Sunday Social: Sibling Rivalry – October 17th
While the more celebrated rivalries are near the end of the season, there were several games this weekend that highlighted teams winning against teams that are often considered “big brother” programs. In Memphis, long a fertile recruiting ground for Ole Miss, the Memphis Tigers dispatched the Rebels to take their place in the national conversation. Stanford, the small, private school has for many years played younger sibling to their more glitzy brothers down Interstate 5 – USC and UCLA. And nothing personifies the Big Brother/Little Brother football stereotype more than the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry.
As with all sibling rivalries, nothing is off-limits. As we do every Sunday, let’s take a stroll through our social networks and find the best – sometimes funny, sometimes witty, sometimes pithy, and sometimes a little mean – from around the fan bases.
Sunday Social: Sibling Rivalry
We start, most appropriately, at the Big House, where Big Brother Michigan was looking to re-establish family dominance over the decade-long resurgence of Little Brother Michigan State. There is no truer, authentic and genuine character in all of the arts than Michael Scott. And there was no more gut-wrenching, soul-crushing way to lose a game than Michigan’s botched punt yesterday. Our friend DK Kilgore (@_________DK) meshes the two perfectly:
https://twitter.com/_________dk/status/655567505751191552
Of course, with a moment in college football like this, you can be sure there were surrender cobras slithering all over Michigan Stadium. Our favorite superhero, @gwoman9810+
-, shows us the view from the student pit:
Oh Michigan fans https://t.co/PSaU10ZoU6
— Martha 🇺🇸🏴🇮🇪 (@gwoman9810) October 18, 2015
I’m going to be honest, I was a little disappointed in the call of the dramatic play. Nothing compared to this great call, as we look back a few years:
Cheers to you, Mr. Auburn radio voice/Pastor of the Airwaves.
The smack talking began well before kickoff, as it always does. This intrepid sign-writer was spotted by Twitter user @Mental_Dental2 with a great take on Michigan’s two biggest rivals. Unfortunately for our ballgame bard, he might be 0-2 this year versus teams he digs at in this sign:
This is how you rival pic.twitter.com/i0saNJUP0J
— Duece (@mental_dental2) October 17, 2015
Thursday started the week off with UCLA visiting Stanford. Stanford has long been the quiet program up North, in the shadows of Redwoods, UCLA and USC. They exacted some measure of little sibling frustration with an old-fashioned beat down of the Bruins. And we know how good #NerdNation is at trash talking. A sampling:
@JohnCoonSports gives us a pretty insightful analysis of the Bruin defense.
Live look at UCLA's defense against Stanford: #UCLAvsSTAN pic.twitter.com/i3IYZqLwB5
— John Coon (@johncoonsports) October 16, 2015
And since we’re talking about family ties, let’s go back to the future and look at the post game presser from Jim Mora, courtesy of Vol fan @BigOrangeButch
VIDEO: "What's past is prologue" is a quotation by William Shakespeare from his play The Tempest#UCLAvsSTANhttp://t.co/VnKJhhDvmI
— BigOrangeHeupel (@BigOrangeHeupel) October 16, 2015
@_LifeofCharles takes a look at the recruiting implications of this blowout:
https://twitter.com/_lifeofcharles/status/654883969180172289
And you know Stanford fans are going to wax poetically, win or lose.
User @HeatherSoprano has the most philosophical take on the amazing catch by Francis Owusu:
Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer…..#UCLAvsSTAN https://t.co/hqZIE8or2g
— Heather Higginbotham (@TripleHSports) October 16, 2015
Not to be outdone, @StaceyHope goes holistic healing on us:
https://twitter.com/staceyhope/status/655008635333033984
That sounds like something that would come from a Cal fan, not a Stanford fan…right?
Now we go down south and look at the Memphis upset of Ole Miss. A lot of people don’t realize how close Ole Miss is to Memphis. The good news for Memphis is that this will help them in the national conversation and keep building the program in a traditional basketball school. Bad news is that head coach Justin Fuente will be at South Carolina, USC or Texas next year.
Tigers fan @gingeyandtonic gives us a look at one thing that makes Fuente so good; you’ve got to love this motivational speech:
sorry for my overload of football tweets (which will continue for NFL), but I absolutely love this. #MISSvsMEM pic.twitter.com/fWXeBgLsO7
— Liz Lane (@gingeyandtonic) October 18, 2015
Back to the funny stuff.
Most of the good stuff was about Ole Miss failing. You’ve got to remember, Memphis fans are just getting used to this winning thing.
From @boatlandingbro:
Know how I know football season is 1/2 way finished? #OleMiss is imploding #MISSvsMEM #sadfansaresad #swagkelly #PAWWWWWWWLL #SEC
— Professor Ledbetter (@boatlandingbro) October 18, 2015
From @kray2u
@finebaum this just in…a live look at @OleMissFB championship season & top 25 ranking. #theygone #MISSvsMEM pic.twitter.com/e5Hza2gUgP
— Kerry Ray (@kray2u) October 17, 2015
And what a sad, sad Ole Miss fan that @GaryCrooms has found:
https://twitter.com/garycrooms/status/655468750871769089
Enough picking on Ole Miss. They’ve still got six games remaining, plenty of time to get some more hits in.
That wraps up another walk through the social media park on a post-game Sunday. Let’s hope that the house of College Football continues to provide drama and great games next week. Like family, I have absolute faith that it will.