Around the Big Ten

[entropy]

A group of Big Ten football players, one Big Ten football coach, one Big Ten football team and one unforgettable 7-year-old Nebraska football fan are among the nominees for the BTN awards. The awards show takes place June 26 at 8 p.m. ET.

Here are the football nominees by category ... ?Penn State's Bill O'Brien is among the nominees for men's coach of the year. He joins Michigan basketball's John Beilein, Indiana soccer's Todd Yeagley, Indiana baseball's Tracy Smith and Penn State wrestling's Cael Sanderson. O'Brien won several national coaching honors after guiding Penn State to an 8-4 mark last season.
?Northwestern RB Venric Mark and Penn State WR Allen Robinson are nominated for breakout performer of the year. Mark and Robinson are up against two men's basketball players (Michigan's Trey Burke and Indiana's Victor Oladipo).
?Wisconsin RB Montee Ball and Michigan QB Denard Robinson both are nominated for most dominating performance. Ball had a career-high 247 rush yards and three touchdowns on Oct. 13 at Purdue, as he set the Big Ten's career rushing record. Robinson scored four touchdowns Sept. 8 against Air Force and became the first FBS player to eclipse 200 rush yards and 200 pass yards three times in his career.
?Jack Hoffman, the 7-year-old brain cancer patient and Nebraska fan who became a household name with his touchdown run during the Nebraska spring game, is nominated for most courageous performance. Purdue quarterback Robert Marve, who continued to play despite a third ACL tear and helped the Boilers reach a bowl game, also is up for the award. Just a hunch: Hoffman wins this one.
?The fourth-down stop by Michigan LB Kenny Demens on Northwestern RB Tyris Jones in overtime to seal a Wolverines victory is nominated for best finish, along with three buzzer-beating men's basketball plays.
?Ohio State's 12-0 football team is up for men's team of the year, along with Indiana soccer, Michigan swimming, Penn State wrestling and Indiana baseball.

There are no football nominees for game of the year.

The Big Ten also will announce its best male athlete and best female athlete of the year at the awards. Michigan State RB Le'Veon Bell is among the nominees for best male athlete.




Post Extras:

[WM Wolverine]

Placed it in the M discussion last time but the B10 added the Holiday & SF bowls to its lineup, looks like the B10 will be adding the Armed Forces too. Rumors are it might be shared with the Heart of Dallas bowl.

New lineup:

*1. Rose
*2. Citrus (aka Capital One) or Orange
*3., 4., Holiday & Hall-of-Fame (Outback)
*5., 6., 7. & 8. Gator/Music City, Pinstripe, Armed Forces/Heart of Dallas, SF Bowl.
*9. Detroit Bowl

Looks pretty much set.

[lineygoblue]

I don't think the B1G can qualify that many teams.

[WM Wolverine]

There will be 14 teams in the B10 when these bowl contracts start and if the B10 doesn't have a team qualify for the Detroit Bowl, they won't be too disappointed with its lowly payout.

[entropy]

The Big Ten's next bowl lineup not only will feature several new games but a new process for assigning teams to their postseason destinations.

While most conferences will continue to assign their contract bowls a selection number after all the spots in the College Football Playoff and other BCS-type bowls are filled, the Big Ten will adopt a tiered system for its postseason tie-ins.

Bowls likely will be played in an upper tier, a middle tier and a bottom tier, and the Big Ten will work with bowl officials to place teams in games. The goal: to freshen up the bowl landscape.

[+] EnlargeJim Delany
AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, FileThe Big Ten's Jim Delany is aiming to create fresh bowl game matchups for teams in his league.
"It's counterproductive to send the same teams to the same bowls in consecutive [years] or four out of five years," commissioner Jim Delany said Monday on a conference call with reporters to announce the Big Ten's six-year agreements with the Holiday and Kraft Fight Hunger bowls for the 2014-19 seasons. "Someone will obviously select first, but they may or may not get the team they want because that team may have been in that region two years in a row. We're trying to make sure there’s freshness. It's hard when a team goes to say Florida five times in six years to get them really excited."

Delany said the Holiday Bowl in San Diego will be in the top tier of Big Ten bowls. Although the league hasn't officially announced it will continue agreements with the Capital One and Outback bowls, those games also will be in the top tier.

