Around the Big Ten

[Pasadena Blue]

and please don't count Arkansas last year ... we all know now that those players who Tressel knew were ineligible should not have played.

[Paul L]

Looks like the flagship's last win over the SEC was a dominating 36-33 lambasting of LSU in the cesspool in '88. Before that? 1935, against Kentucky.

0-10 against the SEC in bowl games.

7 total wins against the SEC; 6 against powerhouses Kentucky and Vandy:
Ohio State vs Kentucky Record: 3-0-0
11-15-1895 Lexington, KY 8-6
10-18-1919 Columbus, OH 49-0
10-05-1935 Columbus, OH 19-6

Ohio State vs Vanderbilt (TN) Record: 3-1-0
11-14-1908 Nashville, TN 17-6
11-13-1909 Columbus, OH 5-0
10-10-1931 Columbus, OH 21-26
10-14-1933 Columbus, OH 20-0

[Jamie H]

Didn't see the end of the Rose Bowl, but Spielman on ESPN radio was just ripping into the officials at the end of the game. His main point was that he believed they pooched the touchback/safety call badly and forced Bielima to waste a timeout trying to figure out WTF they were doing.

I didn't see the play--was it a safety or is Speilman just a loudmouth?

ESPN radio was ripping the refs in the Stanford-Okie St. game too. Just piling on them, saying that anyone in the stands could see what the right calls were except for the officials. It was the exact opposite of the telecasts where the announcers seem to protect the refs at all costs.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Looks like the flagship's last win over the SEC was a dominating 36-33 lambasting of LSU in the cesspool in '88. Before that? 1935, against Kentucky.

0-10 against the SEC in bowl games.

7 total wins against the SEC; 6 against powerhouses Kentucky and Vandy:
Ohio State vs Kentucky Record: 3-0-0
11-15-1895 Lexington, KY 8-6
10-18-1919 Columbus, OH 49-0
10-05-1935 Columbus, OH 19-6

Ohio State vs Vanderbilt (TN) Record: 3-1-0
11-14-1908 Nashville, TN 17-6
11-13-1909 Columbus, OH 5-0
10-10-1931 Columbus, OH 21-26
10-14-1933 Columbus, OH 20-0

When was Michigan's last BCS win? 1999? Repping the conference well

[WM Wolverine]

It wasn't a safety (entire ball has to come out of the endzone) but the refs did make a few mistakes, mostly all in favor of Oregon.

[Jamie H]

Yeah, the radio guys during the Stanford-Okie St. game were explaining the safety rules on a kick, that the entire all must cross the line for it not to be a touchback. Obviously Spielman didn't really understand them, which makes his ripping on the refs for it pretty stupid.

I like that Spielman speaks his mind, but when you rip on people on air you better be sure you are right about the rules first.

[iam416]

Well, we'll see if M can improve on the Non-OSU B10's record in BCS Bowl games since 2000 of 2-10. Interestingly enough, those 2 wins were also against shitball ACC teams, though those two teams were actually ACC champs. In any event, a win is a win...and 3-10 is better than 2-11.

[JRB]

There's a lot of chatter out there today that Penn State is about to hire Mark Richt-- Richt's Wikipedia page(and if we can't trust Wikipedia, by God, what is there to believe in?) leads off by calling him "reportedly the new head coach at Penn State University," though the source article for that statement doesn't go nearly that far.

I'm not sure if there's anything to this, but I'd think that would be a solid hire for Penn State if they could get it done.

[SeanB]

Does Richt have any ties to PSU or is he just getting out of Georgia before the pitch-fork crowd gets to him first? Mutual separation or something like that?

And who will end up at Georgia if he leaves, I wonder?

[iam416]

Richt's name has been tossed around for awhile and has been, frankly, the least incredible name posited by PSU "insiders".

[JRB]

Does Richt have any ties to PSU or is he just getting out of Georgia before the pitch-fork crowd gets to him first? Mutual separation or something like that?

He has no ties to Penn State I'm aware of. As for mutual separation, eleven years is a long time to coach at one school in the SEC these days, and Richt may need a change. He also has a bit of a moral ego, if that's not too negative a way to put it. He may be the one head coach at a major program who would actually welcome the opportunity presented at Penn State.

[entropy]

wouldn't surprise me if some Georgia fans made some changes on wikipedia.

[whodean]

The Big Ten Has Seen Better Days

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550304577137060718207498.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

PASADENA, Calif.—This hasn't exactly been a dream season for college football. But let's be honest: It's been a nightmare for mainly one conference in particular.

For the Big Ten Conference, the first half of 2011 saw the shaming of its premier football program, Ohio State, over former coach Jim Tressel's handling of an improper-benefits scandal. The second half brought an unprecedented child sex-abuse case to the conference's most respected program, Penn State. (Not to compare the two predicaments, of course.) The calendar has since turned to 2012, and the focus has returned to the field, but things haven't gotten appreciably better.

