Poll Dancing 2011: Pre-Season Pretenders

August 4, 2011 by 1 Comment

The Pre-Season Coaches’ Poll was released this morning, instantly closing off the BCS Championship to around 85% of FBS teams.  This year’s edition sets up Oklahoma and Alabama to face off for the title and I eagerly anticipate that matchup as I fondly look back on last year’s Alabama/Ohio State battle and 2009’s Florida/Texas bout.  Of the 10 teams ranked in the top two of this poll in the past five years, only 3 have actually made it to the title game.

Of course, figuring out who the best two teams will be before any games have been played isn’t easy, but even if we open up the range to teams in the pre-season top five, we only add 3 more to the list.  And in what has to be their worst job at guessing who’s good ever, last year’s actual title matchup featured the pre-season #’s 11 and 23.

I’m not even going to pretend that I know how the coaches fill out their ballots (although here is some footage of Chip Kelly making his selection), but I am going to pretend that I know which picks they got wrong.  Here are my picks for which teams in the Top 10 will lose at least 2 games this year.

#2 Alabama

The Tide faces four road games against teams ranked in the pre-season poll:  Penn State, Florida, Mississippi State and Auburn.

#4 LSU

The Tigers open with a neutral-site game against Oregon.  Even if LSU pulls it off, they still have consecutive road games against Mississippi State and West Virginia and host Florida in game six.  The back half gets a little easier but still features a visit to Alabama two weeks after taking on Auburn.

#5 Florida State

After a laughable two-game head start featuring Louisiana-Monroe and Charleston Southern, the Seminoles host Oklahoma, who will likely still hold the top spot coming into the game.  Last year’s visit to OU was the first really big non-conference game FSU has played in a while and the Sooners blasted them in that one.  The next week they travel to take on Clemson, a team they struggle with on the road and then follow up a bye week with two more road games (albeit against Wake Forest and Duke).  The season closes out with a road game against the rival Gators, looking for some revenge for last year’s 31-7 FSU win.

#7 Boise State

Unfortunately for the Broncos, moving to the Mountain West isn’t going to give them any extra benefit of the doubt.  If they can go unbeaten, they may have a shot at a title spot, but they’ll still be subject to the mid-major One Strike And You’re Out rule.  That strike could come as early as week one when they take on Georgia in Atlanta, or a little later with two consecutive road games against old WAC foe Fresno State and an improved Colorado State.  But the real trouble spot is a visit from TCU followed by a trip to San Diego State.

#8 Oklahoma State & #9 Texas A&M

These two are together because they play each other on September 24th and unless Texas decides otherwise, one of them has to lose.  If Oklahoma State wins, they still have consecutive road games against Texas and Missouri, a visit to Texas Tech and a home game against a possibly undefeated Oklahoma ahead of them.  If the Aggies win, they go immediately into a neutral site game against Arkansas and a road trip to Texas Tech.  Later, they get Oklahoma on the road and host Texas to close out the season.

#10 Wisconsin

If Russell Wilson clicks in a system that isn’t really designed for his skill set, the Badgers could be in for a magical season.  If not, an early game against Oregon State could prove tricky.  More harrowing is the season-ending gauntlet featuring 4 road games out of 6, including back-to-back trips to Michigan State and Ohio State.  Penn State visits to wrap things up.

The Breakdown

Here is the number of teams from each conference featured in the poll:

SEC – 8 (66% of conference)
Big 12 – 5 (50% of conference)
Big Ten – 5 (42% of conference)
Mt. West – 2 (25% of conference)
Pac 12 – 2 (17% of conference)
ACC – 2 (17% of conference)

There are no teams from the Big East or any mid-major conference outside of the Mt. West included in the poll.

Filed Under: BCS, College Football

Why Nebraska Will Be A Mediocre Big Ten Team (At Least At First)

August 2, 2011 by 6 Comments

A few things right up front:

1. No, this is not just a wild devil’s-advocate post to help pass the time until football returns for real next month.  (But, to be fair, we’ve got to do that somehow.)

2. Let’s face it, there simply hasn’t been nearly enough Husker Hate going on.  We don’t want them thinking they’re joining some soft, sissy league, do we?

3. And finally, these numbers are all based on the past three years in anticipation of someone using Pelini as a counterargument.  I am confident that the basic conclusions would hold up (and improve in some cases) had I gone back further.  But out of fairness, I limited it to Bo’s tenure only.

