For those of you that missed it, #10 on the countdown was Rutgers, ultimately for the proximity to New York City. For vacation purproses, I typically enjoy warm weather places more than I do cold weather places, so despite having inferior football to Rutgers, San Diego edges out NYC for the #9 spot on the countdown:

San Diego State University: University website --- Football team website

Something tells me this would beat a trip to Starkville.

SDSU Football: Yes, I realize that San Diego State isn't just inferior to Rutgers at football, they are, in fact, a pretty terrible football team and have been for the past decade or so. They haven't had a winning season since 1998 (though they did go 6-6 in 2003.) No coach has had a winning record for their career at SDSU since Al Luginbill was coach from 1989 to 1993. Luginbill's five year tenure found him compile a 31-25-3 record. Since Luginbill's departure, times have been mighty lean at SDSU with subsequent coaches putting up less than stellar records: Ted Tollner (43-48 over eight seasons), Tom Craft (19-29 over four seasons) and Chuck Long (9-27 over three seasons.) Their current coach is Brady Hoke, formerly of Ball State. The program's biggest win in recent memory was over a 7-5 Utah in 2005 during Kyle Wittingham's first year in charge of the Utes. One notable former SDSU player was Marshall Faulk. Interestingly enough, SDSU has never played an SEC team before, so this trip would be a first in many ways.

Faulk ran for 386 yards and scored 44 points in a 1991 game (click photo to enlarge)

Stuff to do: Obviously, this trip isn't about a potential clash of the titans, it's about taking a trip to San Diego and putting a likely "W" in the record books. Now I've never been to San Diego, so I can't vouch for its awesomeness or anything, but it certainly looks like it's worth a visit. There's beaches, surfing, sailing, hiking, etc. for the outdoorsy types. There looks to be plenty of venues showcasing good live music such as The Casbah and Belly Up as well as venues housing more mainstream entertainment like the House of Blues or the Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre. For those traveling with their families, there's the obvious choices of the San Diego Zoo (and Balboa Park in general), Sea World, etc.

Surfing at Black's Beach in San Diego...and hey, part of it is a nude beach.

For the Bama fan that's also into pro-sports, you could perhaps take in a Chargers game on Sunday or maybe take in Padres game if either were in town on the same weekend. Considering SDSU and the Chargers both use Qualcomm Stadium though, I highly doubt they schedule games there on back to back days seeing as it would shred the field to pieces. Even though the Chargers have no Alabama players on their roster, they have not one, but two Barners we could mock from the stands.

Other plusses about a trip to San Diego? Light rail mass transit. Looks like you can take the train to Qualcomm Stadium and not have to worry about driving and parking. Also, the weather looks pretty awesome. Since this would likely be a September game, check out this chart of average temperatures in San Diego during September. Looks like it's typically between 66 and 79 in that month. Way better than the brain melting heat of Tuscaloosa methinks.

So, while this may not be the greatest football match up ever imagined, it would likely be a fun road trip...especially since BixBeiderbecke would probably bring his naked sushi party caravan down from LA.