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

[Tony G]

We’re Commemorating Ohio State’s Outlaw 12-0 Season With Customized Temporary Tattoos. Want One? [UPDATE: We Have Run Out Of Tattoos]

Tom Ley

The Ohio State Buckeyes, the lone undefeated team in college football after the Notre Dame Fighting Irish woke up this morning and realized they were supposed to play a game last night, finished the season ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press poll. The Buckeyes—bowl ineligible because some players who aren't on the team anymore were found in 2010 to have gotten free tattoos—were thus denied a share of the national championship. Outrage! No 12-0 season should go unrewarded! That's why Deadspin is awarding Ohio State the 2012 Outlaw National Championship. And we got some temporary tattoos made to commemorate the occasion.

UPDATE: We have run out of tattoos. Sorry folks. Now stop emailing us.
We've ordered 100 temporary tattoos bearing this design, and we will be giving them away until we run out. Want one? Email us with your address at tips@deadspin.com, subject line: "outlaw champs."
Tattoo designed by Jim Cooke


http://deadspin.com/5974108/were-commemorating-ohio-states-outlaw-12+0-season-with-customized-temporary-tattoos-want-one

[Dr. Strangelove]

Toughest game of the year was at Wisconsin

[whodean]

Toughest game of the year was at Wisconsin

A 5 loss team was OlieO's toughest game. Patsy schedule.

[Mike]

6-loss team.

[Dr. Strangelove]

2nd toughest game was at Penn State

[Dr. Strangelove]

3rd toughest...prob Nebraska

[Mike]

Wrong on all three counts. Purdue was your toughest game.

[iam416]

Unfortunately for M fans, UFM beat everyone they played. Unfortunately for M fans, UFM has a credible chance to do it again. I understand the rest of the B10, including M, can't compete with the FLAGSHIP, but that's the conference OSU is in. Can only beat who they play.

[Pasadena Blue]

true enough ... IMO if the regular season doesn't prepare you adequately to face the SEC champ in the BCS champ game, you get stomped (regardless of your talent equality) .... case in point, ND 2012.

I think it is not hard to envision Meyer regularly breezing through the year undefeated only to get stomped by Saban again and again in the bowls.

[iam416]

I don't think ND and Alabama had anything close to talent equality.

However, your general worldview is correct. UFM isn't preparing to win the B10. He knows he can steamroll that. He's building a team to beat Alabama. Dominating the B10 will be a nice by-product of that endeavor, but that's not his goal. At least IMO.

[hack]

I come to bury Brutus, not to praise him. The evil that programs do lives after them; the good is oft wiped from the record books. So let it be with this latest iteration of the ignoble Brutus. We hath told you he was ambitious: if it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Brutus answer'd it. Here, under the corporate sponsorship of Value City and the rest—for Thad Matta is an honourable man; so are they all, all honourable men—come I to speak to Ohio State's funeral. We come here to this edifice constructed recently of cash, to see it hewn and sundered by a man born among them, but not borne of them. Here in Christopher's putrescent hamlet, amidst lank and living columns who all drive suspiciously luxurious cars that the NCAA is totally okay with, shall we find what strength our temper'd mettle bears.

Brian is brilliant. It just doesn't get any better than this. See you Sunday, shmucks.

[Jeff Buchanan]

UFM isn't preparing to win the B10. He knows he can steamroll that. He's building a team to beat Alabama. Dominating the B10 will be a nice by-product of that endeavor, but that's not his goal. At least IMO.

I can't disagree with this ........

As far as BT programs go, osu is in the drivers seat. Why? Coaching, recruiting and alignment of the stars. osu BoT committed to and went out and got one of the best CFB coaches in the land and then told him to go out and win National Championships. He's on his way because he also happens to be an excellent recruiter. The later sounds silly but its not.

What does alignment of the the stars mean? Its just the way things are. Of all the programs outside the SEC, within which we have all agreed that it is difficult to overcome the inherent advantages for the top tier football programs in that conference, there are a few football programs that will compete with the Alabamas, LSUs and Floridas of that conference for national prominence. One of them is osu.

Why is that? Because osu deciders, like their counterparts at UA, are committed to winning football. Period. They aren't bogged down by a corporate culture that tries to deny what CFB is actually about arguing instead it is about integrity, doing things the right way and developing student athletes as a part of the University experience.

That's nice but in the cut-throat world of college athletics, you better not be bringing knifes to a gun fight if you want to win. This isn't about accusing Michigan's football opponents of cheating, by this I mean in its widest definition, while claiming Michigan doesn't do that. I'm pretty sure there are things going on among powerful M alumni that take care, in one fashion or the other, M money sports interests as well as taking care of the needs of football and basketball players. It's about recognizing the reality of the power of money to achieve a desired result. Bear might have been a great coach. So too Barry Switzer and these modern day coaches weren't much different than the big name coaches of the early to mid 1900s. They coached football teams made up of talented youngsters that were enticed to go to these schools because they got paid, as the saying goes, with suitcases full of cash, to play football for them. Frankly, I don't think much has changed.

As I see it, the bottom line is that to win consistently on the national scene, seriously win and be a regular contender, not win by default or some quirk of circumstance, fraudulently making it to the top, the deciders within the athletic departments and the schools, have to commit to winning and achieving that goal by any and all means possible.

M football is always going to be good but its going to be Stanford good or ND good. Nothing wrong with that but you'll not see the Maze and Blue competing for a whole lot of NCs given the rules they've chosen to play this particular game of CFB and in the circumstances the world of modern CFB finds itself in.

IMO, and I'd like to think, Delaney might have some understanding of this reality. I think it is motivating some of his strategy - and make no mistake he is a player here. I don't think he wants Big Ten programs to win at all costs but rather he seeks to eliminate the advantages of the SEC programs have whatever the reality inherent in those advantages might actually be. I think he tolerates the NCAA but abhors their enforcement weaknesses - the kind of enforcement that could level the playing field by lessening the impact of decades of payola schemes. He definitely wants to find another way to regulate college sports. I'm with him there.

[hack]

I don't think he wants Big Ten programs to win at all costs but rather he seeks to eliminate the advantages of the SEC programs have whatever the reality inherent in those advantages might actually be.


Got anything to back that? I think he's about TV and exposure and money more than he is about narrowing the football gap with the SEC.

[lineygoblue]

I think he's about TV and exposure and money more than he is about narrowing the football gap with the SEC.

Totally agree.

[Jeff Buchanan]

No, just speculation. Delaney is a smart guy. I do agree with you that TV reveue is the driving force in conference realignment but in any sort of reorganization like tis, there are ancillary benefits that aren't talked about. One of them could be, in the context of three conferences and 60 teams, the demise of the NCAA as a regulator of the those three conferences and anew set of ground rules that Delaney si definitely going to take a part in. Those ground rules, I would think, would be designed to find ways to end the benefits gained by SEC teams who are, sometimes brazenly, paying their players.

This could be a pipe dream but I really do believe that behind closed doors, this is an issue for Big Ten Powers and one they'd like to deal with without directly confronting it - an impossible task. Stipends, trusts and increasing the scholarship limits are ways to do this but as long as the NCAA is around, as long as there are pretender football programs who want a seat at the table, a cut of the pie and there is a favorably disposed bunch of nitwits within the NCAA who want to entertain these guys, nothing in this regard will change.