The Average 10

Big Ten (really 11, and apparently may become 12 any day now) football is white trash. This issue has bugged me for approximately 5 years now. Year in and year out several decent big ten teams beat each other 23-16 all season in these so-called defensive battles. They aren’t really defensive battles, just a couple solid defenses stopping a couple dismal offenses. Seriously, I’ll bet anyone $20 straight up that both big ten representatives (Ohio St. (don’t even get me started on the fans by the way) & Iowa) lose their BCS games this year.

The thing that really chaps my hide is that these hacks frequently get 2 teams in BCS games. This can generally be attributed to many of them having “cupcake” non-conference schedules (i.e. Iowa, Penn State), and solid fan bases willing to fork over the cash to travel to great lengths to see their inferior athletes get stomped by SEC schools, USC (I know they’re having a down year, no need to rip on me, we can discuss later), and Texas. In the past 3 years big ten teams have gone a stellar 0-6 in BCS games. Seriously it’s such trash and usually is a waste of what should be one of the great games of the year. The only one of those 6 games that was even a “good game” was last year’s Fiesta Bowl in which an incredibly unmotivated Texas team (you try getting hyped to play the good ole buckeyes after getting snubbed from the national championship because Michael Crabtree is a freak) still managed to beat Ohio St. Wow, the dislike I developed for Ohio St. throughout college is really starting to come through. Then again, how can you blame me? Jim Tressel’s incessantly boring teams define the “average 10” over the past 5 years or so. Which brings me to my next point, the big 10’s legitimate lack of talent actually caused 2 of the past 3 national championship games to be blowouts (I know LSU only beat OSU by 14 two years ago but the end result of that game was never even in question). Because there have been no good teams, OSU “cruises” (for lack of a better term) to a 1 or 2 loss season every year with a nail-biter over someone like Purdue (who they lost to this year) usually thrown in there, and then by default falls into a BCS game, sometimes the national championship. The problem is conferences like the SEC and Big 12 spend all season beating each other, plus they have to deal with a conference championship game. So usually only one of them comes out alive and they end up playing a team like Ohio St. and then the culmination of the college football season (the national championship) is a waste. Notice how last year 2 great teams played each other for the ship and it was a great game.

Look the point isn’t to rip on Ohio St. or anyone else for that matter, and if I’ve pissed off you Buckeye fans out there, I’m sorry, sort of. This is really an indictment of the conference as a whole and it is one that has been made by many more knowledgeable people before me. It is a conference with great tradition and great resources, and yet they are stuck in neutral. The reason the SEC is so great right now may have something to do with coaching and/or location, but the bottom line is recruiting and adapting to the state of the game. Right now it’s 2009, not 1979. Speed is the name of the game. Have you seen how many guys on Florida run the 40 in sub-4.4, it’s ridiculous, and look how good they are. So why doesn’t someone grab Jim Tressel by the sweater vest (how many do you think he owns? Is it like 20? Or is it like 2-3 and he washes them a lot?) and tell him to recruit some ‘speedsters’ and open up his effing playbook. Terrelle Pryor won’t ever admit it, but who knows how filthy he could be right now if he played for Oregon.

Again, I apologize for tearing apart Ohio St., but they happen to be the best program in this mediocre bunch. I’ll try to get over this, but it’s been building up in my head for years. It’s just frustrating to see a tradition-rich conference sit back and watch the wonderful world of college football evolve without joining the party (Michigan’s trying with Rich Rod, we’ll see how that goes). More importantly, they’re wasting these BCS bowl games we wait all season for. If you need to reach me, I’ll be writing an even more obnoxious letter to Jim Tressel telling him to go recruit some guys from Florida. Maybe then they’ll be able to at least compete with a non-conference team other than Youngstown State.