Every Friday, the Friday Five will rank something in the world of college football -- anything and everything from the logical to the illogical. This week, we rank the five fanbases who get angry with me the most often.
Twitter is a large part of my job, as is social media in general. Still, of all the social media avenues available, Twitter is the one that has always felt the most like a sports bar. The one where people who don't know each other can just get together and talk about sports.
The difference is that, when you're at a sports bar, most of the people who disagree with you don't scream and threaten to kill you. They might call you an idiot, but they do so with a smile as they buy the next round.
On Twitter, thanks to the anonymity it provides, there's a lot less holding back.
This is fine; I'm not complaining. I'm actually entertained by a lot of it, as some people take sports way too seriously. A lot of those people will be featured in this week's Friday Five.
I've been at CBS Sports since the 2010 season, and I've been on Twitter the entire time. Over the years, I've received my fair share of angry tweets from fans of teams who either aren't happy with something I wrote here or on there. In this week's Friday Five, I'm going to rank the five fanbases I find are #MadOnline the most often.
Now, the obvious disclaimer: The internet is a large place and sports fans of all teams, in every sport, tend to be oversensitive when they sense the big, bad, media isn't being supportive enough of their teams. My rankings can be based on nothing but my own personal experiences with college football fan bases.
Just about every fan base has been mad at me at some point, but these are the ones that are either mad the most often or get mad the easiest.
5. Mississippi State
It never fails. Anytime I say anything about Ole Miss, even if it's only the faintest compliment, Mississippi State fans will yell at me for it. They'll tell me how Ole Miss cheats and that the NCAA is going to sanction it back to the stone age one of these days -- all the typical things rivals say about one another.
But while an Auburn fan will pop in with a joke about Alabama when I say something nice about the Tide, Mississippi State fans actually seem to take compliments of Ole Miss as insults to Mississippi State. There's a chip on their shoulders that they wear with easily wounded pride.
And I get it. Last summer, in a different Friday Five, I included Mississippi State as one of the five most disrespected programs in the country. The Bulldogs are typically an afterthought in the SEC West and sometimes within their own state.
I mean, at a time when Dan Mullen has introduced a consistent level of success, something they just aren't used to in Starkville, Ole Miss is having even more success, going to a Peach Bowl and Sugar Bowl the last two seasons.
So, I get it, Mississippi State fans, but maybe lighten up a little bit?
4. Penn State
Through all of the tumult suffered by Penn State fans over the last five years, most of it off the field and involving the face of the program for nearly its entire history, it's no surprise they banded together and were ready to take on the world and anybody outside Happy Valley who wasn't one of them.
And take on the world they have, numerous times. Many of those times the anger was directed at me, but I was far from alone in feeling the wrath.
Things have calmed down a bit over the last year or so, as the anger is related to things actually connected to football once again, but there was a time there when Penn State fans just came out swinging at every perceived slight.
3. Louisville
I don't know what I ever did to Louisville fans, but boy, do they get mad at me a lot. I find this strange because, while Teddy Bridgewater was there with Charlie Strong, I was quite fond of Louisville football and often complimentary. Even then, Louisville fans jumped into my mentions calling me names I'm not allowed to print here over some of the most harmless jokes. And then Bridgewater left for the NFL, Strong took off to Texas, and Bobby Petrino was brought back.
Things took a turn for the worse therebecause I wasn't exactly shy when it came to making Petrino jokes upon hearing the news. So I totally get why Louisville fans get angry with me these days, it's just they still get angrier about some of the most innocuous things than most others.
I've learned new insults from Louisville fans -- words I'd never heard before or ever thought of putting together in such interesting combinations.
2. Miami
While you may not realize it when you're watching a Miami home game, there are actually a lot of Canes football fans sill out there, especially on the internet. Many of those fans are going to be angry with me just for that very first sentence, even though they know damn well that they don't show up to their own team's games.
Maybe that will change now that Mark Richt has been hired, but what won't change is Miami fans being angry. I don't know a fan base that was a more accurate reflection of its football teams than Miami fans, it's just things have changed quite a bit. When Miami was winning national titles and putting together teams that were basically just NFL minor league rosters, it was swagger.
Now, after a slew of seven- and eight-win seasons and mediocre finishes in the ACC Coastal, that swagger has turned to straight up anger and bitterness. Much of which is taken out on any media member who dares to talk about the current state of Miami football rather than relive the glory days.
1. Texas A&M
They may not take it this way, but I mean this as a compliment: Texas A&M fans are just a comically strange, wonderfully weird group of people. They get angry over some of the silliest things, can tell you everything you ever wanted to know (and more that you didn't) about trademark law (the byproduct of supporting a school that sues everybody), and they can do it in a way which makes you wonder if they're truly mad at you.
Don't get me wrong, they very much are mad, but the one thing that stands out to me about most of the Mad Aggies I deal with is the lack of name-calling. They don't cuss you out much, but they seem like the type to passive-aggressively insult you to your face with a giant smile on their face as another Mad Aggie slowly creeps up on you from behind with a hunting knife.
Oh, and they hate Texas. Every school in Texas hates the Longhorns, as does every Big 12 school, but Texas A&M hates Texas a lot more than you do. So, like Mississippi State fans when it comes to Ole Miss, if you say something nice about the Longhorns in the presence of an Aggie, you're going to hear about it.
Then without fail, at some point in the conversation, they will tell you that the Longhorns are obsessed with the Aggies, while A&M doesn't give a damn about Texas. The fact they've spent the last 20 minutes talking crap about Texas while telling you they don't care about Texas will not register, even if you bring it up. They'll just say you brought it up, not them; they don't care about Texas after all.
Honorable Mention: BYU, Florida State, Michigan State, Missouri
