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 If anyone is familiar with College Football, you'd be familiar that the Big Ten Conference is one of the oldest in existence, and was a conference looked upon with a great amount of respect, and reverence. Perception, sadly has changed. The Big Ten or it's teams have not been seen as a nationally relevant power since about 2006 or so. It has become near routine for the conference to embarrass itself come Bowl time or when it's going against OOC opponents in the regular season. Even the addition of National Powers in the form of Nebraska and Penn State have done very little to help change that perception (both have not truly been in the talks for a "National Championship" since the early 2000's). It also certainly doesn't help that Ohio State losing two consecutive National Championships against SEC Powers (LSU and Florida) seemingly put the conference back about 20 years or so behind the powerful Southeastern Conference. Michigan has certainly not helped things and has not been the same program it once was prior to the upset loss at Applachian State in 2007. Despite winning the Rose Bowl last year against Stanford, Sparty was unsuccessful in being able to prove that they (and the Big Ten) as a whole deserve a great amount of respect after losing big at Oregon this season. Iowa and Wisconsin have also struggled in the past trying to fly the Big Ten flag, and other programs such as Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, and Minnesota never even remotely popped up on the National Radar. (Purdue has not been even a remotely relevant program even in the Big Ten since 2004 for example). So one question is, what the hell is wrong with the Big Ten and what went wrong? I mean it's not like they currently don't have assets to work with. They have a fairly expansive reach in terms of the new cable network they proudly co-own, and it's not like a program like Ohio State is not afraid to spend money on the same type of facilities that say..Alabama has. The other question would be, Can anything be done to reverse what's happening and no longer be a punchline to many in College Football? Are they now doomed to go the way of the Ivy League in the early days of College Football?
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Oct 1, 2014 21:59
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Preemptive shut the gently caress up to anyone who brings up academics.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:03
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The Big Ten seems convinced that the peak of college football is just getting to the rose bowl game, not even necessarily winning it.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:03
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A severe lack of coaching talent, and bad recruiting from teams not named Ohio State and Michigan. Universities in the Big Ten seem to want to pinch pennies when it comes to coaching. The SEC spends a lot of money on not just head coaches but assistant coaches too.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:09
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Coaching
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Oct 1, 2014 22:10
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It's a combination of a lot of things, but just look at the period from end of 2006 to 2007. Michigan and Ohio State played a #1 vs #2 game where it seemed like a rematch was the best scenario in the national championship. Then, Ohio State won and promptly lost in the title game to Florida, and Michigan lost in the Rose Bowl to USC and opened the next season with the App State game. Just like that, the two marquee teams suffered big losses, with the Michigan one becoming iconic. From that point forward, led down by Michigan, it's been all bad publicity for the Big Ten.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:11
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Oct 1, 2014 22:12
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korrandark posted:A severe lack of coaching talent, and bad recruiting from teams not named Ohio State and Michigan. I wonder how much the disadvantage of only playing a bowl game or maybe one OOC game a year in the south hurts recruiting? Like, Ohio produces a lot of talent but according to this thing that I just looked up it was less than half of Texas or Florida in a five year span and way behind California too. Grittybeard fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 22:16
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Maryland has a good chance of exciting recruits if they finish highly in the Big Ten. They sit in a pretty fertile talent pool that's poached pretty readily by everyone else, have Underarmour money, and seem to be more talented, though still pretty sloppily coached in comparison, than their opponents so far. A little consistency and good coach would go really far there.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:17
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I think a few things kind of snowballed all at once to contribute to the Big Ten's free fall. I think the SEC made some great coaching hires that sort of beat the Big Ten to the punch. There was also some stubbornness amongst the Big Ten too where they wanted Big Ten football to remain this sort of old school football conference. Rich Rodriguez's short and unsuccessful tenure at Michigan further reinforced this dumb idea. Meanwhile, the rest of college football joined the 21st century leaving the Big Ten even further behind the 8 ball. At that point, none of the great in-demand coaches wanted to even coach in such a backwards conference save for Urban Meyer. That's where we are. I don't think that's the full story but I think it's a good part of it. I'm sure climate has something to do with it too as well as recruiting territory. Yet, Ohio and Pennsylvania remain in the top 5 or 6 states for recruiting so that's not necessarily the best excuse.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:18
