We’re biased. We think we’re a pretty great fan base. Fortunately, we’re right, based on the comments from opposing fans, coaches and players. We like a good college football conversation, we’re loyal, maybe a little over-generous, complimentary, and willing to acknowledge the better team at the right time. NU fans tend to be their own worst critics. It’s the Nebraska in us. One of our strengths, I’d say.

But let’s set us aside and look at ten other great fan bases in college sports. Remember - it’s not just football - although many of them are football fan bases.

Texas A&M: A respect for tradition and competition that mirrors Nebraska, carried out by unique, faithful fans who are more into cheering their own team than jeering the opponent. Aggies are friendlier than their UT counterparts, more hospitable and most like NU fans. Whenever somebody slags the whole state of Texas, remind them of the Aggies. It’s not all bad in the Lone Star. Some of it, in fact, is kinda cool.

Virginia Tech: A blue-collar fan base if there ever was one. The “other” school in Virginia has surpassed its richer, ritzier older brother in UVA, and done so with lunch pail mentality that respects fan bases and teams who act the same. Hokie fans were terrific in Lincoln in 2008, and hosted Husker fans quite well in Blacksburg.

Oklahoma: We debated this one, because of those Ruf/Nek student volunteers that give the rest of the OU fan base a bad name. But Sooner fans generally treat Nebraska fans well, travel well, and don’t make too big of fools of themselves.

Mississippi: The gentlemen of the SEC, with the accompanying, jaw-dropping belles to boot. Ole Miss turns tailgating into an art form of barbecue, bangles, cordials and smiles in The Grove. There are aspects of the fan base we’d rather disappeared - the presence of the Rebel flag being one - but it’s a good time in Oxford, on Archie Manning lane.

LSU: The Tigers may not be so kind to every fan base, but LSU’s frequent stays in Omaha for the College World Series reveal a proud, jovial and passionate bunch that knows its way around a few sports. On game day, few places are more unforgiving than Tiger Stadium. But the rich, diverse culture of LSU - so foolishly derided by Nick Saban after his departure - is a chief part of its charm.

Oregon: We know a few, we appreciate them for their humor, fanaticism and perspective. Most Duck fans are on the right kind of head trip. After all - you can only take yourself so seriously with day-glo uniform and a white duck as your mascot. The best of the Pac 10.

Kentucky: The blue bloods appreciate good basketball (much like Nebraskans do football) and know when somebody (read: Billy Gillispie) doesn’t belong. More down-to-earth than their counterparts at UNC and Duke, more passionate than KU’s wine-and-cheese crowd, friendly than you might expect for a program so steeped in success. Maybe it’s the recent humility.

Minnesota: Edges out Wisconsin; a little less vulgarity than the Badger faithful. Minny is long-suffering in all kinds of ways, and that one word “Gophers” is synonymous with UM hockey - not football, basketball or wrestlers. Minnesota is good in a wide variety of sports, and part of it is the commitment of a fan base and the Twin Cities two competing newspapers.

North Carolina State: The blue collar bunch of the ACC. They’d have to be, amidst North Carolina, Wake Forest and Duke, right. Hungry basketball fans that embody the joyful spirit of departed coach Jim Valvano (deposed as he may have been). They seem more from planet earth, and not hoop land like the rest of Tobacco Road.

BYU: A bit of a chip on their shoulder, but a overall nice, fanatical fan base that appreciates competition - so long as it’s not coming from Utah. Would be a great addition to the Big 12 should Missouri ever get the Big Ten invite.

See also:

Best Fans/Worst Fans
Best Helmets/Worst Helmets

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Mike Gundy breezed into the Big 12 Media Days Monday looking like a lawyer out of a Sydney Pollack movie or something. Light grey suit, purple tie, a little pocket blush to match.

Let his 15 minutes begin.

It’s Gundy’s Oklahoma State crew who goes on the clock in 2009 as the hot upstart team in the Big 12, and it was OSU that got the most attention – just slightly more than Nebraska and Texas A&M - on day one.

The Cowboys have arguably their biggest non-conference game in history on opening weekend, hosting Georgia. Gundy, whose spiky hair can sometimes match his demeanor, was all smiles and business on Monday.

“Oklahoma State is better off now as a football than we’ve ever been,” Gundy said. “Because of where we’re at, the continuity we have and the new facility we have and the direction we’re going. But we’ve got to earn it.”

Gundy fielded questions of all kinds, but two subjects came up the most: Zac Robinson and that last richly-paid assistant that’s supposed to put OSU over the top, defensive coordinator Bill Young.

“He’s mature, confident,” Gundy said. “He’s been great for us in the staff room. He’s a great hire for us. The players like him. They’ll adapt to the system.”

Gundy added Young’s defense will fit his talented trio of linebackers “to a T.”

***

Best story of the day had to go to A&M Coach Mike Sherman, who was watching football games on Thanksgiving weekend – depressed, since his Aggies had just finished a losing season by getting hammered by Colt McCoy and Texas – when his 9-year-old daughter plopped down in his lap, sensing her daddy’s sadness.

Sherman expected to hear those three magic words.

He heard three words, all right.

“She said ‘Daddy, get over it,’” Sherman said to a media room of laughter.

