By: Charlie Moon

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

I’m not crazy, but…..Pat McAfee (yes, the same one permeating ESPN now) and long-time sports radio legend Colin Cowherd, had a major role in the country in introducing college football in the South, as the dominating national force.

Let me reset it for you. An undefeated, #2-ranked West Virginia was hosting long-time NFL coach Dave Wannstedt’s  4-7 Pittsburgh Panthers. The Mountaineers were 28.5-point favorites. WVU’s Pat McAfee missed not one, but two field goals.

To be fair, it was under 30 degrees and very windy. Pitt ran the ball out of the back of their own end zone as time expired and won 13-9.

My brother, Chad and our friends were going crazy. We called our parents, who were at some loud party in Athens. Why? Because the Dawgs, ranked #3, were going be in the BCS Championship game!

Then….they weren’t. Why? Long story short, the Dawgs were jumped by Florida, pitted against the Buckeyes on January 8, 2007.

Some can argue it began way before that. But that was the defining moment when a 7-point favored mighty Ohio St was supposed to show the country the Big Ten ruled the country.

But then SEC power and speed was on display and the country got to see just what pundit Colin Cowherd had been saying for a decade on his then ESPN radio show.

He had been saying for a decade that the SEC was already better than everyone, by a mile – and it would start showing soon. Most folks just shewed him off like they do now. But the guy knows his stuff.

One particular show hinged on one aspect. To most football purists, it was the craziest thing they’d ever heard.

It made perfect sense to me, though. He was talking about how the 90s saw the birth of 7-on-7 off-season football tournaments, similar to what happened with AAU basketball, and what we now deem “travel ball.”

Football showcase camps were popping up nationwide, and where were most of those camps? Yep, you guessed it.

The South. After all, why would a kid want to go to a March showcase event in lovely, icy St. Paul, Minnesota? So…. more kids from all regions, were coming down South.

His next point had nothing to do with football, but it rang clear. He talked about more kids visiting colleges down South, during these camps, and what did they see?

I can almost remember his exact words, but for emphasis, let’s quote it anyway.

“Imagine a kid from Syracuse, New York coming down south and visiting a college campus in sunny Florida. What do you think he saw? Yep, the college co-eds. And what do you think he thought? Do I want to stay in cold Syracuse, or go where the campuses are filled with sun and gorgeous co-eds?”

I get it, there are many reasons why college football in the South has been great for so long, well before 2007. But Cowherd’s argument was nearly a decade ahead of its time. College football in the South had been better for a long time, but it hadn’t yet dominated on a national scale.

In that 2007 BCS Championship Game, it was clear. The Gators were bigger, stronger and the biggest factor???…..speed!

The speed difference wasn’t even close. Gator defensive lineman were chasing down speedy Ohio State QB Troy Smith and running backs in the backfield all night long. Ohio State receivers could never break away from Gator DBs.

Sure, this game wasn’t a 1-game tell-all. And Pat McAfee and Colin Cowherd surely didn’t invent football in the south.

But they both had a say in what might be the turning point of the southern college football show on display for the country.