The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl in the San Francisco area and the Pinstripe Bowl in New York will be in the middle tier, Delany said.

No other Big Ten bowl agreements have been officially announced, but here's what the tiers likely will look like, based on conversations with league sources.

Top tier: Capital One, Outback, Holiday

Middle tier: Gator/Music City (sharing a tie-in during six-year agreement), Kraft Fight Hunger, Pinstripe

Lower tier: Heart of Dallas/Armed Forces (sharing a tie-in during six-year agreement), new Detroit bowl (managed by Detroit Lions)

The Big Ten could add another lower-tier bowl on the East Coast, and the Military Bowl in the Washington D.C. area is a possibility. Dropping out of the Big Ten's lineup are the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, the Meineke Care Care Bowl of Texas and the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.

The Rose Bowl remains in its own tier for the Big Ten, and the league also will appear in the Orange Bowl at least three times between 2014-26. In those seasons, an ACC team would take the Big Ten's spot in the Capital One Bowl, sources have told colleagues Brett McMurphy and Heather Dinich.

The Pac-12, meanwhile, will keep a traditional selection order with its bowls. The Holiday will select the No. 3 Pac-12 team after Rose/Playoff and Alamo, while Kraft Fight Hunger moves up to No. 4.

"We're working with the bowls to create what I would describe as a process for selection and approval by each bowl, subject to a series of parameters," Delany said Monday. "We're going to really want to have different teams in different bowls. I think early on in the cycle, you'll see something that resembles a selection process, but as the bowls unfold, you'll see a real focus on getting diversity and freshness."

Delany said the tiers are more for bowls than teams, although Big Ten teams with the strongest records not participating in the Playoff/Rose/Orange would go to the top-tier bowls. All three bowl agreements the Big Ten has announced include the stipulation that at least five different teams will appear during the first six years of the deals.

Repeat selections have been a problem for the Big Ten and other conferences in recent years. Nebraska has appeared in the Capital One Bowl in each of the past two seasons, while Wisconsin went to Florida for bowl games in six consecutive seasons (2004-09).

Delany expects the league and its bowl partners to agree on team selections more often than not, but the league is definitely taking a more active role in trying to create more attractive matchups.

"Clearly, there'll be some bowls that will select with our approval in advance," Delany said, "but I think you're going to see a lot of movement by teams among bowls. We're fortunate that all these are fantastic destinations, they're world-class cities with opponents coming from world-class conferences.

"We think there are great brands on our side and great brands on the other side, and together, that will produce great bowl matchups."

[Dr. Strangelove]

Maryland's countersuit against the ACC was stayed today meaning the original lawsuit in North Carolina will proceed. Could very well get moved to a federal court

[entropy]

Big Ten releases 2016, 2017 schedules
July, 11, 2013
By Brian Bennett | ESPN.com

Ever since the Big Ten decided to go to a nine-game schedule beginning in 2016, we've been anxiously waiting to see how those schedules would line up.

The wait is now over, as the league has put out its schedules for 2016 and 2017, the first two years of the nine-game conference slates. This is big, because there are so many competitive balance questions with the uneven crossover opponents and home/road splits. As previously announced, all East Division teams will play five conference home games in 2016, while the West Division teams will play five at home in '17.

OK, let's delve into the important details ...

DIVISION CROSSOVERS

2016


East Division

Indiana: Nebraska, at Northwestern, Purdue (protected)
Maryland: Purdue, Minnesota, at Nebraska
Michigan: Wisconsin, Illinois, at Iowa
Michigan State: Wisconsin, Northwestern, at Illinois
Ohio State: at Wisconsin, Northwestern, Nebraska
Penn State: Minnesota, at Purdue, Iowa
Rutgers: Illinois, at Minnesota, Iowa

West Division

Illinois: at Rutgers, at Michigan, Michigan State
Iowa: at Rutgers, at Penn State, Michigan
Minnesota: at Penn State, at Maryland, Rutgers
Nebraska: at Indiana, at Ohio State, Maryland
Northwestern: at Michigan State, Indiana, at Ohio State
Purdue: at Maryland, Penn State, at Indiana (protected)
Wisconsin: at Michigan, at Michigan State, Ohio State

