Name Recognition

I know it's the offseason because I'm having way too much fun (and trouble) with this game.

The rules are simple: Type the name of every school in the BCS conferences in 12 minutes or less. You can type them in any order, and several variations of a school's name will count. It's the honor code here, so no looking at a map or anything like that.

As simple as it sounds, it's tough to remember ALL of them. Proficiency in geography isn't enough. Apparently, neither is obsession with college sports. I barely cracked 70% on the first try. Heaven help me if they add the WAC and Sun Belt.

What's even more interesting is to look at how often each school is named when people play. The sample set is getting pretty large (almost 10,000 have tried as of this post). Among the schools they named:

• USC and UCLA are both remembered by just above 90% of participants, obviously linked in the minds of college sports fans everywhere.
• Three other Pac-10 schools (Oregon State, Washington State, Arizona State) are also clumped together around 86%.
• Only about two-thirds of people think of Notre Dame. (Note that they don't actually use the term "BCS," and not everybody remembers that other Irish teams play in the Big East.)
• North Carolina is the fourth most frequently named school, but Duke is 16th.
• Florida, with recent success in both football and basketball, is the No. 1 named school at 94.4% of participants.
• Providence College is the most forgotten, with 43.9%. No indication how many people erroneously tried schools like Hawaii or Boise State, but I wonder if they were named more frequently!

Comments

[Banana]

I got 82%. Missed all those stupid Big East basketball schools...

[TylerTrojan]

Wow... that was tough - got all the Pac, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC, but only got 7 in the big east - total: 61/73

[Bobak]

Ack, 70 out of 73 (Big East basketball...) --if this were pure football I could've gone 119/119 (I already write them out when I have a lot of time on my hands and am bored at a seminar or similar).

[hensey]

Assuming you're looking at the Pac-10 schools a bit, do you not see Cal at 89.4%?? Not much difference there compared to the LA schools.