The Teeny-Weeny 10
Somehow the Florida Gators did the impossible last night: they made a rout look entertaining. Give them credit. Theirs is thrilling brand of football, playground inventiveness played on a grand stage. And they made the Ohio State University look pathetic in the process.
We shouldn't really be surprised. The Big 10 is--how should we say this delicately?--a "wussy" conference. They went 2-5 in bowl games this year, and their glamour teams, OSU and Michigan (ranked #1 and #2 the entire regular season) were both humiliated. As defensive end Jarvis Moss said after the game, "Honestly, we've played a lot better teams than them. I could name four or five teams in the SEC that could probably compete with them and play the same type of game we did against them."
In contrast to the Big 10, SEC teams went 6-3 in bowls, a record approached only by the Big East (5-0, but generally in lesser bowls and against lower competition). Moss may be a bit overstating his case. I'd guess that LSU and Auburn would both have trounced OSU last night, and Tennessee and Georgia could have put up decent fights, but likely would have lost. LSU embarassed honorary-Big 10 "independent" Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl, demonstrating that, despite two losses, they're really the second best team in the country right now. Did I mention that the ACC, the PAC 10, the Big 12, and even the Mountain West and the WAC (!!) won more bowl games this year than the Big 10 did? Maybe it's time for a name change guys. How about the Little Bitty Oopsy Daisy Please Don't Hurt Us 10.
posted by tenaciousmcd @ 10:16 AM
10 Comments:
TMcD, the "snarky and hackneyed commentary [you]'ve made [your] trademark on FFB", while on display in this particular post, failed to soar to its normal sublime heights given that you missed the most snarkiest of opportunities by failing to note that the Big 10 actually has 11 teams. As for the SEC, I concede that they're strong top to bottom, especially that perennial powerhouse, Vanderbilt.
Paul, I didn't want to steal ALL the snark. But while we're at it, yeah, it's sad when college types can't even count to 11.
Don't see Vandy short. Those boys are ready to rumble. (Did I mention Vandy QB Jay "Next Elway" Cutler starting for the Broncos?)
So, as usual, TMcD leaves out some important points. Reading his entry one would think that the SEC cleaned the Big Ten’s clock in bowl games. In fact, the SEC went 1-2 against the itsy bitsy eleven in the bowl season. Penn State beat Tennessee and Wisconsin beat Arkansas (who beat Auburn who beat Florida who beat LSU…).
Ohio State, missing their best player for the game, got one hung on them. Would Ted Ginn have made a difference? In score, maybe, but not outcome. But then let’s not all pretend that this was the “authentic” Florida team that suited up the whole year, either. I watched that Florida/Tennessee game and that was a different UF squad squeaking out a (one point) win on rocky top. (Did I mention that Tennessee then lost to Penn State by ten?)
South Carolina, nobody’s idea of a football powerhouse, went into Gainesville and lost – again – by a single point (on a missed field goal). Please don’t tell me that this somehow demonstrates that SC, a team that lost four home games, is really better than their record indicates. Other extremely close calls include LSU, Florida State, Western Carolina (okay, I’m kidding about that one).
In truth, Florida played an almost flawless game in the BCS, from beginning to end. I’ve watched a lot of college football in my life and I can’t remember ever seeing one team have everything go so well while the other team had so much go wrong. Florida was not as good as that game indicated and tOSU was not near as bad. And that one game neither makes the SEC that great nor the Big Ten that bad.
Now that it’s almost NCAA basketball tourney time, isn’t it time for TMcD to switch allegiances back to the ACC? (And, in October, to the Yankees?)
Hey Paul, there's an 11 in the Big Ten logo.
Excuses, excuses. I don't doubt that one day the Beg 10 will be a decent conference (even the mighty SEC had a down decade in the 80s), but OSU and UM certainly made the whole bunch look bad this year. UF may not have been the best team all season, but they were the best team at the end of it.
BTW, I'll start rooting for the Yankees when I start sending campaign contributions to the Bushes.
Here's my view (and this is my hizzie): The Big 10 is a better conference at the top than the SEC, but the SEC is a better conference top to bottom, at least in the present era.
Every year, the Big 10 has two to three teams that would be the best team in any other conference: OSU this year, and recent years; Michigan, in many years; those pesky Badgers; Penn State some years (maybe too long ago to remember--but I think the Vols remember a decent N-Lions squad). Maybe two years from now, the Illini. (They sure beat up MSU this past year.)