2017

East Division

Indiana: Wisconsin, at Illinois, at Purdue (protected)
Maryland: at Minnesota, Northwestern, at Wisconsin
Michigan: at Purdue, Minnesota at Wisconsin
Michigan State: Iowa, at Minnesota, at Northwestern
Ohio State: at Nebraska, at Iowa, Illinois
Penn State: at Northwestern, at Iowa, Nebraska
Rutgers: at Nebraska, at Illinois, Purdue

West Division

Illinois: Rutgers, Indiana, at Ohio State
Iowa: at Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State
Minnesota: Maryland, Michigan State, at Michigan
Nebraska: Rutgers, Ohio State, at Penn State
Northwestern: Penn State, at Maryland, Michigan State
Purdue: Michigan, at Rutgers, Indiana (protected)
Wisconsin: Maryland, at Indiana, Michigan

Now you see the effect of the so-called "parity-based" scheduling. There was some rumbling about the 2014 and 2015 schedules because a lot of the marquee programs don't play each other those years. Well, we get Ohio State-Nebraska and Wisconsin-Michigan in both 2016 and 2017, both Michigan State-Wisconsin and Wisconsin-Ohio State in '16, and Penn State-Nebraska in '17. While it's impossible to predict how good any team will be four or five seasons from now, these figure to be the marquee games for the league.

Sadly, there's no Nebraska-Michigan on the schedule, meaning the Huskers and Wolverines won't play for at least four consecutive years (2014-2017). I would imagine we'll see those two hook up in 2018, but it's the one real headliner matchup missing in the conference over that period. Savor this year's game in Ann Arbor, folks. We'll also miss Penn State-Wisconsin, as those teams also do not play from 2014-2017.

Let's look at the schedule in terms of opponents each team will miss in 2016 and 2017:

NO PLAYS

2016

East Division

Indiana: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
Maryland: Illinois, Iowa, Northwestern, Wisconsin
Michigan: Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue
Michigan State: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Purdue
Ohio State: Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Purdue
Penn State: Illinois, Nebraska, Northwestern, Wisconsin
Rutgers: Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin


West Division

Illinois: Indiana, Maryland, Ohio State, Penn State
Iowa: Indiana, Maryland, Michigan State, Ohio State
Minnesota: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State
Nebraska: Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Rutgers
Northwestern: Maryland, Michigan, Penn State, Rutgers
Purdue: Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Rutgers
Wisconsin: Indiana, Maryland, Penn State, Rutgers,

2017

East Division

Indiana: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern Maryland: Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Purdue
Michigan: Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska,, Northwestern
Michigan State: Illinois, Nebraska, Purdue, Wisconsin
Ohio State: Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin
Penn State: Illinois, Minnesota, Purdue, Wisconsin
Rutgers: Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin

West Division

Illinois: Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State
Iowa: Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Rutgers
Minnesota: Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers
Nebraska: Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State
Northwestern: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio State or Rutgers
Purdue: Maryland, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State
Wisconsin: Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers

Some more thoughts:

Many people thought Wisconsin and Ohio State got breaks with their 2014 and 2015 opponents. Well, it's payback time. The Badgers have arguably the toughest crossovers in 2016, and they will start the league season playing road games against Michigan and Michigan State before hosting Ohio State, all out-of-division games. Remember that Wisconsin is also scheduled to play at Virginia Tech in Week 2 of 2016. Have fun with all that, Gary Andersen. Meanwhile, the Buckeyes draw Nebraska both years, and also face Northwestern and Wisconsin in 2016.

You want earlier conference games? It doesn't happen in 2016, because of previously scheduled nonconference contests. But in 2017, Ohio State plays at Indiana in the season opener. How's that for early? The 2017 slate also includes a pair of Week 3 conference games: Rutgers at Nebraska, and Michigan at Purdue.

The beginning of the nine-game schedule also begins a new two-year cycle when it comes to home/road games. So, for example, Indiana plays at Purdue in both '15 and '16, but the Hoosiers will have hosted the Boilermakers in '13 and '14. Michigan will be at Michigan State in three out of four years: 2013, 2014 and 2016.

