I root for Michigan. If they are down, I root for MSU. Then everybody But Ohio State. Then Ohio State.
You bet your sweet bippy I do. The best chance for Michigan State to go to Pasadena or another BCS bowl is to get some help from our rivals. Go Michigan! Beat Wisconsin. Beat OSU. Go Iowa! Beat OSU!
My favorite 11 teams (12 next year) are Big Ten teams. I want them to win every single non-conference game, although I must confess to being amused when Appalachian State took it to U-M. My least favorite 12 teams are SEC teams. I want them to lose every non-conference game.
I agree with this, except that I have a hard time rooting for OSU ever.
I’m an ABC(anybody but Carolina) guy in the ACC. I can root for Duke, if nessisary. In the NHL, I will root for the Panthers and Thrashers, but not the Bolts, and never, ever will I root for Ovenchicken.
OK, I’ll bite. Who/What is Ovenchicken?
Yep. Memphis is the only C-USA team with a chance to do anything in the NCAA basketball championship most of the time, and I happily root for them.
I also root for NFC South teams in the playoffs, as long as they’re not playing the Bucs.
ETA: Ovenchicken is Alexsandr Ovechkin.
In college? Yes I’ll happily root for conference teams. When BYU, TCU and the like do well it raises the prestige of my team, Utah. The fact that Utah is going to advance to a more prestigious and better paying PAC-12 is in part due to the fact that the MWC has been viewed as an “almost” BCS conference, that can lay claim to being as good as or better than the Big East (and maybe depending on year the ACC or the PAC). Of course now that they won’t be in the same conference I can happily root against arch-rival BYU. But I’ll still probably root for the remaining MWC teams, they were part of the family.
In pro sports? No, I don’t root for the other teams.
I’m an SEC fan. I will root for most SEC teams when they’re playing non-SEC opponents. I have an order of preference within the conference and there are two SEC teams I find it difficult to root for, even when they’re playing OOC games.
Once the issue of SEC is dealt with, I will root for Tennessee teams not in the SEC and similar teams in Alabama.
Once that group is out of the question, I will root for the home teams of players on the Tennessee Titans. By that time there aren’t many teams that I won’t want to win.
As for other conferences, I can only root for some of the ACC teams in the “Big Six” conferences, but there are quite a few in the other FBS conferences that I don’t have a problem with. Sun Belt mostly.
It is not easy. i have a friend who attends all U of M games and has for many years. The only games he refuses to go to are games in Columbus. The OSU fans throw beer on them and are are verbally abusive. They trash his maize and blue travel home. Then he can easily get a ticket on the way home. It just isn’t worth the grief.
As a Canadiens fan, I hate Toronto and Boston. Actually, I should say I HATE Toronto and Boston. If someone tells you they’re a fan of both Montreal and Toronto, or Montreal and Boston, then they’re a fan of neither. You can’t cheer for both.
When it comes to the other two teams in the division, Ottawa and Buffalo, while I don’t have the same antipathy towards them as I do the Maple Laffs and the Cuddly Bears, I still don’t like either of them a whole lot. I’d probably feel the same way about Quebec City if they ever got another team.
The other teams in the Eastern Conference can win or lose however they like unless they’re competing with Montreal for a higher playoff position.
I always hope the other SEC teams do well. Many of them irk me for one reason or another, but it’s good for the Florida Gators when SEC teams do well. Now, if Georgia or Tennessee or Alabama loses an out-of-conference game, I can certainly take a little pleasure in their misery, even though I was hoping they would win.
The only time I would ever cheer against an SEC team would be if Georgia was playing for a national championship. I don’t mind them beating Georgia Tech or other relatively meaningless game, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of them actually winning a national title. (Obviously this has never been an issue.) If they were playing Miami or Florida State for the title, I would probably just vomit in disgust and not go near a TV until the next September. Thankfully all three of those teams are awful these days, and this hypothetical situation will not be manifesting itself anytime soon.
The 1942 and 1980 teams beg to differ.
Can’t root for Michigan ever and Ohio State and Wisconsin are tough to stomach most of the time. In the Rose Bowl against USC, UCLA or Oregon I can manage. In college hoops it’s much easier to root against everyone but the Illini though. There’s rarely an ancillary benefit to them winning. Indiana and Wisconsin can especially suck it and even though I respect Izzo nothing good comes from them winning unless they are playing UNC, UK, KU or Duke. As much as I dislike the other Big Ten programs those 4 teams trump all other animosity.
Limiting my answer to college football…
For regular season non-conference games, I’ll usually root against our conference rival. After all, season record is a tie-breaker in determining conference champion and we might need that edge some day.
In intra-conference games, obviously I have to root for one of them. It will usually be the underdog or the team with the worst record.
In bowl games, I always root for our conference teams.
So I guess technically it has happened in my lifetime. But I was four months old, so it wasn’t all that painful to me. Pre-Bowl Coalition national titles don’t count for much either, as you have three or four teams every year trying to claim they were national champions. Plus everyone knows Herschel Walker was bought and paid for. If they ever won a real national championship (and they never will) it will make me sick to my stomach.
I root for the Big Ten in bowl games and March Madness, and I’ll gladly root for anyone if their victory will help the Buckeyes in any way.
Nope. I didn’t like any of the SEC teams before Arkansas joined the conference, and I like them even less now.
Well, as an Oregon Duck fan, I can sympatize with your plight (see, we’re not totally evil :)). I could root for most Pac 10 teams under the right circumstances. Oregon State (traditional rival, but no personal animosity)? Sure. USC (Hate 'em)? Possibly. But Washington? No. Way. In. Hell. In the very remote micro-chance that they were playing for the national championship in my lifetime, I would cheer for their opponent to humiliate them. Unless they were were playing Notre Dame or BYU. Then I would have to cheer for a blimp crash; or terrorist attack; or the Chick-fil-a cows dropping from the sky.
Basketball presents a whole different set of problems. Naturally, I hate the Lakers; but I also hate the Celtics, and I have recently added Miami to my shit list (for reasons that should be obvious). So, there is a strong possibilty that I will have absolutely no interest in the NBA championship this year. Or next year, or the next…Hell, If it come down to Lakers vs Heat, I may have to give up on the NBA.
Unfortunately, either Boise St or TCU will snipe that Rose Bowl berth, and Stanford --despite being a top 10 team whose only loss is to the #1 team-- will be relegated to the Alamo Bowl vs the #3 team from the Big 12. Yet another reason to hate the BCS.
Alex Ovechkin, of the Washington Capitals.
As a Cal alum, I would rather root for any other team in the country than root for Stanford. Conference reputations are ephemeral, anyway.
The same goes for USC.