. Gack.
But I didn’t know Brock was that good! I’m kinda surprised his brother hasn’t mentioned more about it.
So let me get this straight. The state university calls them taters and the state university calls them taters? or is it the state university calls then spuds and the university of state calls them spuuds?
And now the big question, Idaho has 2 universities or 2 football players?
Oh! hooked!
We took care of the problem in Iowa by having 1 real university (U of Iowa) with big boy graduate programs and big boy foot ball teams and 1 fake school (Ia State) where the smell of hogs is overwhelming…and then there is the Vet. school…
I’m sorry, ussjc, but there is no University of Iowa. And this “University of Iowa” did most certainly not play the Penn State Nittany Lions this year.
Welcome back, Frank! Your humor was missed and is a nice distraction.
He grew up with the guy. He probably doesn’t think about it much. I’m guessing he didn’t say his sister is exceptionally good looking either. (Seriously, Drop Dead Beautiful). Brock on the other hand, for all his talent and impressive accomplishment on the Smurf Turf, never once did it ever go to his head. Great guy. He now works for a title company outside of Boise.
Corvallis… To quote the Great Sean Connery from The Last Crusade . “You’re a Pilgrim in an unholy land”. Beautiful area but infested with hippies. And not your normal hippies. You have College-know-it-all Hippies. You must have carpel tunnel from punching all the time.
My last comment was a responce to #14
One way to help distinguish between University of Florida and Florida State University.
If they say “I enjoy watching the Seminoles”, they are an FSU alum.
If they say “Derr, derr, derr… boy howdy Gators whoooo-wee, Dukes of Hazzard is the best movie ever, ya’ll” they are a UF alum.
Keep this guide handy.
You know what else makes it hard to follow? The rules… Like how two teams can play in a championship game (OU and Mizzou) when they were both beaten by the same team (UT). As a Longhorn myself, I’m only slightly embittered by this.
I understand your confusion. However in the state of Indiana there has long been a simple solution. As the mascot of Indiana University are called Hoosiers, and anyone born in Indiana is generally considered to be a hoosier, the confusion can often be perplexing. Since I am not a freaking moonbat liberal and went to PURDUE, I am a hoosier by birth, a BOILERMAKER by the grace of God.
@#11:
It’s actually Cal State Hayward. There’s 2 university systems in California; The University of California System, and the California State University System. The only real CSUs with decent football teams are Fresno State (GO DOGS!), and San Jose State. Cal (UC Berkeley) and UCLA are the only 2 UCs with decent teams.
Hell, UC Santa Cruz doesn’t even have sports, but they have the Banana Slug as a mascot. If you’ve never seen a banana slug, think of your ordinary garden slug, but 6″ long, 1″ in diameter, and bright yellow.
Oh, it’s even worse than you think Frank. Not only do you have universities within the state with similar names – sometimes they mix up the letters just to make sure everyone os confused.
The University of Colorado must be UC right? Wrong! It’s CU. The University of Oklahoma isn’t UO – it’s OU.
This year Fresno wasn’t up to where they are normaly. Which is sad since they normaly do real well in the WAC. Everyone in Boise usualy will watch that game. Fresno and Hawaii are the only two team that stand in our way from having a perfect season in the WAC.
As an ex-Husky (who let the dogs out?), I’m really surprised at all this confusion about teams. I just know that my team – like the Seattle Phony Seabirds, – will probably lose to all the two- and three-letter mnemonics out there. I don’t care about them either! La Losers!
We do things right in Alabama. There is Auburn an excellent school (who just had an aweful football season and canned a damn good coach who was ranked in the top three in the schools history) and then that other school Alabama ( whose fans have finally come out of the woodwork and begun to wear their Bear Bryant uniforms). We will miss you Tubberville. War Damn Eagle!!!!!
I have to say, I never thought I would ever say this, but Go Gators!!!
Sorry, typing on my IPHONE 3G at work blows!
I should be able to help clear some questions in the prior posts regarding spuds because I are one. First, in regard to ISU which in their favor some folks confuse with Iowa State or some other name brand the Bangals are actually the Bengals. This is a specie of extinct tiger known for its ferocity. The Bengals of ISU are located in Pocatello. Pocatello was named after an Indian Chief by the name of Pocatello. Pocatello was a bad ass the killed many whites, primarily Mormons who were sent by Joseph Smith to populate the forest. Some believe Pocatello didn’t kill enough of them but I personally like having Mormons around because they all practice storing enough food to last at least one year. When things get rough during the Obama years there will always be Mormon villages to raid because that is where the food is.
