Around the Big Ten

[iam416]

All true, Entropy. I don't ever put too much stock in the bowl season. Collectively, after watching 28 quarters of B10 football, it was better than I expected, but still not all that good.

The QB play is atrocious, by and large. And I don't see that changing much. Who is going to be any good next season? Miller and Martinez and then what?

Hanni:

Don't kid yourself, M is trending the right way. I'm not going to discourage your pessimism any further, however.

[The Oracle]

Good luck stopping that train anyway.

[entropy]

talent.. good question.

Minny had a freshman or redshirt freshman QB. I'd hope/expect improvement there.. Not sure of his upside

Iowa ... unless someone comes out of the blue..

Wisky... game manager at best

Ill.. next

NW.. not really sure what they have, but usually they are good, not great, but good. PF has a system going, so I'd think they'd be decent... just like the past couple of years

purdue.. ??? looks like nothing

Indiana.. still a week spot

MSU... same place as iowa..

Mich... should be better

PSU... have too many problems for it to matter

[iam416]

Ohio State was fucking infuriating on defense. They were guaranteed to give up at least 1, likely 2+, huge plays per game -- and then play pretty well the rest of the game.

The M game was perfectly illustrative of their season as they actually hit the Superfecta: (1) total fuckup in coverage=long TD; (2) piss poor tackling/perfectly time double hit on Denard=long TD; (3) asshatted penalty keeps drive alive=TD; and (4) great showing on nearly every other play.

[entropy]

question.. do people think the BIG has more or less offensive diversity than the SEC? Big12? PAC10?

[iam416]

Entropy:

Coulter is back for NW. He was good.

And I agree that Maxwell will be improved at MSU -- perhaps even attaining the level of "a mediocre Cousins".

Gardner has some upside.

Everyone else is a train wreck. I mean, not just mediocre, but a fucking train wreck, the Goofer included.

[iam416]

I think the B10 has some significant diversity. They have enough teams that pound you to dust and enough "spread" teams to make it difficult to defend everyone.

Wisky and MSU are good enough to run the ball up your ass. Ohio State, Nebraska and, to a lesser extent, NW are good "spread" teams. If you're slow at LB, they'll abuse you.

OSU's problem for awhile as Wisky. Heacock had built a defense that kept everything in front of them and played really fast and well in space. Eventually the offense would get behind the sticks and they'd get off the field. Then they'd play Wisky and there was no getting them behind the sticks. Horrific 18 play drives.

This season, they were built to destroy power teams, and pretty much did. But they were at least 1 speed player short in the Back-7 to effectively play in space against good spread teams. Or, in the case of IU, bad spread teams.

[Hannibal]

All true, Entropy. I don't ever put too much stock in the bowl season. Collectively, after watching 28 quarters of B10 football, it was better than I expected, but still not all that good.

The QB play is atrocious, by and large. And I don't see that changing much. Who is going to be any good next season? Miller and Martinez and then what?

Hanni:

Don't kid yourself, M is trending the right way. I'm not going to discourage your pessimism any further, however.

I think that Gardner will be pretty good next year too, although his supporting cast won't be very impressive, outside of Gallon and maybe Funchess if he develops. He averaged over 9.5 ypa this year, with 11 TD, 5 INTs, and quite a few good scrambles when the offensive line played like shit. All of this despite playing at receiver through all of August, September, and October.

What I said about Michigan's trajectory is that the positive aspects are off the field at this point. Especially in the context of the discussion of whether or not a Big Ten team is going to be competing for a national championship. Our team in 2012 could not be even remotely considered elite. It ended up at the low end of expectations for me.

[entropy]

Another thing hurting the BIG is assistant coaches pay. SEC has talent coaches who stay because the $$$ is almost too good to leave. The BIG has been slow to adjust to this idea. Coaches traditionally moved to a HC job to start making really good money (750K plus). Not anymore... coordinators can do the same.

BIG needs to attract better coaches.

[Hannibal]

I would like to see historical data on oversigning too. Is this a relatively recent phenomenon that SEC schools have been exploiting, or have they always done this? Either way, the opportunity to take one whole extra recruiting class every five years means never having to slow play the guys who are borderline on academics or talent, and also being able to take more chances on 3* lottery tickets.

[WM Wolverine]

I don't see the B10 getting a whole lot better, mostly thanks to PSU. There talent they usually get might end up at Rutgers, Maryland, and unfortunately the better talent, Ohio...

Rutgers might be better than people expect, not a team that'll finish .500 in the conference consistently but I expect them to win 7-8 games most years. That's about where I expect Dantonio is headed with competition in-state...

If the conference splits east-west, that should give the 'west' a relatively easy schedule and open the door for Wisky to win 9+ games regularly and Nebraska is likely to be every bit as good. After those two, I'm not sure who else in the 'west' is going to be a top 25 type team, I'd guess it'll be one of NW or Illinois.

[WM Wolverine]

Data that goes back to ~2004 that I have has the SEC signing 3-4 more kids per class than the B10.

[entropy]

well, hopefully that is closing thanks to the SEC presidents, but looking at A&M's class, I'd say it has not.

That is also a problem... but one gap the BIG can't match and shouldn't, imo

[Hannibal]

Does oversigning extend back to the '90s? There was about a 10-year period there (93 through about 2003) where the Big Ten was at parity with the SEC.

[WM Wolverine]

I don't have the data pre 2004 but that is about the time I started to notice a trend of the SEC signing a lot more recruits/class than other conferences; other than the Big XII which relies on a lot of JUCO's.