So, let’s get into it.  Nebraska is a storied program that has enjoyed a lot of success over the years.  It wasn’t that long ago that they were the dominant team in the nation.  But a conference expansion/division and later terrible coaching hire took a toll on the Huskers and they fell out of the spotlight.  Under Coach Pelini, the ship seems to have been righted and Nebraska has been knocking on the door of greatness again.

Or have they?  Great teams beat great teams.  Or they don’t play them at all.  In the BCS era, those are your two choices for winning a title.  Nebraska has become quite good at exploiting one of those things, and not so good at the other.  And that’s where they’ll face a bigger challenge than most assume entering into the expanded Big Ten.

In the Big 12, Nebraska sat in the cushiony soft North division where they amassed a 13-2 record over the past three years.  In that same span, only one other North team (Missouri) has managed to register a winning record overall.  Together, Nebraska’s North opponents are just one game above .500 since 2008 and I dare you to try to tell me that this is a case of “beating up on each other.”

No, it’s no great revelation that the power in the Big 12 sat in the South division in more ways than one.  On that side of the fence, four teams check in with winning records since ’08, and A&M sits at an even 19-19.  It’s also worth noting that all four of those teams’ records are better than Missouri’s, Nebraska’s only semi-legitimate competition in the division.  So it should now come as no surprise that Nebraska has a 3-year record of 4-7 against South teams.  Some of those losses (notably the past two Big 12 title games) have been close, but so have some of the wins.

So, how does this translate into the new Big Ten?  The conference brass went to great pains to create balanced divisions, and they seem to have succeeded in that.  In Nebraska’s new Legends division, they’ll find three other teams who posted a winning record over the past three years.  And that doesn’t include Michigan, who we have to figure will be good again eventually.

Can Nebraska beat every other team in their division?  Yes.  I’d even say they’re talented enough to beat every team in the conference.  But they won’t.  At least not right away, like many otherwise respectable folks expect.  Under Pelini, Nebraska has just one win against the Big 12’s Big 2 Oklahoma and Texas.  While the statistical counterparts to those two teams in the Big Ten (Ohio State and Penn State) are still separated, they are both on the Huskers’ schedule for their first two years in the conference, after which they drop OSU for a while (although the impending 9th conference game could change that.)

In fact, the teams Nebraska will face this fall and next just happen to be the 8 most successful teams in the Big Ten over the past three years.  It is undoubtedly the most difficult conference schedule that Bo Pelini has faced since taking over in Lincoln.  There is also a complete lack of familiarity with any of these teams or coaches.  (The last Big Ten team Nebraska played was Michigan in the ’05 Alamo Bowl, a game in which Bill Callahan beat Lloyd Carr.)

Even if Nebraska maintains its high level of success, they simply can’t count on the Legends division settling into the pool of cupcakes they floated in during their Big 12 years.  Each of the teams on the Legends side is either currently enjoying success or has in the past decade (yes, even Minnesota) and could return to that level at any time.  And their record against competitive teams in the Big 12 suggests that they will not be able to navigate the division unscathed.

All told, there are simply too many obstacles between Nebraska and a conference title.  Way more than they’re used to.

Welcome to the Big Ten.

Filed Under: College Football Tagged With: ,

Auburn, Cam Newton heading for trouble?

July 20, 2011 by 4 Comments

July is always one of the slowest months for us here at MotSaG (as our archives will attest). That’s usually because it is historically not a busy month, Buckeye-wise or college football-wise.

Of course, that is not the case this year with all that has happened to the Buckeyes this off-season. Now things are heating up on other campuses. LSU was given a paddling from the NCAA principal and now it looks like Auburn could be in trouble.

Oh, this could be delicious for Buckeye fans:

Paul Finebaum had the USA Today’s Danny Sheridan on as a guest this afternoon, and Sheridan says the NCAA thinks it has found the bag man who helped Auburn pay for Cam Newton.

…

Sheridan closes by saying the “they [the NCAA] think they know the third party, and they think they know the party that put up the money.” That means the NCAA is looking at two entities here: someone who allegedly financed this alleged deal and someone who allegedly carried out this alleged deal. If the NCAA can remove the four “allegedly” instances out of that statement, Auburn’s in deep trouble.

(via Team Speed Kills)

Of course, as sportsMonkey points out on Google+, ESPN is ALL OVER THIS.

