Spartans??? What is your profession?

 In the midst of all the coaching craziness, we are now prepared to play in the Military Bowl against the San Jose State Spartans.  As always, we are going to spend some time looking at our opponents, and in this case, it is someone we don't know very much about (which is what makes bowl games interesting) and so let's do a little primer on San Jose State.

1910 football team.  The "N" stands
For Normal.

The University was founded in 1857, which makes it one old-ass university.  California had only been a state for 7 years when the school was founded.  They have about 30,000 students.

They are a big supplier of talent to Silicon Valley.  Gordon "Moore's Law" Moore went there, as did founders or co-founders of Seagate Technology, Oracle and ratemyprofessor.com.

Other prominent alumni include Dian Fossey, Lyn Nofziger, Joe Trippi, Gaylord Nelson, Michael Deaver, Jessica McClintock, The Smothers Brothers, Amy Tan, Robert Scoble, Peter Ueberroth and Bobbi Starr.

They also report having the inventor of the VCR and the Wave.

Looks like BG?

Sports wise, they sport Bill Walsh, Dick Vermeill and Terry Donahue, along with Patty Sheehan.  They are one of only 4 schools that have two super-bowl winning graduates.

Their most famous sports contribution globally was in track.  The school was known as "Speed City" and sent 3 runners to the Mexico City Olympics, where they raised their fists during the national anthemn.

They started football in 1893.  Today they play in the WAC and will join the Mountain West next season.  In fact, I believe that our bowl game will be the final game in the history of the WAC.

"Sammy"

As you know by now, their coach, Mike McIntyre, has accepted the job at Colorado and will not coach in the bowl game.  The interim coach will be Kent Baer, who is uniquely qualified for his role, having served as the interim coach for Notre Dame after Ty Willingham was sent packing in whatever year that was.

This has certainly been a year to remember for the Spartans.  From 2009-10 they were 3-22 and this year was only their third winning season since 2000.  

We'll have more time to look at the football side of things as the game draws closer.