And so Sherman has tried. Sounding a great deal like former Nebraska coach Bill Callahan, Sherman, an offensive line guru and former NFL coach, too, said the Aggies struggled in 2008 in large part because of…wait for it…the transition to a West Coast Style offense.

“You have to put it on me, the transition part of it,” Sherman said. “It didn’t go as well as we had hoped.”

But the adversity of a 4-8 season, Sherman said, “brought the team closer together.” In the spring, A&M finally started acting like a “a team that competed in practice every day.”

As if this didn’t happen under Dennis Franchione, apparently. Isn’t that always the way?

In a Callahanesque manner, Sherman pointed to his most recent recruiting class “as a stimulus package of our own, so to speak,” especially along the offensive line, where the Aggies played hurt and hobbled throughout 2008.

***

Iowa State Coach Paul Rhoads was practically jumping out of his skin with passion at his first Media Days as head coach. Rhoads, a native Iowan whose “mom and dad live 20 minutes” from Jack Trice Stadium, is trying to resurrect, once again, an ISU program from the ashes of an awful season. In 2008, it was an ugly 2-10 campaign that saw the Cyclones lose their last ten games of the year.

Rhoads previously worked under Dan McCarney at ISU in the late 1990s, so he’s seen one coach do it. And Iowa State, in terms of facilities and player development, is well ahead of where it was back then.

“We used have every practice outside in some awful weather,” Rhoads said, and he’s probably not complaining. Trice is set up like a wind tunnel, and, past October, the practice conditions are somewhere close to frigid.

As far as expectations, Rhoads won’t put a win total on it. Good idea. He may want to forego that next year, too, when Oklahoma and Texas move onto the schedule.

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Periodically throughout the summer, we'll be offering some insights on the national college football scene, both through our burning questions, and through top and bottom five lists.

See the entire archive here.

Today: Five Known Coaches on the Hot Seat

Steve Spurrier, South Carolina: We’ve already chronicled the Ol Ball Coach’s team as one of those ready to take a tumble, and we think Spurrier’s ripe for a year-round stint on the golf course, too.

Speaking of golf, imagine the SEC as the lounge of a semi-swank country club. These are football coaches, after all. Their tastes aren’t that refined.

See that guy in the Tiger Woods gear, with the shades perched on his gelled tips, gritting his teeth over the two bogeys he made during his scratch round? That’s Urban Meyer. The guy in the corner, bleating loudly into his cell phone? Lane Kiffin. The guy hitting on the cart girl as she reloads beer? Houston Nutt. The guy at the snack counter debating whether he should splurge for the frozen Snickers? Mark Richt. The guy getting the biggest laughs in the room, half in the bag and ready to play nine more? Les Miles. The small, Napoleonic club pro who’s straightening the sleeves of Titlelists in the next room? Nick Saban.

Steve Spurrier is the guy over by the TV, dressed in a four-year-old Antigua polo with the three-quarter sleeves and pleated slacks, hair stuck to his forehead by sweat, thumbing through year-old Golf Digests trying to “Reclaim Your Putting Stroke!”

His humor isn’t funny anymore. His offense is no longer on the cutting edge. And, most importantly, he doesn’t coach Florida anymore. The SEC is now either a younger man’s game, that of a borderline pigskin sociopath like Saban or whatever they do at Kentucky and Vandy. Spurrier is none of those things. Either he heads for the Pac 10, or he flings that visor into the sunset.

Dennis Erickson, Arizona State: Boy, the Sun Devils sure were smart to run Bruce Snyder out of town, huh? Erickson’s not an awful coach, per se; we just wonder if he’s been so many places and coached so many teams that he can really be invested in the long-term success of ASU. His teams, talented enough, don’t play like it.

Bobby Bowden, Florida State: It’s a little sad what’s happened to this kind, funny coach. He could have walked away so many times. Why’d he stay in the game, fielding mediocre teams full of miscreants and cheaters? Bowden hasn’t had a decent quarterback in nearly a decade – FSU QBs haven’t completed 60 percent of their passes in a season for the last eight years – his offensive lines have been abysmal, his receivers lightning rods for the wasted talent bug.

Dan Hawkins, Colorado: The “Hawk” hasn’t turned a buck in Boulder, and he’s been saddled with the decision of recruiting his own son, Cody Hawkins, to play the team’s quarterback. Now, let’s be clear: Cody Hawkins isn’t a bad quarterback. He’s not a charity case. This isn’t nepotism. But he can only take this team so far, and it should not be a coincidence that CU has struggled to land a top-flight QB in Daddy Hawkins’ tenure at CU.

As long as Cody Hawkins is the QB, Colorado doesn’t win 10 games. The Buffs may not win six this year. And, if Dan Hawkins really means “no excuses,” it’ll be time for the CU administration to flush.

Mike Sherman, Texas A&M: Absolutely not kidding with this one. While we expect the Aggies to get off to a 3-0 start, we don’t expect them to win more than two games from that point forward. And if A&M loses to Iowa State and finishes on a 7/8-game losing streak, you’ll see Bill Byrne, who is typically reluctant, pulling the trigger. It’s not like he’s Mr. Popular down in College Station at this very moment. And if A&M were to lose to, say UAB? Immediate execution watch. The Aggie faithful won’t put up with it. And there are plenty of good candidates right in the Big 12 (ahem, Shawn Watson?) from which to choose.

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