So far, the Big Ten’s showing in Bowl Games has been decent (2-2 isn’t great, but should be 3-1) but today we get to really see the Big Ten heavyweights throw around some muscle. Normally, we could give rat’s behind whether these teams win or lose, but now that we’re talking about Big Ten pride, we’re all fans. Even though deep in the recesses of your brain you want Florida to pound Michigan into the ground, try to suppress that thought for a few hours and root on the Maize and Blue.

Today’s match-ups include:

The Outback Bowl – Wisconsin vs. Tennessee: This is the first game of the day and, God willing, the first SEC loss of the day. With PJ Hill back in the lineup, that should spell trouble for Tennessee’s young defense that can’t seem to stop the run. This will be the first barometer of OSU’s match-up with LSU. Tennessee played LSU tough in the SEC championship game but the Buckeyes handled the Badgers without much trouble.

Rub your hands maniacally if the Badgers have their way with the Vols.

The Capital One Bowl – Michigan vs. Florida: On paper, this spells trouble for Michigan. Superman and his Heisman Trophy get to play in front of the home crowd against a Michigan team that is browbeaten and deflated. For them, this wasn’t really a season full of “what-ifs?” More like “WTFs?” This game sets up for redemption on so many levels, the Wolverines almost can’t lose. Redemption for the seniors (especially Hart and Henne) that never really reached their full potential. A farewell victory for Carr. Redemption for Wolverine nation. As Brian noted, the outcome of this game will have little or no bearing on the program moving forward, but, man, a Bowl victory will do wonders for fan’s psyche.

Smile wryly and then change the channel if Manningham and Arrington are abusing Florida’s lousy secondary and Henne is throwing laser beams or Hart is doing what he normally can’t do against defenses in gray helmets.

The Rose Bowl – Illinois vs. USC – Funny how just a few weeks ago, most of Buckeye Nation was getting ready to head to the Granddaddy of Them All, the Rose Bowl, in Sunny Southern California. Now the Buckeyes get to play in the swampy backwater Bourbon Bowl and Illinois gets to go where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Of course, no one is giving the Illini a song girl’s chance of cheering for the right team, so the Big Ten team once again takes on the role of the underdog. Everyone loves the underdog, right?

Of the three Big Ten teams playing today, Illinois has the most to prove. They want to show that beating Ohio State wasn’t a fluke and they’re the real deal. It isn’t going to be easy, but yay for a fast Big Ten team. The Pac-10 can handle the BEE-TEE-ENN speed.

Jump for joy, do some push-ups and get pumped for the Bourbon Bowl if Juice and Mendenhall run buck-wild on the stout USC defense.

So take off your Woody Cap and put on your Big Ten visor and root on our fellow conference mates, especially the ones playing those loathsome SEC teams. It’s time to shut those SEC knuckle-draggers’ mouths.

Wanna know how “zomgAWESOMEeleventy!!1!!” the SEC is compared to the Big 10?

Three percent.

As in, “the Big 10 won 80% of its non-conference games, and the SEC won 83%.” Specifically, the Big 10 went 36-9, while the SEC went 40-8 (disparagement due to the SEC having one more team than the Big 10).

The teams in the Big 10 collectively averaged a 3.3 – 0.8 win/loss ratio, while the SEC’s ratio was 3.3 – 0.7. Last time I checked, seven- or eight-tenths of a loss was the same as a loss, so we can agree that it’s safe to round. Which means that both conferences averaged the same 3-1 ratio for their teams.

As for the opponents’ strength, SEC opponents had a 48% winning percentage; Big 10 opponents were at 41%. Less, yes, but arguably not that significant of a difference. Both groups of opponents were in clearly in the same range of “somewhere below average.” Oh, and both conferences played against the same number of FCS (I-AA) schools (four).

