(Due to technical difficulties on Friday, BS Bracket Winner Jonathan's post did not go up then, as planned. However, we've remedied things and his post is below.)
I go to UT football games and watch the best of the SEC play. Being around SEC fans is surreal. SEC fans are really unoriginal, they all have one chant: “It’s great to be a (insert team name here), I said it is great to be a (insert team name here).”
My favorite story was back in November when three University of Tennessee players held up two men in a car just off of campus. The next day the two men were interviewed and apologized for getting the players in trouble. When asked why he thinks no punishment should be given to the players who held a gun to his head, the victim responded with "Yeah, it's Tennessee. That's the way it is sometimes," Let me say that Knoxville is not as redneck as he makes us sound. To spite my general dislike for UT football and basketball I really love East Tennessee.I would like to say those two men were exceptions but they are more of the rule. I grew up in this culture of football at any cost.
That’s why I am a Purdue fan besides the fact I am an alum. Sure, we do have our occasional off the field issues. However, it is not a regular thing and is not acceptable to our fans. Purdue athletics generally has more STUDENT-athletes then the entirety of the SEC. I get into a lot of good natured debates about the differences between any SEC school and Purdue. For the most part I always win on the student-athlete comment.
Thankfully, Purdue is good at both basketball and football. I really appreciate the basketball team and how Painter coaches. Purdue basketball will always be a power in the Big Ten and in the nation. I hope we can get there with football. So with the last bit of my post I want to provide short predictions for both the basketball and football teams.
Football:
I will call football going 9-3 next season. Our offense will be killer and very tough to game plan for. Now, Ralph Bolden being out hurts but ATM can handle the workload. I think we will see a much bigger passing game. Even without Marve we have a bunch of very talented QBs that my UT fan friends would do anything for. The biggest question in my mind is defense. The D-line and linebackers are set and do not cause me much concern. The secondary is way too young to be good. They could surprise though.
Basketball:
Obviously we will be national champions next season. I know there is very legitimate fear JaJuan is leaving but I think (at least hope) he will not. If he returns next season I see the Big Ten title race being very difficult with Michigan giving us a lot of opposition. I hope Purdue comes out with a hard non-conference schedule to test the team early. The freshmen will play a huge role on this team and really control how we will do whether or not JaJuan is back.
In conclusion, I would like to point out next season is setting up to be possibly the best year for Purdue football and basketball. I cannot wait to prove the UT and SEC people wrong.
Thanks for reading and thanks to the Boiled Sports guys for the prizes.
-Jonathan