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I think a significant factor is simply Ohio not being nearly as big of a deal in recruiting like it used to be. There's still a ton of talent there but it's now more on the level of the non-Florida southeastern states than Florida/Texas/California e: oh wow Georgia took a pretty big leap Groucho Marxist fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 22:19
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Oct 1, 2014 22:22
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Grittybeard posted:Like, Ohio produces a lot of talent but according to this thing that I just looked up it was less than half of Texas or Florida in a five year span and way behind California too. Yeah, but OSU should be able to lock down any big recruits in-state, and they tend to pull nationwide as well. Florida splits recruits between UF/FSU/Miami and every other top flight school. Texas is picked over by UT/OU/A&M and with the proliferation of Baylor and Texas Tech, and the other host of big-time programs recruiting there.... California supports USC/UCLA/Stanford/Oregon/Washington, and sends lots of lower rated guys to the rest of the Pac-12.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:25
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The Big 10 has been bad overall for like 50 years. It was the Big 2 Little 8 for most of that time. Michigan and Ohio State were consistently good and preserved the reputation of the conference, while other programs drifted up and down (mostly down). While Ohio State has remained good since 2006, Michigan has been consistently bad. Since no one is used to considering other programs to be much good, the overall perception of the conference has suffered. Michigan State, Nebraska and Wisconsin have put together some good years, but have not been enough to offset the rest of the gang. MSU may be finally getting the respect they deserve in some places, at least. It boils down that there have been too many bottom-feeders for too long. If the top teams stumble, there's no one to step up and fill the gap. ETA: This actually goes all the way back to the foundation of the conference. 100 years ago, Michigan, Chicago, Minnesota, and Wisconsin were the top programs in the conference. Even then, Purdue, Indiana, Northwestern, and Illinois were weak programs with little emphasis on success. Deteriorata fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 22:28
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Well, yeah, but Ohio State is also the one team that's still anything at all like the old Big 10 (or were up until this year). For whatever reason I thought Michigan gets a ton of Ohio kids too, like to the point where it's almost split like you're talking with Florida/FSU/sort of Miami. I could be wrong about that. Grittybeard fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 22:28
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Firing Kyle Flood would be a start. For reals, Rutgers will be a strong addition again once he stops loving everything up.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:38
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Here's a question: Did Notre Dame's 12 year descent into the depths of irrelevance have any sort of negative effect on the Big Ten? The two have always been tied together because of regional location/recruiting territory/scheduling each other. Or was Notre Dame a victim of the same thing that brought down the Big Ten?
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Oct 1, 2014 22:47
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AsInHowe posted:It's a combination of a lot of things, but just look at the period from end of 2006 to 2007. I seem to recall over night the phrase "SEC Speed" became a thing, and I always attribute that to Mark May being really obnoxious, covering his rear end, etc. I do wonder how much media perception has hurt the conference in recruiting. I also don't notice a great amount of presence for the conference at events like "Signing Day", while programs like Alabama, Georgia, LSU, and even someone like Ole Miss is able to get a great deal of coverage on ESPN/ESPNU. I grew up as a Purdue fan, and I seriously question whether they'll ever knock on the door of being relevant again in this current landscape of CFB. They truly hosed up royally by not hiring Sumlin a while back, and then likely hosed up again by not giving Mike Leach a call when Hope got canned.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:49
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Mahoning posted:Here's a question: Did Notre Dame's 12 year descent into the depths of irrelevance have any sort of negative effect on the Big Ten? The two have always been tied together because of regional location/recruiting territory/scheduling each other. Forcing Lou Holtz to retire (allegedly), I think really bit them in the rear end.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:51
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FuzzySkinner posted:Forcing Lou Holtz to retire (allegedly), I think really bit them in the rear end. Just because of the people they replaced him with up until Kelly or is there some other theory involved here?
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Oct 1, 2014 22:54
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FuzzySkinner posted:I seem to recall over night the phrase "SEC Speed" became a thing, and I always attribute that to Mark May being really obnoxious, covering his rear end, etc. UF savagely beating Ohio St. after all the pundits had gone all-in on the "Big Ten Best Conference" narrative just crushed public opinion of the entire conference. Losing convincingly to a 2-loss LSU in 2007 just doused all the smoldering pockets of credibility. Perception that Big Ten was fat, slow, old-man football became canon, as did the SECSPEED narrative. It really stacked the deck in recruiting.
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Oct 1, 2014 22:56
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Kim Jong Il posted:Firing Kyle Flood would be a start. For reals, Rutgers will be a strong addition again once he stops loving everything up. What is he loving up?