To sum up: Of course, it should be acknowledged that the SEC has a very slight edge – similar success against slightly better opponents. However, the margins are so close that, if the Big 10 also had twelve teams, the numbers would undoubtedly be even closer. (And this latter point is bolstered by the 3-1 per-team average across both conferences).

What is most important, though, is that clearly there is no significant superiority of one conference over another here. No matter how many times ESPN tries to pump this “SEC superiority” myth into the collective subconscious of CFB fans, there is absolutely no basis for it.

If the SEC were as tough and competitive as the myth claims, then either (1) their non-conference numbers would be off the charts, or (2) their opponents would be significantly superior to everyone else’s. Neither is the case – yet again – in 2007.

…although thanks A LOT for leaving me with short fingernails. Hope they grow out by January 7th.

The Boilermakers – well, their offense at least – started the Big 10 bowl season off admirably. Joe Tiller did just about everything he could to lose it for them, with some very odd play calls and clock management in the last five minutes. Had C-Mich not been so effective on their last drive, leaving over a minute on the clock after their tying score, Tiller’s likeness would likely be burning in effigy in West Lafayette tonight.

Oh, and Curtis Painter against the 111th best passing defense in the country? 546 yards passing. Three receivers over 100 yards. Stud. Here’s hoping he has a good pro career somewhere.

Myth:
OSU and LSU “backed in” to the Bourbon Bowl; were “arbitrarily picked.”
OSU and/or LSU were listed in either first or second place for seven of the eight weeks the BCS was being calculated. The two teams accounted for 56% of all first- or second-place BCS votes in 2007. The remaining 44% of votes were spread out across six other teams, two of which are no longer ranked at all.

Anyone who claims surprise or alarm at the fact that these two teams are meeting for the title was simply not paying attention all season long. The Buckeyes and Tigers dominated the polls for the entire 2007 season.

Myth:
LSU is faster; has that dreaded “ESS EE SEE SpeEEEeeddd.”
Nope. OSU is faster across the board. The only true reality about SEC speed is the bumper sticker hubris attached to it (“Slowhio,” indeed).

It doesn’t matter anyway. Coaching, penalties, mental mistakes, turnovers, and men named Stephan Pamon are far more likely to impact a game than negligible differences in 40-times.

Myth:
OSU had a pathetic schedule, so [insert my favorite team here] should be getting a title shot.
Really? Like who?

Oklahoma? Using Sagarin, The Sooners schedule was ranked 59th (to OSU’s 62nd). Negligible difference, yet Oklahoma had one more loss than the Buckeyes did.

USC? 2-1 vs the top 30, OSU was 3-1 vs the top 30. And again, the Trojans had two losses on the season.

By the way, Arkansas’ SOS rank (64th) is lower than OSU’s, yet they beat LSU. Interesting.

Most importantly, though, is that OSU’s sole loss was to its conference’s second-place team, one that finished ranked and headed to a BCS bowl game. It wasn’t to one of the worst teams in its conference, like Colorado or Stanford.

It’s folly to mock a team’s schedule when the team you’re advocating as a replacement (1) had more losses, and (2) had losses against the patsies on its own schedule. If OSU had two losses, and one of them was against a team like Minnesota or Northwestern or Akron, then you’d have a point.

In all fairness, of course Ohio State’s competition in 2007 was of overall lower quality than in years past. The same goes for the entire country, though. OSU typically schedules at least one marquee non-conference game each year: Texas in 05/06, USC in 08/09, Miami (Fl) in 09/10, etc. There was no way to predict that Washington would lay an egg this year – when they were scheduled, they were contending for the Pac 10 title.

Pfef put it very well:

“Ohio State had one loss, by a touchdown, to a team that will probably end up in the Rose Bowl, and won their conference outright. In my book, that’s a bit more deserving than teams that lose in games which their favored by 41 points (like USC to Stanford), twice when ranked #1 (like LSU to currently unranked UK and Arkansas), or to 6-6 squads (Like Georgia to South Carolina)… The results say that Ohio State is more deserving than teams that failed to bring their A-Game on a week to week basis, and it’s an injustice to the world if an underachieving squad makes it in instead of an arguably overachieving Ohio State.”

