Is anyone else a little relieved that they’re not #1? Not that we expected them to be. It just seems that outside of USC during the Reggie Bu$h years, the top preseason ranking hasn’t meant much at the end of the year.
Discuss.
Archives for August 2010
Life Outside the Big Ten: Can BYU Really Be Notre Dame West? (UPDATED)
August 19, 2010 by 5 Comments
It may seem hard to believe, but they play football outside of the Midwest on occasion. Sure, most of the time it’s like RC Cola – not as good as the real thing while still remaining a workable thirst-quencher when the good stuff isn’t available – but it’s there nonetheless. Anyway, I thought I’d occasionally take the opportunity to discuss the goings-on outside the Mother Conference.
Over at SI.com, Stewart Mandel asks the question and continues:
While BYU will never be coveted by BCS bowls to the same degree as the Irish, it might be able to accomplish many of the same goals (more TV money, better exposure) by freeing itself from the shackles of an eight-game conference schedule and The Mtn.
The key word in that sentence, of course, is “might.”
I’m only speaking from the point of view as a Buckeye ex-pat now living on the eastern edge of MWC territory, but I think it might be a little more realistic to replace “might” with “probably won’t” in that sentence.
The only reason Notre Dame has so much TV exposure is because they have a huge fan base nationwide. Why this is, here in 2010, is beyond me but we’ll stipulate that’s the case. They’re like the Cowboys of NCAA football, only if the Cowboys had been vacillating between 8-8 and 5-11 for the past twenty years.
BYU has a lot of fans outside of Utah as well, but the same could be said for any major college football program. From a strictly demographic standpoint,there are only about 5.6 million Mormons in the United States, compared to 66 million Catholics. Numbers were changed from the original post – see the update at the bottom. – Ed. Not every Mormon is a fan of BYU – I know several who absolutely hate them because they’re Utes fans – and not every BYU fan is a Mormon. But I’ll go out on a limb and say most BYU fans are Mormons. At the very least, I’d bet that Notre Dame has a much higher percentage of their fan base who are non-Catholic than BYU does with non-Mormons. So it’s a lot more apples and oranges than it would appear on its face. It would be like asking “Can the Cincinnati Reds be the next Yankees?” because their games have a very healthy share of the TV ratings in Cincinnati.
For that reason alone, I think there’s no way BYU gets anything resembling Notre Dame’s deal with NBC. As Mandel states, it’s possible that they’ll get a bit more money going on their own than they’d get from the MWC, but would the additional revenue be worth the scheduling nightmares that would surely ensue were the Cougars to go independent in football?
Note – I’ll leave it to you to laugh among yourselves about a Mormon university sharing a mascot name with types like Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City.
On the other hand, if BYU stays in the MWC, they’d be in an up-and-coming conference that still includes Boise State, TCU, Air Force, Wyoming, and has just added Fresno State and Nevada to the mix. The way thing have gone the last few years, there’s a significant chance that – even after losing Utah to the Pac-12 – the Mountain West will be on the upswing and potentially even garner an automatic bid to the BCS when they re-evaluate conferences. Would BYU be willing to throw that away for a little more money? That remains to be seen, I guess.
update – I edited the post to reflect the Census Bureau’s numbers for total voluntary self-reported religious affiliation in the United States (66,404,000 Catholics to 5,691,000 Mormons.) Originally I used the number of adults identifying with a certain religion as reported by the American Religious Identification Survey (46 million Catholics to 2.5 million Mormons.) Please note that these data are (and were) able to be found by clicking on the little red bit of text that reads “a strictly demographic standpoint“. Nevertheless it did change the ratio of Catholics to Mormons from 18.6 to 11.4 – so while it didn’t exactly change the point that I was making, prudence demanded that I made sure no one left this site thinking I didn’t do my homework.
2010 Season Preview Video Throwdown (Video #6)
August 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment
This preview video comes from YouTube user colebtiger:
This will probably be the last entry for your consideration. It breaks several of the rules, but if you don’t want to punch out horses after watching this video than you probably don’t bleed scarlet and gray.
Do They Really Get It?
August 18, 2010 by 12 Comments
Since I don’t live in the Columbus area, I don’t get to Old Columbus Town as often as I’d like for Buckeye games. Last year I decided, “Screw it! I’ve been graduated for a while. I haven’t been pestered for money by the school I paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition to in a few years, I’ll join the alumni association! Plus, I’ll get football tickets!” And so I joined, and sure enough, two seats in the South Stands for the USC game. Jackpot!
Of course, we all know how that turned out.
As my wife and I wandered around the neighborhoods east of high street, one thing struck me as odd. People were still partying and drinking and burning things. They were laughing, damn it! As if Stupid Pete Carroll hadn’t just mocked all of us with his stupid grin and his stupid, yet awesome cheerleaders.
That realization made me start thinking about how much different expectations are around Columbus now than they were when I started at The Ohio State University (est. 1870)
In the fall of 1996 I moved into Alma Wacker Paterson Hall for my freshman year at Ohio State. The Buckeyes had beaten Michigan once since I was in fourth grade. They hadn’t won a national championship in almost 30 years. But that ’96 season, that was awesome. My first game in the ‘Shoe, the Buckeyes beat Pitt 72-0. They kicked ass and took initials (because they didn’t have time to take names.) Â People kept mistaking me for Joe Germaine, the only time in my life being a scrawny, freckled redhead would ever pay off.
Then Michigan came to town and ripped our hearts out. Stupid Shawn Springs. It was one of the worst days I can recall experiencing as a sports fan. At least when they threw up all over themselves against Florida in 2007 I was really drunk and incoherent by the 2nd half.