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Oct 1, 2014 23:04
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Grittybeard posted:Just because of the people they replaced him with up until Kelly or is there some other theory involved here? "Lou, you're close to breaking Knute Rockne's record of most wins for the Irish. It's time to retire"- Alumni and the Athletic Deparment (allegedly). LeeMajors posted:UF savagely beating Ohio St. after all the pundits had gone all-in on the "Big Ten Best Conference" narrative just crushed public opinion of the entire conference. What is strange was that loses to media favorites had happened before (Miami in 2002, USC in 2005, Oklahoma like every year) but it didn't CRUSH those programs or their respective conferences in the same manner that OSU/Big Ten experienced during those years. It feels like the overall shape of the media was different that year than those mentioned. I kind of want to blame the death of ABC Sports on it. I seem to recall they carried the majority of CFB across the country and didn't seem to "Embrace Debate" in the way ESPN did. Once they were killed off and all their staff sent packing, the peeps at Bristol didn't give a poo poo.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:06
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I think I'm echoing other people when I say that the problem is that the best of the Big 10 just isn't that good. Every conference has bottom feeders (the SEC arguably has some of the worst teams) but most of them have pretty top level talent to mask that. Fix the traditional powerhouses in Michigan and Ohio State (with Michigan State to back them up) and have... Nebraska and Wisconsin be good and you basically have the SEC West and East, respectively.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:07
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Rah rah rah ski-u-mah the gophers loving suck
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Oct 1, 2014 23:08
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Despite the poo poo show Saturday, Penn State is still trending up, if recruiting is any indication. Altogether, coaching is the issue. Sure, demographics have changed, but top tier programs recruit nationally. Say what you want about Notre Dame, but they are still recruiting well despite the fact that Indiana isn't a talent-rich state.
Komet fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 23:15
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I had a roomie in college who was a buckeye fan. He extolled often about the Big 10 and the machismo shown by "3 yards and a cloud of dust" football. I was just starting to learn how to watch football and it seemed kinda bs to me at the time. We didn't watch those championship games with him. He wanted Todd Boeckman to play over Troy Smith because "Smith ran too much." Anyway there was something to that mythos that seemed to resonate with him and his buckeyes friends about the midwest and that lumbering strength at the expense of speed. As it turns out, you can have both, and with good modern nutrition (and god forbid, proper hydration) you can achieve a lot. And to be fair, it wasn't till like the late 2000's that infrastructure changed in a lot of programs, notably Urban Meyer's bringing it to UF somewhat concurrently to Saban's radical support overhaul in Alabama. FSU saw a lot of stupid 'traditional' stuff all the way up to the end of Bowden's tenure that would be a detriment to the team, like hitting the QB in practice to build "mental toughness" and our DE coach calling players dumb niggers to get rises out of them. Or maybe it was for fun? I dunno but the RB coach at the time purportedly knocked some of that coach's teeth out. In a sense, a lot of it seems to come from old stupid boosters who must match their football identities to their weird ideals about toughness, and not necessarily performance. Gendo would bring up Kill's discipline a la poop shoveling and wearing pink shirts. That seems to be falling to the wayside now, but maybe the "Michigan Man" meme is more illustrative of football culture at large, particularly in the Big 10? Image did cost Orgeron the USC job. It's a weird landscape out there.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:16
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DJExile posted:The Big Ten seems convinced that the peak of college football is just getting to the rose bowl game, not even necessarily winning it. This is accurate though.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:23
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The Big Ten legitimately fell behind when it came to coaching and strategy and stuff, but they're also going to get undone to some extent just by demographics. The majority of talented high school players (especially at the skill positions) are coming from places way outside the Big Ten footprint, especially if you exclude Ohio (which is also starting to lag anyway), and it doesn't seem like that trend is going to reverse anytime soon. Like you can say "well we recruit nationally" but that's only true to an extent. It's still hard to get kids from California, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, etc to consider moving to a cold, boring, unfamiliar state when they can play for a great program closer to home. Like I could list a million flaws with Iowa from a pure strategy statepoint, but the fact is they're starting from a massive hole just by being in Iowa. The state produces like five DI players a year, and most of them take years to develop (which to their credit our coaches are very good at, especially on defense and along the offensive line). After that they're basically left fighting over the scraps in places like Ohio or Illinois, and those are getting worse. They can work to uncover diamonds in the rough in places like Texas, and sometimes they do, but they're never going to get top tier kids from outside the midwest, and that's an issue when it comes to seriously competing in the long term. If they get a few hits or have a particularly fruitful development cycle they might have a good year here and there, but it's hard to do year after year and they are basically never winning a national title. MourningView fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 23:30