Though Wolverines fans won't like that road rotation with the Spartans, Michigan made out pretty well overall. Brady Hoke's team plays Wisconsin both years, but misses Nebraska and Northwestern while drawing Illinois and Iowa in '16 and Purdue and Minnesota in '17. Michigan could have an upper hand on Ohio State in the East Division race in 2016 simply because of the crossover schedule.

Michigan State drew a tough division and difficult 2014 and '15 schedules. The good news is that in 2017, the Spartans do not play Wisconsin or Nebraska from the West.

Looking for sleepers? How about Purdue in 2016, when the Boilers don't have to play Michigan, Michigan State or Ohio State. They pick up Michigan in 2017, but don't have to play the Buckeyes, Spartans or Penn State that year.

In excellent news, rivalry games will continue to be played on the final weekend, including Michigan-Ohio State, Wisconsin-Minnesota, Purdue-Indiana, Northwestern-Illinois and Iowa-Nebraska. And for the most part, teams play mostly division games in November.

That's a lot to digest for now. We'll have much more on the future schedules, including a post this afternoon on how these came together. Send us your thoughts on these lineups here.

[WM Wolverine]

I like the idea of moving some B10 games earlier in the season...

Awfully difficult outside of a few programs to make unbalanced schedules based upon how good programs 'might' be; I don't see clear 2nd/3rd tiers after Michigan, Ohio. Nebraska and arguably Wisconsin. PSU if not for sanctions probably belongs in that group. I haven't looked over everything but it looks about as you'd expect.

[Dr. Strangelove]

At Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Nebraska will make up for the easy western draws in 2014-15

[Rob F]

when bunnies cry

[entropy]

From ESPN:


HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Penn State's former president Graham Spanier initiated a libel and defamation case Thursday against Louis Freeh, the former FBI director who a year ago produced a report for the school that was highly critical of Spanier's role in the child sex abuse scandal involving longtime assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

Paperwork filed in Centre County, where the school is located, disclosed little about the nature of his claims but checked off a box on a court system form that described the case as "slander/libel/defamation."

The filing was made one day before the one-year anniversary of Freeh's report, which concluded that Spanier, late coach Joe Paterno and other high-ranking Penn State administrators failed to protect children against Sandusky. Under Pennsylvania law, those who believe they have been libeled or defamed have a year to initiate a civil lawsuit.

Calls and emails seeking comment from Freeh and from Spanier lawyer Elizabeth Ainslie were not returned. Along with Freeh, the paperwork also names as a defendant the law firm where Freeh works.

The Freeh report said Spanier told Freeh's investigators that he never heard anyone say Sandusky was sexually abusing children. But Freeh wrote it was more reasonable to conclude that Spanier, Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz "repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from the authorities, the university's board of trustees, the Penn State community and the public at large."

Curley, who was placed on leave to serve out his contract, and Schultz, now retired, were both charged in November 2011, when Sandusky was arrested, and accused of perjury and failure to properly report suspected abuse.

Spanier was forced out as president at that time, and a year later was himself charged as part of an alleged cover-up of complaints about Sandusky. A school spokesman said Thursday Spanier remains a faculty member on administrative leave.

Paterno died of complications from lung cancer in January 2012 and was not charged with any crime. The Freeh report's scathing conclusions about the former coach was followed more than a week later by the school administration's decision to remove his statue from outside the football stadium.

Additional charges were also filed against Curley and Schultz last November, but there has not been a preliminary hearing yet because of a legal dispute about the role played in the grand jury proceedings by Cynthia Baldwin, a former state Supreme Court justice who at the time was Penn State's top lawyer.

On Tuesday, a district judge in the Harrisburg suburbs announced the preliminary hearing would be held for Spanier, Schultz and Curley starting July 29 in the county courthouse. The hearing will determine if there are grounds to forward the case to county court for trial. All three men have vigorously denied the allegations against them.

Sandusky, 69, was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse, including violent attacks on boys inside school facilities, after a three-week trial last summer in which eight victims testified against him. He is serving a 30- to 60-year prison term and maintains he was wrongfully convicted. He is pursuing appeals.

[iam416]

I don't see clear 2nd/3rd tiers after Michigan, Ohio. Nebraska and arguably Wisconsin.

LOL at grouping OSU with that bunch.