(Yes, we know ESPN’s URL is espn.go.com but the point remains. There is no mention of this on ESPN’s main page. Had these allegations been made against OSU, you know they’d be EVERYWHERE.)

Filed Under: College Football

The Last Days of the BCS?

June 2, 2011 by 2 Comments

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany’s recent advocacy of “cost-of-attendance” scholarships for athletes that would include additional funds to cover things like travel expenses and clothing was seen by many critics as a response to the current memorabilia scandal at Ohio State.  However, the idea is not exclusive to Delany and he’s not even the first major player to talk about it this year.  Current NCAA president Mark Emmert is all for it, as is SEC commissioner Mike Slive.  The Big 12 is meeting this week, and sure enough, the topic is very much a part of the discussion there.  It’s hard to imagine that the ACC and especially the newly-loaded Pac-12 would be against it.  Heck, South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier wants to pay the kids directly out of his World’s Greatest Golf Courses novelty checkbook.  In all likelihood, more than 75% of the current BCS automatic-qualifiers would quickly get behind this idea.

The not-so-hidden truth at the bottom of all this is that some schools and conferences can clearly afford such a move, while others clearly cannot.  Once again, we find ourselves up against the age-old battle between the Haves and the Have-Nots.  With the BCS facing its highest degree of opposition since inception, perhaps the time has come for Division IA (or FBS, if you’re a communist) to finally have that operation.

With last off-season’s thrilling Big Ten/Pac-10 expansion-fest coming to fruition this fall (and the Big East’s next fall and perhaps beyond), most of the best “mid-major” teams will be in AQ conferences or competing as BCS-friendly independents.  The only noticeable out-lier at this point is Boise State, who I guarantee would be welcomed into the Big East in a heartbeat if everyone could get over the travel issue (TCU isn’t exactly nearby anyway).  If the Big 12 decides they miss their championship game, that would be a more viable potential landing spot for the Broncos.  And, of course, we should never rule out independence; after all, nothing says iconoclast quite like a blue football field.

Even with just the current four 12-team conferences, the 10-team Big 12, a 10-team Big East (which appears to be the minimum goal) and four independents, that’s 72 teams that could compete as a new upper level of college football, with any type of post-season they want.  (Conveniently, there were 35 bowl games last year, and a couple more in the works.)  It’s worth mentioning that a BCS-style concept would probably be a lot more palatable under this set-up than it is in the current format, and a small playoff would be much easier to keep from ballooning out of control with a significantly smaller pool of teams to draw from.  Regardless of which direction is ultimately settled on, the BCS name is tainted and should be abandoned immediately.

What about those mid-major schools that get left out?  Conventional wisdom is that they would merge with at least a portion of IAA (FCS, komrade) and participate in an NCAA-sanctioned post-season playoff, which is exactly what they wanted anyway, right?  At the grown-ups table, we could finally put an end to the embarrassing cupcake-fest that pollutes the beginning of every season and get more interesting and competitive games on the schedule.  Everybody wins.

Filed Under: BCS, College Football, Ohio State Football Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Elsewhere…

April 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I don’t know who’s behind this, but someone with a Delaware phone number has set up a website challenging Cam Newton to take a lie detector test and answer four questions about the accusations of payola that continue to haunt him and his father.  While there’s no real chance of this happening, should Newton find himself unemployed next season due to the NFL labor dispute, at least he can pick up some extra scratch from this site’s proposed incentive:

Filed Under: College Football, Miscellany

In Case You Missed It

March 16, 2011 by 2 Comments

Well it’s back to this.

It might be hard to believe but there is still a lot going on in Buckeyeland that doesn’t involve the basketball team crushing lesser teams and getting ready for a Final Four run. It includes Buckeye football.

Once a Buckeye, always a Buckeye? Let’s start off on a really good foot. Kirk Herbstreit. Poor Kirk Herbstreit. For some of us here at MotSaG, Kirk is still a Buckeye and for that is respected and loved. Others of us have given him the heave-ho, the final nails in the coffin being his naming the names of the Tat-5 during an ESPN bowl broadcast and the other being his indefensible final AP ballot. But we all believe that we would never do anything to the point of making him so uncomfortable in his own hometown that he would uproot his family and move OUT OF STATE. But that’s exactly what happened, and that’s a shame.

I also wonder if Tennessee fans will still be welcoming him after he makes some unkind remarks about their beloved Volunteers. Time will tell.

But, if your in the market for a multi-million dollar home, a couple just recently came available. One is Kirk’s and the other is Buckeye Hero Big Daddy Dan Wilkinson’s.

