Hello all, I've been planning this series for a while, but didn't know exactly where to make limits for inclusion or how to format the series. I thought it might be fun to have an elimination contest for favorite university since that will appeal to the many college sports fans here as well as those who are interested in higher education in general. And if neither of those are of interest, you can choose your favorite mascot. (Trigger Warning: I will not be PC on those. If Lady goes in front of it for the women's teams, too bad. Also some teams use a Native American tribe in their name. If that personally upsets you, leave now.) I think it would be a nice change rather than doing favorite state or city for the umpteenth time.
Schools included in the contest are: All D1 basketball, lacrosse, or baseball schools, top 125 US News National Universities, top 15 liberal arts colleges, top 5 regional universities, and by mistake about 7-D2 (hockey?) schools that got lost in the shuffle when I sorted columns. That's 426 in all. If you'd like me to include any others within reason, feel free to throw out some names - that's why I'm starting in AL and working my way to CA and the northeast where you may have a few names. Heaven knows I left off the school that only has Women's D1 Volleyball. Whoopsie!
This will primarily be organized by state with a few merged together and a few separated into sub-regions (NY, CA, NC, PA, and MA). There will be 40 rounds initially and then we can take it to the final tournament. Rules for that (as well as potential runoffs) will be determined as we move along - I'm thinking at least 30% to advance but it may vary a bit.
For the first round, we have 10 Alabama universities, and I know how much Atlas loves that state so go ahead and vote for your favorite.
My vote:
[1] Crimson Tide (Used to be 'just there' for me but I love Saban and the school is improving academically)
[2] Jacksonville State (Nice little football program they got down there)
[3] South Alabama
[4] UAB (tsk, tsk Board of Trustees. I want football back)
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[5] Auburn University (I should hate them more as a Bama fan, but it's nice to see them competitive)
[6] Alabama State
[7] Alabama-Huntsville (They play HOCKEY in the SOUTH??!!??!?! - and only hockey oddly enough)
[8] Alabama A&M
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[9] Samford
[10] Troy
Any feedback to make this more fun is much appreciated.
Poll