The University of Idaho, UI is located in Moscow, Idaho and field an athletic team known as the Vandals. This is an extict tiger known for its ferocity. Vandal fans insist on promoting their sports programs around the state and using up good radio time that could otherwise be used for lisening to Michael Savage or anything actually. They also promote Vandal sports paraphenalia that is as exciting to consider buying as Obama for King sweats. In Moscow you will find Vandal and Obama for King Sweats in roughly equal distribution.
The Boise State Broncos are located in Boise, Idaho which is a suburb of Eagle. The Bronco’s are named after a horse that appears as a wild mustang that evolved from an extict tiger known for its ferocity. The Bronco Athletic program has brought more excitment to Idahoans in the last couple of years than did the Vandals and Bengels combined for the last fifty. Not that its not important to have sports programs because every place needs something to rally behind and young people need to have someplace to go to make eye contact and learn the mating rituals which insure tenure to professors who extol praise for Obama.
Sports are especially important becouse it helps young people everywhere to keep their minds off books and figuring out what the hell is going in such issues as soverignity, the constitution, individual rights, socialism, communism, the state vs the individual, God, and a host of other trivia that are irrelavent to the important things in life.
USSJC, gotta say, man, carping about your iPhone 3G is like whining that your big fat wad of cash makes it hard to fold your wallet.
Only Idaho Spud could relate sports to things like:
“…soverignity, the constitution, individual rights, socialism, communism, the state vs the individual, God, and a host of other trivia that are irrelavent to the important things in life.”
Yeah, innominatus, and ussjc is typing while going 253 mph… on an iPod… at work? Come on, he’s nippin’ the bottle.
Here in San Diego, we have UCSD (the University of California at San Diego, a prestigious academic institution that doesn’t bother with low, plebeian things like big-time sports), SDSU (San Diego State University, where people from San Diego apparently actually go, pretends to play football and bizarrely claims Marshall Faulk played there despite no evidence that SDSU has an actual football team, and actually has a pretty good basketball team), and USD (The University of San Diego, a private, Catholic school that brags about peace studies but actually plays pretty good I-AA non-scholarship football despite that and pretty good baseball and basketball, too).
I really don’t know a thing about Idaho sports teams, since I lived only a short time in Jerome, but I know beyond all doubt that…
If you ever want to know what it’s like to live in southern Idaho, watch Napoleon Dynamite. It is really like that!
Idaho Spud, that was very informative, I especially like your take on the importance of sport.
As you in Idaho already know, “THE” Boise State University
is also noted for having their football team uniforms , helmets, faces and forearms dyed blue to match the blue shag carpet they play on- which was acquired at a Home Depot close out during the great Astroturf shortage of 2002.
This way, they are able to hide 4 or 5 extra players on the field every down.
THE Boise State University also hosts the Humanitarian Bowl each December,
a free meal for Idahoans sponsored by
The Soylent Green Company whose slogan is,
“Our People Make It Taste So-o-o Good.”
Guys, they color coded the teams for you.
I want a “Harvard State University” t-shirt for Christmas!
#31 Spuds – Your plan has a major flaw. Mormons are conservatives (i.e. likely to take advantage of their second amendment rights). The “Organic” farms run by hippie libtards are much safer targets.
Wait… is this WordPress or Movable type? I know they’re different (like how Obama’s a black socialist, as opposed to the evil marxism that hillary is. Nuances; don’t they just piss you off?).
In short: Where am I!?
I’m just bitter that the Iowa Hawkeyes are getting jobbed by not being ranked as the #1 college football team in America by the BCS! We all know that they are the best and could beat the snot out of any of the loser teams currently in the rankings but the BCS won’t give my team a break! It would seem that it’s how you finish the season (Oklahoma vs Texas) and my team beat Penn State and then slaughtered the hapless Gophers 55 to zero so we say to Oklahoma and Alabama…Bring it biatichs!!!!
Since I live in Ohio (not native) and have to live with this whole “The Ohio State University” thing, here it is so you can all suffer like me.
The “The” in The Ohio State University is IN FACT due to a lwasuit over just the issue here!
Ohio University (a private university) predates OSU. And they sued OSU for trademark infringement over who owns the name “Ohio” for higher education purposes. And they won. And the court ordered OSU to stop calling themselves Ohio State University. “The Ohio State University” is actually a generic name; it’s just one way of calling themselves the state university of Ohio.
