The College Football Creatures We'll Meet This Season at Bleacher

Heading into my second season of writing college football articles here at Bleacher as well as filling up The Sports Chat Place with new material on a daily basis, I have a good idea as to many of the types we'll run into here this season.

There will be plenty of banter, some trash talking and some good spirited fun along with some goof balls, trolls and the like.

For those new around here, here's my preview of what to expect at Bleacher Report for the 2009 college football season.

The Pro

We have a few of these here at Bleacher. These are people like Baby Tate, Gray Ghost and Lisa Horne who are skilled and always are hitting nails right on the head, despite ruffling some feathers.

Each is different in its own way but each bring plenty to the table. I'm guessing with the increased exposure of the site we'll have plenty more of these guys.

The Spammer (AKA "Parasites")

While a lot of us have our own sites and use Bleacher Report as a way to get exposure, there are people who aren't even really part of the community who have hundreds of articles posted but have fewer than 10 comments.

While some people, well maybe even a lot of people, don't agree with with some things or all of the things I say, no one can say I haven't embraced or become part of the community. While personally I don't like some other people here and I don't like their comments, writing style nor a lot of other things about them nor the way they carry themself, I do respect that they are part of the community and don't just visit the site like pasting a poster to a city street post.

To me if there ever is a downfall to this site it will be these people who aren't part of the community but just use the site as a place to paste their drivel. If you want specific examples there are plenty.

(Insert School Colors) Glasses Wearers

We all know these types; some confuse them with die hard fans. These are the types that no matter what their school or their schools players do, it's OK, especially when comparing it to another school's problems.

In most cases they believe if it isn't as bad as what another school has done, it isn't really bad at all and should go unpunished or shouldn't be talked about. While a lot of these types are pretty harmless, some will morph into other categories with just a little prodding.

This type can also share some common ground with the "Super Fans" who of course know such ridiculous minuscule facts about their team that if someone else doesn't know this minutia they believe that person not only doesn't know anything about the specific program but they also don't know anything about college football at all.

The Award Winning Writers

These are the types that are always spending their time complaining about the writer rating system rather than putting together some quality work. Most of these types either haven't written much or haven't been escalated on the writers ranking scales as quickly as they feel they should be.

They usually offset this by telling others how bad of a writer they are and wonder how they got the rating they did. Meanwhile if they ever read their own stuff, it's usually loaded with exclamation points (or other useless punctuation marks) and a lot of long words that are often misused.

I always think what makes a good writer is that other people read your writing and it inspires thought and a response. Those that do this are usually ranked pretty high in Bleacher Report.

Write-a-holics

How do these guys write so many articles? Don't they have a life? There are always a bunch of these out there but they seem to come and go, even the good ones, as most experience writer burn out.

I have never seen even one writer stay involved in the community and write four to five articles a day over a period of more than a few months, I think it may be impossible.

Cheerleaders

I see less of these but in reality we need more. These are the guys who encourage and work with the young writers and sharpen them up.

I am fans of a lot of the young guns out there and a few of them contribute plenty of articles to my site as well. We really need to encourage the young guys and some people here dedicate most of their time to just doing that.

Let's help these guys out when they post on our boards that some young writer has given us another gem to read.

Haters

I say black, you say white. I say yes, you say no.

Right? No, wrong.

Weathermen

This is my favorite term that I coined last season. What are weathermen best at? Telling us what the weather was yesterday.

The weathermen of Bleacher are good at telling us who they thought was going to win a game or cover a point spread, after the game is already over. I pick games and so do a lot of people here. We get to see these guys every time we get one wrong; they never show when we are right.

Get ready for "I knew so and so would beat so and so," and "you got that wrong."

I have a free picking contest at my site with cash prizes where you pick your top 15 games (your choice) against the spread and rank them in confidence order. It is open to everyone and anyone and it's free. Trust me on this, former weathermen never win.

The Victim

The Victim usually has a foul mouth and a foul keyboard. The Victim likes to write responses that surpass all decorum and language that is acceptable.

Arguing is great. Spirited debate is even better. Name calling and use of words that can't be said on broadcast television isn't OK. While Bleacher doesn't seem to like to censor, I notice this is getting even stricter than broadcast television.

Most of these "discussions" end with: "you should read what they wrote."

We'll see these types and more as the season progress, that you can bank on.