An open letter to Northern Gator:
You are invited to join us to debate any topics, but I'd like to provide a brief outline of some subjects that might prove stimulating and serve as a good starting point for ongoing debate:
1. A discussion of the relative merits and resumes of our head coaches - do you feel that Billy Napier's performance in 4 years as WR Coach at Alabama exceeded Mario's 4 years as AHC/OL Coach/Recruiting Coordinator at Alabama? Do you believe that Napier's 4 years (and 2 championships) at Louisiana exceed Mario's 5 years (and 2 championships) at Oregon? What is your basis for projecting any edge to Napier at Florida over Mario at Miami, other than your belief that Florida is just "better" than Miami?
2. A head-to-head comparison of our assistant coaching staffs - first, we already acknowledge that Corey Raymond is the better secondary coach. But for the other 9 positions (10 if you want to include the S&C Coach), we would like to debate each position side-by-side. Even better, we can add on a section of the debate where we compare Athletic Directors too.
3. A debate of the "athletic success" of both schools - for football, Miami starting winning national championships in the 1980s and Florida started winning SEC championships in the 1990s; we certainly acknowledge that Florida has had more basketball success, while I'm sure you would acknowledge that Miami has had more baseball success. Once we get into "Olympic sports", it might get too "inside-baseball", but that is up to you. I am prepared to discuss factual items (actual championships and trophies and whatnot) or intangible stuff (people just like us better, na-na-na), but I'd prefer to stick to more statistical and provable points. It would also be nice to go apples-to-apples, and not debate sports that the other school does not have, or time periods prior to the 1920s.
4. A frank and friendly chat about "facilities" - again, for football, it's a bit of a challenge to compare an ancient-but-owned stadium to a relatively-new-but-rented stadium, but we can try our best (BOTH of us) to be fair. For everything else (and, yes, there ARE other sports besides football which contribute to the definition of "facilities"), we can move forward on those comparisons.
5. Compare/contrast media markets and fan bases - I know, I know, this is where you'd love to bust out your racist phrases like "five rangz!", but I'm suggesting that we keep this one statistical/factual as well. Let's have a very non-racist discussion of where we see our "brands" and our "reach", as well as the various attributes of our geographical locations and other factors.
6. Let's talk about recruiting - this one should be fun...
Bonus Round - an emotional and vicious fight over whether "blue" or "green" is the superior color complement to orange and white.
Come on, Northern, you talk a big game about what a rugged debater you are, we'd love to host you (and we could even go home-and-home if Blake would allow for it).
!!!
