TCU Frogs @ #25?

[FroggieFever]

*LOL* Shouldn't you be cheering for SMU? It's known as 'The Harvard of the South'!

I did not know that--neither did Google!

[FroggieFever]

I couldn't afford to "live on campus," so I rented an appartment near Cambridge... a little ways away, but heck.

[PK]

*LOL* Shouldn't you be cheering for SMU? It's known as 'The Harvard of the South'!

I did not know that--neither did Google!

I think only the faculty thinks that...News Flash...it ain't.

[KnuckleStang]

Not sure what our froggie friend is talking about. I googled it, and this is the 1st thing to come up. SMU is "third tier" Harvard of the South, according to this writer (I have no idea who this guy is--amusing nonetheless).

"Harvard of the South
A popular epithet. It is possible to identify four distinct tiers of Harvards of the South.
In the top tier are old private liberal arts colleges that
are known nationally although
they do not have an NCAA division I football team, and
are known to be ``known as `the Harvard of the South' '' by at least one dozen (12) people outside the South who are not either alumni of that school or their close relatives. (These people believe that this is the only school bearing that epithet.)
Strictly speaking, the first tier comprises only Duke and Vanderbilt, but considering that (a) they don't even have a decent basketball team and (b) my pal Marvin went there, I also include Rice University in the first tier. I further include the University of Virginia, so that if anybody tries to thin the ranks of the first tier, there will be another school that goes before Rice. To be fair, because of Rice's location (Houston) it is less well-known than Vandy (in Nashville, Tennessee) or UVA. If one were to judge by how freely and unapologetically the alumni use the epithet, then Rice would rival Duke.

The University of Virginia, the only public university in the top HotS tier, was Thomas Jefferson's last hurrah. Joseph C. Cabell (1778-1856) was Jefferson's principal strategist and assistant in founding the university. In a letter of January 22, 1820, to J.C. Cabell, Jefferson worried that Virginians educated at Harvard would turn into ``fanatics & tories.''

In the second tier are schools with only a regional HotS reputation: Emory (discussed at the S.P.D. entry) heads this list, followed by Tulane and Ole Miss (University of Mississippi).

Schools of the third tier have a qualified HotS reputation. These are schools about which it is said that ``it is said that some people call it the `Harvard of the South'.'' The epithet is usually deployed ironically or in a way that can be defended as facetious if challenged. This group is rather ill-defined; since virtually no one is willing to claim baldly that one of these schools is the HotS, the entire charade is based on rumors of mis-overheard jokes. Most of these schools have to be identified as Foo College in Bar City, State_Name_Here. Many of the third-tiers are members of the Associated Colleges of the South (ACS), particularly Centre, Millsap, Morehouse, and Sewanee (``University of the South''), though many of the rest qualify marginally (Davidson, Furman, Hendrix, Rollins, Trinity (TX)). Non-ACS third-tier HotS schools are Fisk, Hampton University (Hampton, Va.), Livingstone College of Salisbury, N. Car. (main claim to fame: ``W.E.B. DuBois once referred to Livingstone as the `Harvard of the South' ''), Wofford College (in Spartanburg, South Carolina) and SMU. (Also one McNeese State University -- sports reporting, you know.)

The fourth and lowest tier of schools have bureaucratically mandated HotS ``reputations.'' For example, according to this linked news item, ``UF [University of Florida, Gainesville] administrators have designated the school the `Harvard of the South'.'' I must have missed the announcement. UT Austin has also been called a HotS. Whether this was pursuant to an administrative order I do not know, but (a) I do know that they have tried to buy a reputation by recruiting top scholars (nothing wrong with that) and (b) I have been in Austin, and it does not feel even remotely like Cambridge.

To summarize: one way or another there are two dozen Harvards of the South distributed among the states that seceded to form the Confederacy. Of those eleven states, only Alabama does not claim to have a single HotS. If you enjoy devil-may-care honesty (and I sincerely hope you do) then you'll want to read this 1996 interview of Auburn University history professor J. Wayne Flynt. My man Flynt! He delivers a coruscating jeremiad that includes this:

I think the popular culture in Alabama has a perception of a limited future. In fact, recent polls indicate when Alabamians were asked "what do you envision for your children?" in terms of their future occupations, the single largest category of response was to be in fast food. The level of local support for education is so poor that (the population perceives) there is no future in this community; there is going to be a steady collapse of community to the point where it may be too late. This brings the question can it be collectively too late for a state, and I think the answer is yes.
Then the interviewer had the gonads to ask (reading from a list, I suppose), ``Who is responsible for the success of education in Alabama?'' His answer appears to be cut off, but it begins ``That's sort of like asking who's to blame for the problems.'' I think Neil Young was on to something.

Also deserving of mention: Baylor (at Waco, Texas), the ``Harvard of Southern Baptists.'' The riffs on this idea are endless. Your next stop on the tour of these riffs is the S.P.D. entry."

[MrMustang1965]

I remember seeing t-shirts, at one time, that said "SMU: Harvard of the South".

What was even funnier was seeing t-shirts in Boston when I took a trip there that said: "Harvard: SMU of the North"!!!!!

[Ikus]

You're right... too bad. We were due up after six years of domination...

Whatever - you sound like an Oklahoma fan.

[Ikus]

Don't forget Baylor has a vote for the AP Poll !?!?!?!?!?!

YAWN ..... Sorry, Titan, but I did forget. You beat us, and for that, I guess you should get credit. But that's still a forgetable team.

[Metropolis777]

Yep! , my Pony friend. I predict, IMOO, that we will place #13 at the end of the regular season... we'll see.

Frogs would have BCS shot had it not been for the Mustangs. Too bad we shot your wheels off frogs..

Honestly, I believe, if we had beaten y'all, we'd be 4-2 or 3-3 right now. SMU was a wake up call that we desperately needed. Thanks to y'all, I think we'll go 10-1 this year which is better than I think we would have done if we had beaten y'all. When we are truly ready to crack the BCS, we will do it like Utah did in 2004. We will be dominant. Until then, we are not quite ready to crash the party.