Myth:
LSU will be healthy, so they’ll destroy OSU like they did Virginia Tech.
First, I don’t understand how LSU being healthy somehow makes the Buckeyes play like the Hokies (i.e., not show up to play on defense, working through a rotating-QB controversy on offense).

Still, though, some are saying that the Buckeyes are in trouble, because LSU will “finally be healthy.” Every time I hear that, it sounds like someone’s trying to find excuses for some pretty average performances through the middle to end of the Tigers’ season.

OSU suffered from plenty of team-affecting injuries, too, and persevered. Consider Beanie Wells. In his last five games, he averaged 164 yards per game (at 6.0 yards per carry). At least one of those teams (PSU) has a better rush defense than LSU. And yet, he did all this with a bone chip in his ankle, tweaked knee, and sprained hand – injuries that should be largely healed for the big game.

Also, the Buckeyes lost a heavily-used RB (Saine), their slot receiver (Sanzenbacher), and their starting defensive end (Wilson) earlier in the season, among many others. Yet none used injuries as an excuse for the poor performance against Illinois. Furthermore, all are expected to be back to contribute significantly against Red Beaulieu and his merry band of foolsball players, which should even out any advantage LSU has in bringing its players to the field healthy. Good. OSU’s best vs. LSU’s best makes for a far better game, no matter what the outcome.

Myth:
LSU was “unbeaten in regulation,” and so really doesn’t have two losses. Just two OT losses, which aren’t really losses. Because they didn’t happen in regulation, where LSU was victorious (because they didn’t lose). In fact, they are so far away from actually being losses that one could call them “incomplete victories.” Yes. That’s it. LSU has 11 victories and 2 incomplete victories. And no losses.
Uh… whatever *rolls eyes*.

You’ve gotta admit, though, this “undefeated in regulation” campaign was, if not logical or intelligent, at least original. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate, the school’s sports information director was up until 3 a.m. on Sunday (Dec. 1), emailing voters and stumping for LSU with the “undefeated” argument. Spin? Of course. Effective? Absolutely. For those of you keeping count, that’s two years in a row that an SEC team has stumped its way into the title game. Maybe the heads of the other power conferences should be taking notes.

But back to this “undefeated” argument. Here’s an idea: Maybe we could use the same logic to make another point, that LSU actually has four losses. You know, in two games, they lost in regulation, and then lost in OT. They failed to win two games, even though they had two attempts each time to do so. Sounds like four losses to me. And just as logical as Beulieu’s argument.

Or, we could abandon this nonsense and move on. Groovy? Groovy.

Myth:
If Florida could destroy a great Ohio State team with such ease last year, then LSU should absolutely crush an arguably weaker Ohio State squad this year.
We’ll be diving deeper into the analysis over the next 10 days, but I’ll summarize it this way: anyone who is expecting OSU to look and play like it did last year is in for a surprise. The differences between this team and last year’s couldn’t be more vast, in either talent or attitude.

SI’s Austin Murphy had a few wise things to say about the latter:

“The biggest difference is that the boys in Scarlet and Gray won’t be getting smoke blown up their backsides [the month before the game]. The Buckeyes took the field against the Gators almost believing their success to be inevitable — an attitude bordering on entitlement. As Boone recalls, ‘We had Troy, we had Teddy [Ginn], we had Gonzo’ — future first-rounder Anthony Gonzalez. The feeling, he recalls: ‘We have all these superstars, so, we’ll pass block a little bit, we’ll get the ball off, we’ll jog up the field’ to the new spot.

This time around, the Buckeyes are hearing how unworthy they are to play for the title, ‘how we’re gonna get killed,’ says Boone. ‘You hear that for a month, you start getting pissed off.’

