M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[Rocky Bleier]

While Iowa has had more smoke coming out, I would actually guess that Wisconsin is more likely to be described as a top 12 program than Iowa. I'd also think that Ferentz would have jumped ship already if bad **** was coming down the pipe at Iowa, given that he has clearly been a candidate for some jobs.

I'd be very surprised if it is MSU, because I don't think they have won enough recently to be labeled a top 12 program. Wisconsin is really the only other Big Ten team to be consistently good enough to get that label.

But I don't believe there's been a hint of scandal in Madison. I'd be surprised if it were sudenly revealed that they were dirty. The "top twelve" comment came from a guy from Yahoo sports, so it really depends on his definition. I'll be happy with whoever it is.

[entropy]

Ent,

My recollection is he beat his girlfriend and dragged her down 3 flights of stairs by her hair.

I can see TO still trying to be a mentor in his life but I can't see LP suiting up again.

With the benefit of hindsight (I know, always 20/20) LP never seemed to grasp that there are consequences to laying your hands on people and it is wrong. Would he have stopped if things had been done differently? We'll never know.

thanks. the police report went viral at one point in time. I couldn't find it, but the basic summary was this:

LP went into frost's apartment after being called by Kate, found kate, tried to take her out of the room, she refused, he grabbed her and took her out, she struggled with him, she and he hit the mailboxes, she got a cut on her doing so, LP got mad and punched the mailboxes (place where erroneously reported that he banged her head against the boxes), she fell down part of the stairs trying to get away, he left.


LP isn't a good guy.. that is/was obvious, but I do fine it interesting the perception vs reality. He never dragged her down flights of stairs. That was proven wrong in court. btw.. they did have an abusive (mostly verbal and holding someone down or keeping them against their will) relationship. That did come out.

anyways, thanks. we can go back to slamming OSU now... =)

[hack]

I agree with Hannibal that the Ten-Year Fraud cannot be chalked up to Tressell cheating to get more talent. He is, no question about it, one of the best football coaches on the planet, and those teams played harder and better than ours. A part of that is fraudulent personality he has sold the public -- it's a confidence game, and that's why Tressell knew he could go into AA and take his first win in his first opportunity. Cooper's players had everything but the mental edge needed to beat M. Another part is that, unlike Lloyd, winning doesn't seem to make him uncomfortable. It's interesting -- after that epic game when Washington came to the Big House and UM won in a crazy game with messy bad-coaching type of stuff on both sides, Lloyd went on and on about how it was a shame that one side had to lose. Since then it seems to me -- just guessing here -- that he really had lost his appetite for the winning-games part of coaching, and focused more on the father figure role.

Tressell and Carr ran different offenses, but shared the same philosophy -- get the defense and ST right, don't let the offense get in the way, capitalize on opponent's mistakes. Tressel is just so much better at executing that gameplan than Lloyd was in the latter half of his time at UM.

[entropy]

hack.. do you think Carr's conservative approach led to his dominance over Cooper and then problems with JT? Seemed to me Cooper was wreckless, and while JT was more conservative, he rolled the dice more than Carr. Just wondering..

[hack]

Very well could be. I don't recall the game-by-game events as well as others do. I'm not an Xs and Os guy as much as I am fascinated by the psychology of sports and competition, so perhaps I favor the explanation I find more stimulating. That caveat established, I think it was entirely mental. Carr's teams in his early years went into big games with excellent game plans and a lot of confidence. The opposite is true of the latter years. IMO Carr let the complexities of life into his brain and his teams got softer as a result. Tressel keeps it simple and therefore has more focused teams better able to execute the gameplan. He was younger and hungrier and Carr wasn't up for that battle with that particular type of coach. Tressel was losing sleep over Michigan's football team and Carr's mind was in too many places to expect success on the scale expected.

[entropy]

or maybe Carr couldn't beat a guy who had a similiar style and approach...

[Tony G]

With the talk in this thread about Iowa, Wisconsin and possibly MSU being at least a little dirty I'm glad The Big 10 has such a good rep. </sarcasm>

[entropy]

With the talk in this thread about Iowa, Wisconsin and possibly MSU being at least a little dirty I'm glad The Big 10 has such a good rep. </sarcasm>

The big10 is still not the SEC or the Big12..

[Tony G]

True but if 1/3 of the teams have some smoke coming from them it's not quite the bastion of integrity

[hack]

Throw out the younger/hungrier/cheaterier factors, and, yeah -- Tressel was for sure just better at it. Tressel is a remarkably good coach. Lloyd was too for a bit, but maybe never quite at Tressel's level. Lloyd had some crappy coordinators though. Herrmann's defenses required amazing CBs to work, and Lloyd should have known he didn't have that personnel, for example.

[Hannibal]

While Iowa has had more smoke coming out, I would actually guess that Wisconsin is more likely to be described as a top 12 program than Iowa. I'd also think that Ferentz would have jumped ship already if bad **** was coming down the pipe at Iowa, given that he has clearly been a candidate for some jobs.

I think that Frerentz has never jumped ship because he is insanely overpaid.

[Hannibal]

But I don't believe there's been a hint of scandal in Madison. I'd be surprised if it were sudenly revealed that they were dirty. The "top twelve" comment came from a guy from Yahoo sports, so it really depends on his definition. I'll be happy with whoever it is.