The next year was similar although they didn’t whoop anyone like that Pitt game in ’96. Yeah, we lost to Penn State but that wasn’t that big a deal. It wasn’t like their fans were trying to start some kind of stupid rivalry with us or something. Then our boys went up to TSUN and Charles Woodson rained on our parade (also, I broke up with my girlfriend, my car got stolen, and I watched Mortal Kombat: Annihilation that day – the worst one is a toss up between the game or the movie.)Â Point is, I was 20 years old and those f—ers in their stupid blue and yellow helmets had ruined all but one of my football seasons since I was in elementary school.
At that time the Bengals and Reds had been more successful more recently than the Buckeyes. Ponder THAT.
Contrast that to today. The Reds haven’t made the playoffs since 1995, the Bengals haven’t won a playoff game since about 1991, and the Buckeyes have won 6 in a row against the weasels from up north and eight of their last nine. That’s right, an incoming freshman has seen Michigan beat our boys ONCE since they were in third grade. Not to mention a certain wondrous evening in January of 2003 when the football gods looked down on Arizona, saw a group of tough, bad-ass football players in white, and smiled upon them.
To make a long story short (too late) my question is, do they get it? Do they understand how big a deal the rivalry really is? Even as RichRod has sent the Wolverines into a downward spiral the last few years, not a minute has gone by where I didn’t feel a little sick to my stomach about the upcoming Michigan game. I’m nervous as hell for this year’s, and it pisses me off. Does the current student fan base even have the ability to comprehend that kind of hate fueled by history and bad memories? Or do they see Michigan as a speed bump on the way to bigger and better things, with USC or Florida or (heaven forbid) Penn State as a more worthy rival?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s a completely bad thing if they do. I’m certainly not trying to come off as some old man randomly ranting about iPods and iPads and Justin Bieber, whoever the hell that is. I’m just curious if the Vest’s successes over the last decade haven’t taken a bit of the edge off that raw hatred and stomach-churning dread I learned as a freshman and sophomore, lo, all those years ago.
My guess is that OSU fans now look at Michigan like they looked at us back in the 90’s, and vice versa. And if that’s the case, I have one bit of advice for the underclassmen at Ohio State:
Beware. College football is a very cyclical thing. Someday, hopefully many, many, many, many years from now, the shoe will be on the other foot. The Wolverines will beat the Buckeyes, and they’ll do it more than once. And it will suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
But at least then you (hopefully more like your grandkids) will understand my rage. And we’ll drink to it together, assuming I haven’t croaked from cirrhosis by then.
Clemson Tops Georgie Tech 47-15
August 17, 2010 by 12 Comments
Death Valley was certainly the site of a massacre as the 11th ranked Clemson Tigers man handled Georgia Tech and their sputtering offense in a 47-15 drubbing.Â
In a meeting of bitter in conference rivals, redshirt freshman and former OSU recruiting target Tajh Boyd lit up the scoreboard dazzling the thousands of fans that turned out for the day’s events. Boyd running the spread offense to perfection found running back Jamie Harper in the flat for a 49 yard catch and run for a touchdown.Â
It was all Mr. Harper as the all everything back ran for 3 TD’s while catching another. Harper accounted for 219 yards of total offense as Clemson unveiled their new wildcat offense on Saturday. The Georgia Tech defense looked as though they had never played football at times as Boyd and Harper ran wild.Â
It wasn’t just about the Tigers offense as the defense was equally effective. At times however it was unclear whether the Clemson defense was that dominant or the Georgia Tech offense was just flat out impotent probably a mixture of both. DaQuan Bowers had 2 sacks and recorded a vicious safety as time expired, sacking Yellow Jacket QB Joshua Nesbitt in the end zone adding insult to injury.Â
One can only hypothesize about the direction both of these teams are headed…as Clemson is undefeated and headed towards a BCS game, Georgia Tech and their once proud program has its tail between its legs and is once again looking up from that canvas after yet another knockout punch delivered by college football’s best.Â
Can Clemson continue dominating college football? What will happen to Georgia Tech in the coming weeks? Time will tell sports fans…time will tell.
(el Kaiser here: If you’re wondering what the heck Johnny Utah is talking about, you can go here for clarification. Some of you already figured it out, so this is for everyone else.)
LaQuinton Ross picks Ohio State
August 17, 2010 by 1 Comment
LaQuinton Ross, who is the No. 22 ranked basketball recruit on the ESPNU Top 100 list and rated a score of 97 on Scouts.com, has verballed to Coach Matta for the 2011 recruiting class.
Mr. Ross is a 6’8″ 200 pound Small Forward/Swingman. He is from Jackson, Mississippi but is playing ball at Life Center Academy in Burlington, NJ. He is known as a quick player with a strong ability to get to the rim but can hit from all ranges of jump shots. The one weakness in his game seems to be ball handling and turnovers. Sounds a lot like Evan Turner to me woohoo.
Craig Krenzel days left
August 17, 2010 by 2 Comments
Here we have the perfect example of a Jim Tressel player. Mr. Krenzel is a native from TSUN and he came to Ohio State to get a great education and to win games. He did both with pizazz. Mr. Krenzel is and will forever be known as the guy who brought us a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP back to tOSU. He wasn’t flashy. He didnt’ like being a star or strive for it. He simply went out to every game with the intention of leading the Buckeyes to victory. He was 24-3 as a starter.
So I leave you with this thought.
We dont give a dang for the whole State of Michigan. But thanks for giving us Craig “Special K” Krenzel.
