I couldn't help but notice. Not only did blue states lose on the 2010 Census, they also got their butts handed to them in the Bowl Games. It was pretty one-sided with northern schools getting clobbered by southern schools, especially the Michigan teams. Michigan State got positively hammered by Alabama, 49-7, and Michigan's loss to Mississippi State was nearly as bad at 52-14.
And then there was the Rose Bowl. TCU defeated Wisconsin, and I, for one, was surprised that TCU was even there. It's the first time I can recall that a PAC-10 school didn't play. For the longest time, the Rose Bowl was a matchup between PAC-10 and Big-10 conference champions. Earlier on it was PAC-10 against other notable football schools, but always, it was PAC-10.
The other really interesting thing to me was listening to the Rose Bowl commentators and never once hearing any of them mention the word "Christian" when TCU stands for Texas Christian University. None of the analysts or play by play people ever said its full name. I suppose it's possible that I just happened to walk out of the room at the moment they did, maybe when I would get up to keep the beer glasses full or to throw another log on the fire. But I never heard the word "Christian" and I rarely heard anybody say "Texas" except to say where a player hailed from. Texas Christian University was called "TCU," or "the Frogs," or "the Horned Frogs," but never Texas Christian.
I suppose I'm being unfair, but I couldn't help but imagine a sense of embarrassment out there on the left coast at the presence of one of those "Christian right" schools in their premier college football pageant. To make matters worse, didn't the school just have to be from same the state that gave us Bush! And to add further injury to insult, they won. Ugh. Better not to remind everybody. Don't say "Texas." Don't say "Christian."
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