Greatest School

As promised the question of the best school is getting it's own column. Rather than build up the suspense and not write about it for a couple of months save for the occasional tease in other columns. I'm going to go the amateur route and give it to you right away. Why you ask? Well the answer is two fold. One, this way if the column sucks there was no big build up and you won't walk away disappointed and two, I have nothing else to right about. Now if that doesn't get you excited you need to check your pulse.

O.K. here's the criteria.
1) The school has to be in the United States. Even though I live in Canada it will make it much more interesting this way because other than McGill which is located in downtown Montreal there is pretty much slim pickings compared to our southern neighbors.

2) They have to have a NCAA division one 'A' football team. Otherwise it would get way too out of control.

3) The categories of judging include: quality of sports, weather, city, and anything intangible. That's it. If money is no object these are the only criteria you high school seniors need to be looking at when selecting colleges. No matter what people try to tell you about the importance of your education can you really compare going to Harvard versus getting to watch football games at Texas A&M as the 12th man? Didn't think so.

Just a quick note before I get started, there is in all likely hood going to be glaring omissions but I'll look the other way if you do.

On to the rankings.

Best in ACC
University of Miami: Unbelievable weather, unbelievable city, good athletics including football and baseball, only downside is it is dangerous there and the football team is on the downtrend.

Sleeper
Georgia Tech: Decent whether, big city, competitive sports

Best in Big 12
University of Texas: It's hot but at least it's never cold, the best sports scene in the country, Austin is an O.K city, a great intangible factor though is that Texas women are apparently gorgeous.

Sleeper
Texas A&M: Good sports, warm weather, Texas women, small town atmosphere, huge campus.

Best in Big East
University of South Florida: mediocre sports but great weather and a great city (Tampa) plus a nice big campus of largely undergraduate students.

Sleeper
University of Pittsburgh: crappy weather but good sports, underrated city and lots of professional sports

Best in Big 10
Ohio St: Bad weather but great sports and a fair sized city. Plus you get to annoy people by saying you got to "the Ohio State university."

Sleeper
Penn St: Crappy weather and out in the middle of nowhere which kind of sucks but is also kind of cool. Pretty good sports although it's declining.

Best in Conference USA
Tulane: Bad sports but good weather and a great city (New Orleans) it's a shame that the city is in the shape that it is.

Sleeper
Memphis: crappy sports, decent enough weather and a decent city.

There is no University worth mentioning in the Mid American conference so we're going to move on.

Best in Mountain West
University of Nevada Las Vegas: Great weather and possibly the best city in the country, who cares that the sports there suck.

Runner-Up
San Diego State: Some of the best weather in the country, cool city and the women largely out number the men. The only downside is the sports are bad.

Best in PAC 10
University of Southern California: Great weather, great sports, good city (but a bit overrated)

Runner-Up
UCLA: Pretty much the same as USC except just not as cool. I don't know what it is.

Best in SEC
University of Florida: Nice weather, great sports, not a great city but whatever.

Sleeper
University of South Carolina: good sports, nice weather but a shame it wasn't closer to the ocean.

Best in Sun Belt
Florida International: Located in Miami. All you need to know

Sleeper
Florida Atlantic University: Great weather, nice spot right on the south east coast of Florida in a small town, (Boca Raton) awful sports

Best in WAC
Hawaii: Best weather in the country and maybe the world, small city and exciting sports (football team). Only bad side is that you are pretty isolated out there.

Runner Up
Fresno St: Nice weather, surprisingly good sports, decent enough city.

Others
Notre Dame: Crappy weather but good sports and lots of history. Hard to judge just how cool it would be to go to the same school as Regis Philbin.

Alright now for the moment of truth, the top 10

10) South Florida
9) Tulane
8) Florida
7) Stanford
6) San Diego State
5) UCLA
4) Miami
3) Hawaii
2) UNLV
1) USC (The sports are just too good here)