Yeah their success seems like a classic example of just indentifying and developing niche guys for their system that Michigan, OSU, and Notre Dame don't want.

[lineygoblue]

Since then it seems to me -- just guessing here -- that he really had lost his appetite for the winning-games part of coaching, and focused more on the father figure role.

I agree. There was a big difference between the 1997 Lloyd Carr, and the 2007 Lloyd Carr. It was obvious in the way he coached on the sidelines, the way he talked to the press, everything.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Let’s broaden this discussion about cheating beyond the stink that is osu (and maybe some more teams in the B10 - see above). We’re hearing a good deal lately about the top CFB programs being involved in this scheme and that scheme to get money into the hands of the best football players. It starts while they are in HS and continues during the time they are playing CFB. Clearly, osu is not alone here.

Beyond money going to the top CFB players themselves, the BCS bowl system, again, if the latest news about huge payouts to bowl committee members for doing essentially nothing is in indicator, is up to it’s neck in corruption. It would seem the game of CFB is out of control, it has lost its identity as a place where scholar athletes compete, the NCAA knows it and does not want to firmly put a stop to it choosing instead to nibble at the immensity of the problem unwilling to take it all on.

There is a large segment of the sports minded public out there that will get turned off by all this cheating while authorities with the power to stop it, do nothing. I am one of them. Sure, there are the sports strap hangers who have no interest in the concept of university and the student athlete and just want to drink beer and live vicariously through the success of any sports team that happens to get hot. But when fans who do care don't feel the contest is being played fairly, they won't get emotionally involved. This circumstance pretty much explains why I don’t feel The Game is the big deal it used to be …. at least for me. It explains why I am so pissed off at osu, jim tressel, smith, gee and the tat5 and why I draw irrational conclusions about why M football has been dominated by osu the last 10 years. If there are, in fact, more fans out there like me, they won’t get fired up for traveling 500 miles like I do to watch a game. Revenues for CFB will decline because the product is diminished. Pretty simple.

I don't get why the NCAA won’t protect its product by coming down hard on the cheats. You don't protect that prouct by letting coaches who cheat, ADs that let that cheating go on and College Presidents who look the other way off the hook. You don’t do it by giving hand slaps to players like terrell pryor, then let them play in a bowl game when they broke the rules and ultimately don’t suspend them or kick them out of college ball all together.

The NFL is fanatical about its image and the image of it's players. They understand that it’s the fan’s trust that the game is clean that keeps them fired up and filling the stands. The NCAA and the universities themselves better start understanding this and, BTW, I think Michigan, Dave Brandon and MSC do.

If osu is an indicator or the tip of the iceberg of cheating in college sports, College football is in trouble. Its not about who is cheating, its about who isn't cheating. I’ve mentioned how baseball records and the game itself were tarnished by the steroid scandal. After McGuire we asked who was cheating. Then the list of steroid users grew and we asked which hitters WEREN’T juicing? Then pitchers names started popping up as juicers and we asked "Who in Major League Baseball isn't doping?" Now we have from our erstwhile osu posters here ….. “everybody is doing it” and reminding us that plenty of M players have taken money. That is just wrong and people making that case lack conviction to principle. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.

I understand the tendency at the highest levels of the NCAA and collegiate athletics to be reluctant to take down an osu or a jim tressle or terrell pryor when they are the faces of CFB and are bringing in so much mone; money that is supporting sports that otherwise could not be played at the college level. But so what. Do you want to sacrifice your principals for some short term gains or do you want long term stability with a steady revenue stream that clean sports programs bring along.

The public's trust in CFB is waning when you hear calls for the government to get involved. We may not be there yet but with each of these stories showing widespread, systematic corruption will come louder calls for Congress to investigate. This week Ralph Nader was hammering on scholarships and the 'win at all costs' philosophy of college football. It’s starting. If the NCAA and the colleges can't police themselves, there is always someone in government who will be glad to jump in and do the policing. As fans we don’t want that to happen.

Maybe it is unfair to be calling for the hammering of osu given what appears to be widespread corruption, there is nothing new about money handshakes. But college football is in a different place than it was in the 60s and 70s. There is big money involved and with increased money and the exposure comes greater responsibility to clean up programs like osu’s and keep CFB overall clean. And in that, the NCAA and jointly the colleges themselves have failed massively. If the NCAA takes a stand and makes osu the fall guy for everything that is bad in CFB, fine with me.

[Rob F]

Very well thought out and very well written post there, Jeff. You summed up your feelings on a lot of things--yes, a long post, but one worthy of reading.

The current mess in CFB is sickening and disgusting. While there's been problems as far back as I can remember with various programs within CFB, I'm pretty sure I've never seen as many messes being exposed as what I've seen over the last 5 years or so. Clearly, things are out-of-control and the NCAA seems either ill-equipped or clueless or, more likely BOTH, as to how to get things cleaned up. And now, it's not just individual college programs that are deeply soiled, but also bowl games---tho the biggest controversy there is over the just-released report on the Fiesta Bowl, the articles I read and linked to the forum last night also allude to similiar scandals involving the Orange and Sugar Bowls and their rulers.

I, too, am pissed off when I read and hear daily about the bad apples and seedy side of CFB, Jeff---I'm trying to be optimistic, though, that it can and will be somewhat cleaned up. It remains to be seen how it will be done and by whom, but somehow CFB will survive and thrive.