Sports
Hater's Guide to Maryland Football and B1G Conference
Sports blogger Patrick Cannons says Maryland's play in the Big 10 conference means fans should be prepared to be seen as hillbillies.
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August is the end of the eight-month drought that is life without college football.
But for Terrapin fans, the new season brings huge changes as Maryland begins competition in a new conference. The move riled many fans, including sports blogger Patrick Cannon, who on Monday posted his look at the B1G conference titled “A Maryland Fan’s Hater’s Guide to the B1G.”
“I present to you an introductory Hater’s Guide to the B1G. I already hate typing B1G,” Cannon wrote. “The fact that B-1-G is what the conference decided to brand itself as should have your blood boiling already.”
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The University of Marylandfor almost 60 years competed against rivals North Carolina, Duke and Virginia as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. But in November 2012, leaders announced a move to the Big 10 conference based in the Midwest, to bolster finances, report The Washington Post.
The Big 10 is known as the home of perennial football powers Ohio State,Michigan and Penn State, and basketball stronghold Indiana.
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When the decision was made, Maryland officials cited the Big 10’s profits from its own TV network as the main lure, hoping the windfall could help revive some of spots the financially strained university had eliminated.
While Cannon says he understands the move in the NCAA toward giant conferences rather than the traditional lineups, he isn’t happy about it. Here’s what he says the Terps’ new foes will think of Maryland.
“We go from being called the Yankees of one conference to the Southern hillbillies of another overnight,” Cannon wrote. “Prepare yourself for terrible Mason-Dixon jokes and blatant geographical confusion from our new enemies. Seriously, go ask someone in Iowa to find Maryland on a map. If 40% of them can do it I will eat my hat.”
The Terrapins open the football season at home Aug. 30 against James Madison. Find the full 2014-15 Maryland football schedule here.
You can find Cannon’s school-by-school rundown of the new Big 10 on the WNEW website.
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