I’m sorry, so sorry People seem to think Jim Tressel owes them an apology and are looking for contrition from him during this scandal and they have been impatiently waiting for him to say he’s sorry. Happy, people?

Everybody does it It seems quaint at this point, but I was following this story about HBO doing a documentary/expose on what goes on in the dark recesses of college football recruiting. I first saw this when Ramzy tweeted a link to this story about Stanley McClover, a highly coveted DE recruit and Ohio State commit that strangely de-committed to Ohio State and switched his commitment to Auburn. That led to this revelation:

Specifically: former Auburn defensive end Stanley McClover allegedly has admitted that he received cash payments to attend Auburn and that the payments continued during his playing career on the Plains.

(more can be read here)

At this point it’s a rather tenuous position to try to take the higher ground as an Ohio State fan on any topic related to following the rules, but this tangentially involves Jim Tressel and is therefore relevant..

Oh yeah, and there was this, too.

In addition to these SEC scandals that may soon be brought to light, another area of interest going forward is going to be these 7-on-7 camps. Thayer Evans of Fox Sports has been writing up a storm about this topic and should be required reading. This is going to be big.

Just for fun Finally, we direct you to this post we put up shortly after Ohio State’s loss to Florida in the 2006 National Championship game. We kindly direct your attention to Jay’s comment.

Well, SCOREBOARD (via)

Filed Under: College Football, Ohio State Football

New Year’s Day Open Thread

January 1, 2011 by 3 Comments

Here’s an open thread to discuss all the exciting Bowl Games of the day. Let’s at least hope they’re exciting because so far the Bowl Season has been BOR-ING.

How would have thought that the Big Ten would be 2-0 at this point? We’ve clearly established dominance over the Big XII. Let’s move on and crush the Southeastern Conference!

Oh, and if you need another topic to discuss, how about Tate Forcier not being eligible for the Gator Bowl? I know the Michigan fans had a field day with the Tat-Five, especially with Terrelle Pryor. But one thing they can’t say is that he is a bad student. He was named to the 2010 Big Ten Fall Academic All-Conference Team. Let’s not forget that these kids are student athletes. Pryor’s decisions a couple years ago may have been dumb (and they most certainly were) but at least he has been going to class.

Update: Ouch, not a good showing for the first four bowl games from the Big Ten. That wasn’t pretty. I’m not even sure I can bring myself to watch the Rose Bowl. I’ve seen enough ugly beatings already today.

Filed Under: College Football

In Case You Missed It

December 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment

We’re not dead, we’re just hibernating.

After our (my) self-imposed hiatus, I’m trying to get back into the posting groove. Here’s a delayed round-up of some of news and goings-on in Buckeyeland and Blogtopia.

This may only affect a small percentage of MotSaG readers, but earlier this week Gawker (which owns tabloid sports blog Deadspin) suffered a major security breach that included the usernames, emails and passwords to their thousands of user accounts being hacked. If you have ever commented or registered at any of their sites, including Deadspin, you might want to see if your account has been compromised and then set about changing any passwords you might have in common with Gawker sites and other sites you frequent. Practice cyber-security!

The Big Ten Logo and the Big Ten Divisions were announced to much derision and mockery by the fans. We here at MotSaG HQ hate the Leaders and Legends names and will refer to them as “East” and “West.” until something better comes along. (Which might happen sooner rather than later)

Speaking of things I hate (in conjunction with the new Big Ten announcements), I’m not a big fan of the new Big Ten Trophies. It was as if they didn’t want to offend anyone, so they spread as big a swath of recognition possible. Welcome to the Everyone gets a Trophy League! (don’t even get me started that Speil’s doesn’t get a trophy named after him. I think we need to start a blog-movement to get a Chris Speilman trophy).

Iowa – What’s going on over there?!

With ESPN’s stranglehold on the broadcast rights of the Bowl Games you can also now watch them all on your Xbox 360. Something felt wrong typing that last sentence.

Buckeye Ballers has the top 15 plays of former Buckeyes for the month of November.

I’m not sure how many MotSaG’ers are also Cleveland Indians fans, but we lost a true Cleveland hero this week with the passing of Bob Feller. Joe Posnanski (probably my favorite sports writer) has an excellent tribute to Feller.

