Lay Off the Big Ten
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The Ancient Enemy
- Official BleacherCoach
- Posts: 7549
- Joined: October 30th, 2004, 2:47 pm
Lay Off the Big Ten
Every team is going to get themselves into a tight game at some point. Sometimes you make the game winning field goal, sometimes you miss it. And, unfortunately for you, there's times when your opponent makes it instead.
That's exactly what happened to Penn State on November 8th against the Iowa Hawkeyes, and the last hopes for a Big Ten national title went down like the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Everyone was right I guess, the Big Ten really was soft. The collective media grinned and said: "I told ya so".
They're worse than the ACC. The Big Ten is soft, the conference is a joke. They don't play anybody all year. They're all too slow to compete with the "real" conferences like the Big XII and mighty SEC. It seems everyone has a negative opinion. That is, everyone who is either misinformed, too lazy to look anything up, or selects what evidence to use based on whatever fits their arguments.
It's time everyone gets off the Big Ten's back.
I bet you haven't heard the experts on TV say that the Big Ten is 4-4 against the SEC in the past three years. In five years, they are 7-7. Over the past ten years, they are 14-13. What do you want to go by other than head to head?
I bet you also haven't heard that right now seven of the eleven teams have new coaches. Next year, when Joe Tiller steps down, there will be eight, depending on whether or not you still count The Zooker as a new coach.
I bet you also haven't heard that every single Big Ten team, with the exception of the stubbornness at Iowa, is moving to a faster-paced offensive attack, to counter the speed they encounter in the bowl games.
Coaches have been replaced, offenses have been changed, attempts are being made to balance the power and the speed. This takes some time, folks. Let me ask you this: What more do you want?
Does this sound familiar? It should. In the ACC, seven of the twelve teams have new coaches. Next year, if Bowden retires and Virginia replaces Groh, that makes nine. A few years ago, were we not saying the exact same thing about the Big XII? There was a time when the SEC was criticized, too.
There are people who think the ACC, Big Ten, and even the Pac-10 do not deserve automatic BCS bids. See, if it was USC, they deserve it. But if someone else comes out of there, let's say a team who beat USC head to head, they do not deserve to be considered. In any other year, the Big East is the conference who is scrutinized to death, but since there are three big conferences this year under heavy rocketfire, the Big East has been dodging all the criticism.
The utopian society that the BCS supposedly created couldn't be any farther from a utopian society. The six conferences (ACC, Big XII, Big Ten, Big East, Pac-10, and SEC) were all supposed to be set up on equal footing. That's nice wishful thinking. No matter how hard you try, someone will always end up a second-class citizen. What was really going to happen was what DID really happen: the conferences would always be in flux and move in the same cyclical motion as every program inside them. Now, it is the SEC's turn to rule supreme while the Big Ten and ACC are scoffed at. Next year, take your pick.
And as for these voters? You might as well send those ballots to Bozo the Clown, and then let Cookie fill them out.
In a society where we exclaim the majesty of the parity therein, isn't it just a tad ridiculous to say Penn State or Oregon State or Georgia Tech or anyone else would never beat a champion from the Big XII or SEC? Speaking of the Big XII, did you know that the non-conference schedule is included in who their conference champion is? In the event of a divisional tie, the highest ranked team in the BCS standings (which obviously includes non-conference) is the team who plays for the conference championship. It disregards head to head. You can't even begin to try and make sense of that logic.
Seems like a real easy way to put not only the BCS conferences, but ALL conferences, on equal footing. Real easy way to clean up this superfund site, from where I am sitting, and you already have a pattern to follow. But then again, that makes a little too much sense. Sense is something not many associated with college football, in any capacity, have in abundance.
That's exactly what happened to Penn State on November 8th against the Iowa Hawkeyes, and the last hopes for a Big Ten national title went down like the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Everyone was right I guess, the Big Ten really was soft. The collective media grinned and said: "I told ya so".
They're worse than the ACC. The Big Ten is soft, the conference is a joke. They don't play anybody all year. They're all too slow to compete with the "real" conferences like the Big XII and mighty SEC. It seems everyone has a negative opinion. That is, everyone who is either misinformed, too lazy to look anything up, or selects what evidence to use based on whatever fits their arguments.
It's time everyone gets off the Big Ten's back.
I bet you haven't heard the experts on TV say that the Big Ten is 4-4 against the SEC in the past three years. In five years, they are 7-7. Over the past ten years, they are 14-13. What do you want to go by other than head to head?
I bet you also haven't heard that right now seven of the eleven teams have new coaches. Next year, when Joe Tiller steps down, there will be eight, depending on whether or not you still count The Zooker as a new coach.
I bet you also haven't heard that every single Big Ten team, with the exception of the stubbornness at Iowa, is moving to a faster-paced offensive attack, to counter the speed they encounter in the bowl games.
Coaches have been replaced, offenses have been changed, attempts are being made to balance the power and the speed. This takes some time, folks. Let me ask you this: What more do you want?
Does this sound familiar? It should. In the ACC, seven of the twelve teams have new coaches. Next year, if Bowden retires and Virginia replaces Groh, that makes nine. A few years ago, were we not saying the exact same thing about the Big XII? There was a time when the SEC was criticized, too.
There are people who think the ACC, Big Ten, and even the Pac-10 do not deserve automatic BCS bids. See, if it was USC, they deserve it. But if someone else comes out of there, let's say a team who beat USC head to head, they do not deserve to be considered. In any other year, the Big East is the conference who is scrutinized to death, but since there are three big conferences this year under heavy rocketfire, the Big East has been dodging all the criticism.
The utopian society that the BCS supposedly created couldn't be any farther from a utopian society. The six conferences (ACC, Big XII, Big Ten, Big East, Pac-10, and SEC) were all supposed to be set up on equal footing. That's nice wishful thinking. No matter how hard you try, someone will always end up a second-class citizen. What was really going to happen was what DID really happen: the conferences would always be in flux and move in the same cyclical motion as every program inside them. Now, it is the SEC's turn to rule supreme while the Big Ten and ACC are scoffed at. Next year, take your pick.
And as for these voters? You might as well send those ballots to Bozo the Clown, and then let Cookie fill them out.
In a society where we exclaim the majesty of the parity therein, isn't it just a tad ridiculous to say Penn State or Oregon State or Georgia Tech or anyone else would never beat a champion from the Big XII or SEC? Speaking of the Big XII, did you know that the non-conference schedule is included in who their conference champion is? In the event of a divisional tie, the highest ranked team in the BCS standings (which obviously includes non-conference) is the team who plays for the conference championship. It disregards head to head. You can't even begin to try and make sense of that logic.
Seems like a real easy way to put not only the BCS conferences, but ALL conferences, on equal footing. Real easy way to clean up this superfund site, from where I am sitting, and you already have a pattern to follow. But then again, that makes a little too much sense. Sense is something not many associated with college football, in any capacity, have in abundance.
Last edited by The Ancient Enemy on September 20th, 2011, 12:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Lay Off the Big Ten
good post. IMO the media picks the power conferences at the bigging of the year and they use that to determine the rankings of all teams throughout the year.