[entropy]

UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- Penn State could soon be paying out millions of dollars to victims of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky after disclosing Friday it had tentative agreements with some of the young men who say he sexually abused them.

The school does not plan to comment on specifics until the deals are made final, which could happen in the coming weeks. University president Rodney Erickson called getting approval for settlement offers "another important step toward the resolution of claims from Sandusky's victims."

Penn State Scandal

LSU Former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of 48 counts in his child sex abuse trial. ESPN.com Topics has full coverage of the trial and the verdict. Topics Page ?

"As we have previously said, the university intends to deal with these individuals in a fair and expeditious manner, with due regard to their privacy," Erickson said in a statement issued after the university's Board of Trustees approved a settlement resolution.

Sandusky, 69, was convicted a year ago of 45 counts of child sexual abuse, including violent attacks on boys inside school facilities. He is serving a 30- to 60-year prison term and maintains he was wrongfully convicted. He is pursuing appeals.

More than 30 claimants have come forward with sexual abuse allegations involving the longtime assistant to late coach Joe Paterno. The deals will be limited to a range of dollar values and subject to final approval by a committee empowered by the board to handle the claims. A university spokesman said the school plans to release the total amount it pays to settle lawsuit but will not provide amounts for individual cases.

Sandusky's arrest in November 2011 touched off a massive scandal that led to the dismissal of Paterno, then Division I football's winningest coach, along with criminal charges against other high-ranking school officials and ultimately NCAA sanctions that included stripping Paterno of 111 victories.

Board chairman Keith Masser said it was part of getting past the scandal and the collateral damage it has done to the university.

"We're just chipping away at getting these issues behind us," Masser said.

Legal experts say the "value" of a child sexual abuse claims depends on several factors, including the victim's age and the nature and frequency of the abuse. Many details about the Sandusky abuse claims have not been made public, but other molestation cases suggest Penn State may have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, up to several million, to reach settlements.

Ira Lubert, the trustee who chairs the Committee on Legal and Compliance, told the board that "tentative settlements have been reached on a number of existing claims" without detailing how many have settled, how many remain and how much money -- individually or in the aggregate -- might be involved.

Lubert said his committee was empowered to authorize the settlements itself, but thought it was important that the trustees approved the move in a public meeting. The trustees voted unanimously to make the settlement offers.

The committee was briefed in detail on the proposed settlements during a June 25 executive session and another such meeting Friday morning, before the trustees met publicly at Penn State-Fayette, a satellite campus near Uniontown, about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh.

Harrisburg attorney Chuck Schmidt said his client was one who expects to finish a deal based on terms provided by the university over the past week. He said only confidentiality provisions remain to be ironed out.

"We have an offer, and we have, basically, an agreement with the client to accept the offer," Schmidt said.

Schmidt's client, who filed a lawsuit that has been on hold, was not among those who testified at Sandusky's trial.

The firm of Feinberg Rozen LLP has been helping the university reach the settlements. It brokered mass litigation settlements stemming from incidents as varied as the September 11 terrorist attacks to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the Virginia Tech shooting massacre.

Friday marked one year since the release of a university-funded report about its handling of the Sandusky scandal that was highly critical of the actions by Paterno, former president Graham Spanier and former administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz.

Spanier, Curley and Schultz await a July 29 preliminary hearing on criminal charges over an alleged cover up of complaints about Sandusky. All three men deny the allegations.

Spanier remains a faculty member on leave, while athletic director Curley and vice president Schultz have retired. Paterno died last year of lung cancer.




Post Extras:

[The Oracle]

Been reading a lot of tweets from people at the B1G officials conference today. Mark my words there is going to be some major controversial calls re: head shots, ejections and suspensions this year. Officials are being told to call it extra tight earlier on too. While in the long run, it may be good for CFB, it's gonna get messy this year.

[lineygoblue]

Lots of 15 yard penalties coming. And, there are going to be post game video reviews to get the ones they've missed during the game. Oracle is right. Football organizations at ALL levels are taking helmet shots seriously.

Coaches have GOT to coach the players to KEEP THEIR HEADS UP. Don't drop your helmet and drive into an opponent. Its the opposite of what we were taught back in the day. We were taught to bury our heads in the opponents midsection and DRIVE. You can't do that anymore.