ESPN can spin up some fanciful stuff, but one of the latest from a group of ESPN writers is rather interesting. ESPN scribes, including Eli Lederman, Dave Wilson, Andrea Adelson, Bill Connelly, and Mark Schlabach, picked the archenemy for every Power Four football program. Schlabach did the picks for SEC teams Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, and Ole Miss.
The ESPN group assessed "feelings of vitriol, bad blood and sports hate" and stated, "every team has someone or something in particular that really sticks in their craw, that gets their temper going from 0 to 90 in a millisecond."
Most, but far from all, the archenemies for Power Four conference programs were coaches. A few were players, teams, or programs. The NCAA was tagged a couple of times, along with the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. Some archenemies were quirky. An example is Vanderbilt with Institutional Apathy as the archenemy.
Many Alabama football fans will be disappointed to learn that neither a specific Alabama Crimson Tide team nor the Alabama program was named an archenemy. The archenemy for the Auburn Tigers was Alabama fan and oak-tree poisoner Harvey Updyke.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was that Nick Saban was identified as an archenemy only once: for the LSU Bengal Tigers. Another former SEC football coach is the Archenemy King. It is Steve Spurrier, who had the advantage of ire from not just SEC teams Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia but also ACC teams Clemson and Florida State.
For those unfamiliar with Spurrier's playing and coaching history, there is a current comparison. The former Heisman Trophy-winning Florida quarterback coached the Gators and the South Carolina Gamecocks. Not only was Spurrier a better coach than Lane Kiffin; he was also a better quipster.
Spurrier was fond of calling FSU 'Free Shoes University'. He once said a fire at Auburn's library burned 20 books and added, "The real tragedy was that 15 hadn't been colored yet." Fans of multiple schools who hated Tennessee enjoyed saying that no orange sucks like a Big Orange. Spurrier did not come up with the dig, but he loved it.
Alabama's Archenemy
According to Mark Schlabach, the Crimson Tide's archenemy is Cam Newton. He explained the reason as Newton's performance in Auburn's 2010 comeback win in Tuscaloosa. Schlabach added that Alabama fans believe the accusations about how Cam's father "shopped" his son to multiple programs before a deal that brought him to Auburn.
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