In an annual holiday display that has become trite to the point of tediousness, the Big Ten suffered through another rough batch of New Year's bowl games. The conference dropped three of Monday's first four, with Ohio State falling to Florida in the Gator, Nebraska losing badly to South Carolina in the Capital One and Penn State doing likewise to small-conference Houston in the TicketCity.

Michigan State's come-from-behind, triple-overtime victory over Georgia prevented a complete disaster.

But still: Entering Monday night's Wisconsin-Oregon Rose Bowl, the Big Ten stood 33-51 in bowl games since 2000, 3-5 this season, 1-3 on the sport's showcase bowl day. The only difference this time was the games were played on Jan. 2, not the traditional New Year's Day. (As is customary when New Year's falls on a Sunday.) Granted, it still could be worse. Regardless of the results on the field, the Big Ten remains a stable brand—unlike the Big East Conference, whose very survival was threatened by the departure of members Pittsburgh, Syracuse and West Virginia for other conferences. (The Big East has responded by adding Houston, Southern Methodist and Central Florida in 2013, plus Boise State and San Diego State in football only.)

The Big Ten also deserves praise for its recent agreement with the Pac-12. By 2017, each Big Ten team will play someone from the Pac-12 annually, which should help cure one of college football's greatest ills—the galling, gutless nonconference schedules that many major programs play during September.

And the Big Ten thankfully remains the most prominent obstacle in college football's march toward adopting the "plus-one" postseason format—which is essentially a four-team playoff, which would threaten the unique magnitude of the sport's regular season.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany argued against the plus-one last month, calling it a "slippery slope" that could lead to a larger, full-blown playoff. The Bowl Championship Series appears to be on the verge of major change, with the elite bowls' TV contracts expiring in 2014. College-football leaders are expected to propose what changes they'd like to see to the BCS as soon as this spring.

But it seems like this why-can't-the-Big Ten-win-in-January conversation has been going on since the days of Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler. Indeed, the Big Ten has won just two national titles since 1969—Michigan in 1997, Ohio State in 2002. The Southeastern Conference, with LSU and Alabama playing in next week's national-championship game, will soon win its sixth in a row.

The Big Ten's primary problem is that its best programs—that is, its historically elite ones—aren't its best teams. At least not right now.

Ohio State went 6-7 this season, its first losing year since 1988; Penn State (9-4) has largely underachieved for the past dozen years, as 85-year-old former coach Joe Paterno slowed down; Nebraska still hasn't fully rebuilt itself a decade and a half after former coach Tom Osborne's retirement; and Michigan—though it enjoyed a renaissance year, which will conclude in Tuesday's Sugar Bowl—has major offensive and defensive-line depth issues to address before it truly becomes an elite program again.

These are the four Big Ten programs that have the ability to recruit nationally. These are the four programs, therefore, with the highest ceiling.

It hardly looked that way Monday, though. Penn State was outgained by an outrageous margin of 600-306 by Houston, a Conference USA program. Nebraska—after scoring 56 seconds into its game—was once again overmatched by a ranked opponent, after getting routed by Wisconsin and Michigan this season.

It's become fashionable to presume that Ohio State will have a bounce-back 2012 season under new coach Urban Meyer, but the Buckeyes' 24-17 loss to Florida presented plenty of reasons to think otherwise. After what appeared to be a breakthrough game offensively against Michigan in the regular-season finale, the Ohio State offense again struggled badly—and next season the Buckeyes lose senior running back Dan Herron and senior receiver DeVier Posey, their two best playmakers.

Michigan State was one significant bright spot. After falling behind 16-0, the Spartans pulled off their first bowl victory since 2001—albeit thanks in significant part to Georgia coach Mark Richt's ultraconservative decision to play for a 42-yard field goal during the first overtime, which missed.

So it shouldn't be overlooked that the Spartans scored one for the conference against the vaunted SEC's East Division champion. It also should be mentioned that the Big Ten's bowl struggles were by no means unexpected. Of the 10 Big Ten teams that reached a bowl, Purdue, Illinois and Michigan were the only ones that were favored.

But the fact that we're now expecting the conference to fare so poorly is hardly a good thing.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The premise of the article above is seriously flawed.

The author's argument rests on the assumption that the BCS system, and the bowl system before it with voting on the top teams as the guiding principle in both is the right way to determine the best CFB team.

It's not. Nothing new here.

Like I said elsewhere. I don't give a rat's ass about the apparent dominance of the SEC in relationship to the B10 (or any other conference) in bowl games or in BCS rankings. I'm pretty sure Jim Delaney doesn't either.

A win or a loss in the post season has limited implications at face. Fans may be displeased and sports journalists will write what they calim are authoritative articles but come the end of August, 9 months after the last bowl game has ended, most fans won't remember who played in the NCG, who won that game or the results of any of the other bowls.

[whodean]

A M win tonight would go a long way toward making the Big10 look better.