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Keep in mind that a lot of people in the Midwest (especially Ohio and Michigan) associate where they're from with a certain set of ideals, attributes, and work ethics. (See: LeBron's "I'm Coming Home" essay, or any College Gameday segment about the Stoops brothers, Bo Pelini, or Youngstown in general) On the surface it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's when you get carried away with it that you start to believe stupid poo poo. Like, it's ok to think that hard work and toughness are good attributes but to ignore other more important things and rely solely on those is dumb.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:33
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MourningView posted:This is accurate though. Yeah, this is an interesting characteristic of the Big 10. It's always been insular and self-absorbed, by and large. Winning the conference championship and going to the Rose Bowl has always been all that's really mattered. Following what was happening on the West coast was interesting only as it related to who the opponent would be in the Rose Bowl. The SEC has always had a chip on its shoulder to prove it was the best in the country. The Big 10 never really cared about the rest of the country.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:36
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I think another problem is that the Big 10 is a hundred year old division that still plays like it was a hundred years ago. They have refused to evolve with the sport either in mentality or in strategy. Half the time the team could run out there wearing leather helmets and not look out of place. And I think the big problem is that Big 10 boosters want it this way. Big 10 homers constantly harp about being "old school" and "smash mouth" etc. And to be fair, I also agree with other people who say the Big 10 is more concerned about being a recognizable division than being the "top" division. I think they want the Big 10 to be a brand to the extent they don't care if the style is useless against anyone else in the NCAA.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:43
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Deteriorata posted:Yeah, this is an interesting characteristic of the Big 10. It's always been insular and self-absorbed, by and large. Winning the conference championship and going to the Rose Bowl has always been all that's really mattered. Following what was happening on the West coast was interesting only as it related to who the opponent would be in the Rose Bowl. Well the BCS changed that. The SEC always played in the Sugar, Cotton or Fiesta. The Big Ten? Generally stayed in the Rose Bowl. It was kind of a matter of scoreboard watching in a lot of regards by the press back then. If 2006 was going by the old system? OSU is likely playing USC, and the whole "SEC Speed" narrative really never takes off. They'd have been beat, but I don't think the backlash would have been as terrible. e: 2006-2007 under the old system Rose Bowl Ohio State Vs. USC Orange Bowl Wake Forrest V. Oklahoma Sugar Bowl Florida V. Notre Dame Fiesta Bowl Michigan V. Boise State Cotton Bowl Texas V. Louisville FuzzySkinner fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Oct 1, 2014 23:45
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I root for a Big Ten team and could not possibly care less that the conference sucks. That makes it more likely that Northwestern can beat other lovely teams and go to a lovely bowl game. They will never be in contention for a playoff spot, so I'd rather be in a glorified MAC than playing real teams and getting annihilated every week.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:54
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R.D. Mangles posted:I root for a Big Ten team and could not possibly care less that the conference sucks. That makes it more likely that Northwestern can beat other lovely teams and go to a lovely bowl game. They will never be in contention for a playoff spot, so I'd rather be in a glorified MAC than playing real teams and getting annihilated every week. This is more or less where I am now too. We are not going to win a stupid national title ever, might as well hope we can get blasted by OSU in a few Big Ten title games and win a few Outback Bowls.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:57
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R.D. Mangles posted:That makes it more likely that Northwestern can beat other lovely teams and go to a lovely bowl game. But you guys beat Penn St.... hey!
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Oct 2, 2014 00:00
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This is, what, Nebraska's fourth season in the conference? Bit early to say they haven't been as helpful as they should be for being one of the classic superteams.
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Oct 2, 2014 00:04
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One day Sash will accept that being really good in 1987 is not actually relevant to 2014.
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Oct 2, 2014 00:05
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MourningView posted:One day Sash will accept that being really good in 1987 is not actually relevant to 2014. This but sex with your mom
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Oct 2, 2014 00:10
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MourningView posted:One day Sash will accept that being really good in 1987 is not actually relevant to 2014. Before or after "Paterno knew"
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Oct 2, 2014 00:10
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