OSU wienies started emphasizing the “The” in such obnoxious fashion as a primitive protest against dumbass judicial decisions. So they have that going for them….
The best way to get under the skin of a UPenn grad is to ask them about Joe Paterno.
Or Chuck bednarik.
I went to the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. To make it worse, when I went, they were the Indiana Indians. I hate PC thuggery, but when they compelled them to change the name (Crimson Hawks), I was all for it. Different reasons, of course.
It was either college names, or the toe jam in my pinky toe. I’ll go with toe jam. It’s more satisfying.
This must be a guy thing. Although I like a good football game (especially in the snow-let the hilarity begin) this whole thing doesn’t bother me in the least. I guess that’s just one of the “few” ways man and women are different.
Oh did I write that out loud…….I should have my mind washed out with bleach. Men and women are exactly the same in every way. There are no differences here. These are not the differences you’re looking for (waves hand at guard and motors on).
Okay, how about University of Miami… of Ohio??? I wonder how many unwitting high school seniors thought they’d be headed to Florida when they got THAT acceptance packet? It’s located in Oxford, Ohio, so why those morons didn’t try to name it “Oxford University” to try to fool unwitting englishmen is beyond me. Seriously, “smart” people can be dumb.
There’s also the California University or Pennsylvania.
I think they’re in the D-II playoffs this year.
#46, Miami (Ohio) was formed by professors from a future Pittsburgh who took Doc Brown’s DeLorean back through time to found a school named Miami University in the outskirts of Cincinatti before anyone would think about doing it in Florida, intending to promote college hockey and ensure the existence of Ben Rothlesberger.
DamnCat says:
The University of Colorado must be UC right? Wrong! It’s CU. The University of Oklahoma isn’t UO – it’s OU.
University of Colorado is UC for a very compelling reason (don’t know about OU)
The compelling reason being that Boulder Colorado (and the university within) sucks eggs and is infested with commies, hippies and generic libtards to the point that everything is backwards, upside down and wrong. Spend a day there and you will get carpal punchal syndrome from having to hit a hippy every 35 second.
Brian The Adequate – MS, Organic Chemistry, Colorado State University
(not that piece of info has any real bearing on the feelings expressed in the paragraph previous to it)
I wasn’t going to join the discussion, not being a sports fan, but Dave mentioned that UCSD doesn’t have sports teams because sports are “low” and “plebeian”. Being a UCSD alum I thought I’d correct that. UCSD does not have sports teams because 50% of the student body are pre-meds who are too busy for sports because they are cutting each other’s throats to get the volunteer jobs that will look best on their resumes for med school, and the other 50% of the student body are crunchies exploring their inner lesbian through Oppression Studies or some such thing.
Wacky Hermit, that doesn’t stop Cal from having big-time sports, so it has to be something else :).
UCSB, UCSC, USCD, UCSF, and UC Davis barely have any sports teams because they’re all primarily med schools of one flavor or another. (Davis is a Vet School, and one of the best on the West Coast). Berkeley and LA have teams because they have rivals across town (Stanfurd and the University of Spoiled Children, AKA Watts U), and they’ve been around longer. The CSUs all have teams that play in different divisions, because they have a greater breadth of majors to draw from, even though most of the players are in some kind of sports-related major. You won’t find too many engineers on the football or basketball teams.
When did you move to Boise? Has it been THAT long since I read you regularly? I thought you lived someplace whimpy like Florida.
Wait…I bet you really live in Kuna and just claim to live in Boise. Or worse/better…Mountain Home. You live in Mountain Home don’t you? And you commute to Micron every day. Alternately, you live in Nampa and work at HP on Chinden.
Great, you’re one of them. Bet you live in a McMansion and everything.
My home state has the same issues: MSU (Michigan State University) versus UM (University of Michigan). The difference is that real people who work for a living go to MSU while only a hand few of hippies went to UM and they brag about things like “Hash Bash” and “The Naked Mile”.
Do Y’all know what the “N” on the Nebraska helmets is for? It’s for “Nowledge.”
Pelayo, Tennessee, Class of 1970
When I lived out West a woman noticed my class ring and asked where it was from. I absently said, “UT.” She asked, “Austin?” I replied, “No the Real UT, the one in Knoxville.” She was not amused, but I was.
The lab fee.