Welcome to Florida’s world, Ohio State. On the field after that 41-14 blowout last January, I was struck by how deeply many Gators had been offended by — and drawn motivation from –predictions of a Buckeyes romp.’

As for the differences in talent, he goes on:

“It’s to the benefit of Boone and All-America right tackle Kirk Barton that the Tigers have no pass-rushers on a par with [Florida defensive ends] Derrick Harvey and Jarvis Moss, who combined for five sacks… ‘Everybody doubts us, says we don’t deserve to be here,’ admits shutdown corner Malcolm Jenkins. ‘They don’t give us a chance. We feel comfortable in that role.’ “

In short, Ohio State matches up much, much better against LSU than it did last year against Florida. Plus, the hubris of LSU (and ESPN on its behalf) has given the Buckeyes a totally different attitude, helping the team to angrily define its underdog role. The entire situation is apples to last year’s oranges.

This is either the shameful start of some serious character assassination, born of retaliatory motives – or the beginning of what could turn out to be a major story.

Yahoo! Sports is reporting that Stephan Pamon, a Big 10 referee, has some serious skeletons in his closet involving all sorts of shady activities, from child abuse to gambling problems.

Pamon refs the crew that was disciplined for the curious officiating during the Purdue/Penn State debacle. A week after that, his same crew was responsible for the officiating errors that are widely accepted to have cost Ohio State an unbeaten season.

“News of the controversial calls and the reported suspension of Pamon’s crew troubled two retired law-enforcement officers and one active law-enforcement officer who worked with Pamon in the early 1990s on the Chicago Terrorism Task Force. They suspected Pamon might have a gambling problem.

“The three former members of the task force, who spoke with Yahoo! Sports on condition of anonymity because they feared violating law enforcement protocol, said Pamon once made a phone call from Las Vegas to several task force members in the early 1990s, told them he was low on money and asked them to wire him about $400 each.”

It’s important to note that, in all fairness, there is currently no indication that Pamon gambled on any games, but the Big 10 has a strict policy against its officials gambling on sports of any kind.

Link

H/T: The Nittany Line

In 19 days, the Ohio State Buckeyes will take on LSU for at least one year’s worth of bragging rights.

In order to better understand OSU’s opponent on January 7th, you must first understand southern football. And what better way to edumacate yourself than by watching the best southern football documentary of all time, The Waterboy.

Only by close scrutiny of the movie will you understand the subtle nuances of the way football is played down south. For example, you will learn that when a southern team is insecure about its own abilities, it overwhelms its opponents with cockiness and overconfidence to compensate, even to the point of self-detriment.

Such is why, from this point forward, we at MotSaG will not be referring to the title game under its preferred moniker: The BCS All-State National Championship Game.

Instead, we will be referring to it henceforth as The Bourbon Bowl. Also, from now on, Les Miles will become Red Beaulieu.

Bobby Boucher is adaptable to any number of Buckeye backfielders — from the obvious Little Animal, to our favorite defensive end Gholston, or any other player that will gaze through his face mask at the cocky, taunting Southern Louisiana foolsball players on Jan 7th.

As for Dan Fouts’ character? No worries, I’m sure that Fox Sports’ Thom Brenneman can speak touchdowns with his mouth arm, too.

This also has the side benefit of appeasing both camps of BCS folks: those who love it and see the “life-imitating-art” parallels of having the title game in southern Louisiana; or those who hate the current system, wish for a playoff, and want to boycott the BCS reference.

Whatever side you fall on, we encourage you all to follow our lead (especially you OSU bloggers) in boning up on your southern football knowledge by watching The Waterboy. And feel free to join us in referring to the Bourbon Bowl from now on.

We’ve got plenty of content planned for the next couple of weeks. Naturally, we’ll give most of our attention to the big game. Lots of other things happening in CFB and the Big 10 for us to comment on, too. Watch for a post that addresses how unusual 2007 was for teams that hail from the State of Ohio. And you never know when Tressnac might stop by for a visit. Stay tuned.