Return of the Recapper: Alamo Bowl Edition

The Pac 10 Bowl Season started last night, and by started I mean the game began, they ran plays, then the game ended.  As far as how Arizona did in the Alamo Bowl , the best thing you could say about them is that they did not kill anyone (as far as I know...there were parts of the game I missed).

The Alamo Bowl is the newest bowl in the Pac 10's crown (and yes, I realize that metaphor is very strained).  After the Rose Bowl, the Alamo Bowl is the next big one, supplanting the Holiday as the number two bowl.  But since a certain team from Oregon is going to the National Championship (altogether now:  Woooooooooooooo!), and Stanford is going to the Rose Bowl, third place Arizona got to go to San Antonio.

However, losers of four straight games, and coached by Mike "I'm not high strung, who called me high strung, god dammit, who would SAY THAT?!?!" Stoops, there was little chance 7-5 Arizona would play well against Oklahoma State (10-2 and almost winners of the Big 12).

And...they didn't.  It was kind of a rout, even though the ESPN announcers kept talking about how great Arizona was playing and how they didn't roll over.  Hard-fighters or not, the Wildcats still got smoked 36-10.  It was an inauspicious beginning to a relatively small bowl season for the Pac 10, and things won't get any better tonight with the Holiday Bowl, a rematch of the ass-whupping that Nebraska put on Washington.

One more quick aside.  I saw a fan in the stands holding up a sign that referenced "Pokes Nation."  Pokes, I believe, would be a nickname for the Oklahoma State Cowboys (cow poke being a reference to cowboys that branded cattle and not a reference to what happened to the cows when the cowboys got lonely on the trail).  Anyway, I digress.  My real point here is that this whole "Nation" thing MUST stop.  First, fans of a team are NOT a nation.  In no way are fans of, say, Nebraska's football team, holders of the sovereignty which shapes the fundamental norms governing the functioning of the state.  And Pokes Nation does not have anything meaningful to say about the suffrage of its people (unless you consider "Yee Haw!" meaningful (note:  no one outside of Oklahoma considers "Yee Haw!" meaningful.)).  And Beaver Nation does not include members of a cultural nation who are aware of constituting an ethical-political body together, which is differentiated from others by the members sharing a number of defining cultural features (features which include language, religion, tradition, or shared history).  So, stop it.  Just stop.  The first person to say that Oregon is Ducks Nation will be hit in the head with a blunt object by me.  And the rest of the teams out there that think it's fun to call yourselves a Nation:  no, it's not fun.  It's stupid.  Stop it.