Filed Under: Cleveland Indians, College Basketball, College Football, Ohio State Football

Poll Dancing: 2010’s Last Dance

December 10, 2010 by Leave a Comment

(This is a guest series by MotSaG reader Jason Nafziger. He’ll be taking a weekly look at the college football polls and pointing out the absurd, the laughable and the head scratchers. Please note that Jason is not talking about the BlogPoll. Or my ballot to the BlogPoll.)

Once again, the world of college football fails to implode, and the BCS pats itself on the back for arriving at an obvious conclusion: the only two undefeated AQ teams will play for the title. The feeling that the system “got it right” is not entirely unfounded, but it does require one very large assumption: that all AQ conferences are equal. And, of course, that’s just not true.

It’s not that Oregon and Auburn are undeserving; it’s that there are other teams who are also deserving. Can anyone honestly say that the Big Ten’s three co-champions (each with just a single loss, and two of them with a loss only to one of the others) did not accomplish as much as the champions of the Pac-10 (where only 3 other teams managed more than 6 wins) or the lop-sided SEC (Auburn essentially played in a 6-team conference)?

If schedule strength is the argument against allowing undefeated TCU to play for the title, why does it suddenly become irrelevant when comparing an undefeated team to a one-loss team? Of course, that leads to the unanswerable question of how to measure schedule strength (is the Miami team we played in week 2 the same one that lost to South Florida?) and we’re back to where we started, wondering why TCU isn’t allowed to prove themselves.

It will come as no surprise what I think the answer is. To anyone who thinks that I am a knee-jerk playoff proponent, let me assure you that I have considered this topic from all sides. I used to argue on the side of the BCS (albeit that was before they inexplicably dropped the Quality Wins calculation). But I have come to realize that any system that arbitrarily denies an undefeated team a chance to play for a title is inherently anti-competitive.

The ultimate question for me becomes this: If TCU (or Boise or whoever) truly does not deserve the national title, then there is no way they would win a 16-team playoff, so why not let them try? I can’t answer it.

The Poll Dancing Hypothetical and Totally Awesome Playoff (Final):

First off, let me say that since my playoff is based on the Death To The BCS format, Dan Wetzel’s final bracket deserves a plug here. There is a little difference, since he used the BCS rankings in the place of a theoretical selection committee, while I’ve been using the AP poll. The WAC ended in a three-way tie, and I (like Wetzel) awarded the auto bid to Nevada (it’s arguable, but Hawai’i got destroyed by Boise, and Nevada beat Boise head-to-head while losing close to Hawai’i). Boise still makes it in thanks to the AP poll though, so it’s all good.

(1) Auburn vs. (16) Florida International
(2) Oregon vs. (15) Miami (OH)
(3) TCU vs. (14) UCF
(4) Wisconsin vs. (13) Connecticut
(5) Stanford vs. (12) Nevada
(6) Ohio State vs. (11) Virginia Tech
(7) Michigan St. vs. (10) Boise St.
(8) Arkansas vs. (9) Oklahoma

Whether you prefer mine or Wetzel’s (or whatever an actual selection committee would produce), it’s hard to argue that this isn’t approximately one zillion times more interesting than what we’re getting in January. Even the potential (but hardly guaranteed) second-round rematch of conference-mates Auburn and Arkansas is exciting, considering how their first meeting went.

The Breakdown (full Top 25): 24% SEC, 20% Big 12, 12% WAC, 12% Big Ten, 8% Mt. West, 8% Pac-10, 8% ACC, 4% C-USA, 4% Big East

I broke down the mid-majors by conference this time to make a point. The WAC is tied for third with the Big Ten for ranked teams. Combined, three mid-major conferences have more ranked teams than the combined Pac-10, ACC, and Big East. Yet, the undefeated Pac-10 champ is playing for the title while the undefeated Mt. West champ is not. The WAC did not even get a BCS bowl bid.

Filed Under: College Football

Week #14 – Open Thread

December 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment

It’s weird and exciting to think that this time next year we’ll be gearing up for the Big Ten Championship Game. It sure would be nice to have a chance at redemption this year but we’ll get over it.

While we’re watching this week’s offering, I figured it was time for another poll. It looks pretty solid that Ohio State will be going to the Sugar Bowl, playing either Arkansas or South Carolina. Who would you rather see in the Bowl Game? Arkansas and former Wolverine Ryan Mallett? Or a chance at redemption against South Carolina and getting revenge for those Outback Bowls?

[poll id=”7″]

Filed Under: College Football, Ohio State Football
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