Do you root for your conference in Bowl Games and March Madness?

To root or not to root. To be rooted for or not to be rooted for.

Every season when college football bowl games start or the NCAA basketball tournament gets underway, you frequently hear people talk about “rooting for teams in the conference.” The argument in favor of that is so the conference “looks good.”

While I can sort of understand that argument, I must say that I don’t just roll over on command when I hear it.

For example, I am a proud University of Nebraska graduate (Class of 1997). At Nebraska, football is king whereas basketball takes a backseat. Sorry, Husker fans. Let’s face it, if the football team went 5-7 and the basketball team made the Sweet 16, football would still be the No. 1 ticket. At other schools, the opposite would be true. At say, Kentucky, the football team could make a BCS bowl game and the basketball team could stumble to a .500. Basketball will always be king.

To take a Big 12 example, in 2007, Kansas’ football team went 12-1 including an Orange Bowl win over Virginia Tech. Three months later, the basketball team defeated Memphis for the NCAA title. However, when I think of the Jayhawks, I think basketball. Why? Because they are consistently good. Whereas football, while it has had a few spikes of success, never has enjoyed sustained success. What I mean by sustained is say 10-year period.

It’s definitely rare to be powerful at both sports. Oklahoma, Texas, Florida and Ohio State have bucked the trend in recent years and have been strong at both sports but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Back to this whole argument of “rooting for your conference so it looks good.” Yes, a strong showing by your conference in bowl games and the NCAA tournament adds credibility for the conference. However, my argument is that if I wouldn’t root for say Oklahoma at any point in the regular season why should I change now? Plus, shouldn’t I be more worried about how my own team does?

Speaking as a Husker fan, in basketball, I root for the Big 12 without reservation. In football, I tend to go back and forth with that belief.

Why?

We haven’t made the NCAA tournament since 1997-1998 and have had four losing seasons since that year. I feel confident about the direction head coach Doc Sadler is taking the team but let’s face it, because basketball is not woven into the culture like football, it’ll take Doc longer than it will football head coach Bo Pelini to get the Huskers among the elite.

That said, I root for the Big 12 across the board because it’s not as if we are a threat to the Big 12 powers and I look at it as “well, if we’re not going to have NCAA tournament success then why not see someone else do it?”

In football, despite our 5-7 to 9-4 turnaround in 2008 under Pelini in his first season, we are obviously not where we are accustomed to being but I don’t think it’s going to be long.

Since other teams are a threat to us, my dislike for say Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Missouri and Kansas State runs deeper. Well, I can respect OU and Texas because while their programs and fan base have a cocky mentality at least they have produced National titles. Colorado, Missouri and Kansas State have not produced didley. Sorry, Colorado, your shared National title in 1990 will not get acknowledged since you needed five downs to beat a sorry ass Missouri team.

I will confess that one time in my life I did root for the Buffs was the 1995 Fiesta Bowl when a 10-1 Colorado team played a 6-4-1 Notre Dame team. Typical of Notre Dame getting bowl game preferential treatment. Damn elitists.

It might be blasphemy for a Husker fan to say this but I was glad to see Colorado kick Notre Dame’s ass 41-24. Another bit of irony with my dislike for the Buffs, one of my favorite Oakland Raiders from when I covered the team as a freelance writer from 1999-2005 was a Colorado Buffalo. He is Greg Biekert. I always admired the consistency in his performance and preparation.

This past bowl game season, I struggled with the idea of rooting for Missouri to beat Northwestern in the Alamo Bowl and Oklahoma to beat Florida in the BCS Bowl. On one hand, I want the Big 12 schools to win but my dislike for them runs so deep that it’s hard.