But who would volunteer to play the SEC schedule every year? I mean, there's Vandy, most years, and Kentucky and Ole Miss always (but Ole Miss at home in Oxford is a trap game!), but every other game in the SEC conference schedule has to keep a coach up at night. Bama, Auburn, the Vols, Georgia, Florida . . . in recent years Arkansas. Even those dawgs of Mississippi State are usually a decent team.
Top to bottom, I would take the Big 10 (for the easier conference). I mean, it's an easy choice, right? Northwestern, Indiana, Minnesota, in recent years Michigan State after week three . . . Illinois (most years). Iowa is up and down, seems mostly down in recent years. But unless Iowa is top ten, I would rather play Iowa than Auburn or Bama . . . or Georgia b/w the hedges.
Glad to see you back, CL!
For what it's worth the Big 10's 11 have a couple of other problems that are slowly dragging the conference down. First, all of its schools are in the snow belt and more of the faster athletes like the warmer weather and they're going to the schools in warmer climes in greater numbers (like the population at large). The result is that the Big 10 has a higher percentage of bigger, slower types than teams in the south, and then to survive the Big 10 season against these larger teams, your team needs bigger players yourself. Once the regular season is over, you head south to a bowl game and by then the faster players on the other team have all had time to heal and gain back some strength. A smaller, quicker well-rested team can lay it all out for one game and not have to worry about the next. The second problem is that the Big 10 does not have a playoff, so the season ends at least 2 weeks earlier than the other major conferences, including the SEC, so instead of being well-rested, they're rusty. This year OSU had over 50 days off before the bowl game -- and it sure showed. So, for the Big 10 to stay competitive it needs to add a playoff and it has to attract quicker players -- possibly by adding some domed stadia (which I would hate to see). Or to neutralize some of the speed advantage, have some of the bowl games played up north in the colder weather and snow --nice vacation spots for the alumni be damned.
Paul, that's an interesting analysis. My one quibble is that U of M, at least, has never played well in bowl games. So to the extent the trends you identify (esp. weather-related) are new, I'm not sure. Maybe other "Big 11" schools have become worse in bowls over time (?). It's definitely true that all the time off b/w the end of the season and the bowls has an effect on "Big 11" performance.
Wow - what a nice discussion this has been. You all three made good, solid points.
The Big Ten is generally slower than the SEC (though UM and tOSU also have really started getting some speed in the recent years, just cause they have to). The SEC is a much better conference top to bottom than the Big Ten (or any other conference). And the BT is usually only three plus one deep. I say three plus one because there is the traditional top three (tOSU, UM and Penn State (though Penn State has, except for one year, been largely replaced in that role by Wisconsin) and then one other good team, depending on year (that has been Iowa of late, but also Purdue, Illinois, Michigan State and, of course, a decade ago now, Northwestern).
Michigan, perhaps, is the most overrated (except for Notre Dame, of course) of the major football powerhouses. They always have talent but can't win big games, can't beat tOSU and can't can't can't even show up to a bowl game. That's not been true of Ohio State, in any respect, in the Tressel era. Which is why the National Championship was such an aberration.
#3, I don't think the weather trends I'm citiing are new -- I think they began in the early 70s when more of the US population began to abandon the north because of the economy and the weather. The playoff factor is newer and I think quite important. As for UM, I suspect you're talking mostly about the Bo era, and he was a 3-yards and-a-cloud-of-dust kind of guy. Carr actually added a mythical national championship to his name in 1997 and he's been reasonably successful in his overall bowl career, including 4 straight victories at one point, although in the last few years his teams have played crappy in bowls, in no small part I think because they can't get past OSU under Tressel (whereas Carr would beat up Cooper's teams every year). CL is correct that both UM and OSU have openly tried to recruit more speed. In fact, when John Cooper arrived from Arizona State to OSU in 1988 one of the first things he said to the press was the that the team had "a bunch of slow, white guys" and he was going to change that. This didn't go over too well in Columbus, but it was true. When Tressel took over, that was no longer the case, but still the Big Ten hasn't caught up, and because of demographics and weather, I don't think we will anytime soon. That is not to say that there won't be any Big Ten vicories in big games, but the center of gravity has clearly moved to the south. As for CL's comment about this OSU game being an aberration, I would concur. In fact, this is the first time I've ever seen a Tressel team look unprepared. It had to happen at some point -- I think the long layoff was a huge factor.
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