CBJ Board Other Sports Thread: Part VIII

[Mayor Bee]

A brief timeline of the Browns since coming back into the league.

Rather than going with someone who had experience building a team, the franchise hires Carmen Policy and Dwight Clark from the 49ers. They were best known for being the ones responsible for the monstrous penalties that that franchise was hit with as a result of salary cap shenanigans. For those, the 49ers would lose draft picks and pay a six-figure fine, while both Clark and Policy were individually fined six figures for their roles.

During the coaching search, Browns legend Bernie Kosar was asked if there was anyone that he would recommend. Kosar recommended ex-Browns head coach and Jets' defensive coordinator Bill Belichick, with whom there had been a great deal of personal and professional animosity. Clark and Policy rejected the idea immediately.

Instead of talking to Belichick, they zeroed in on Vikings' offensive coordinator Brian Billick, whose team had just set NFL records with a rookie receiver (Randy Moss) and a reclaimed quarterback from the scrap heap (Randall Cunningham). Billick was offered the job after interviewing, but asked for time to consider it and talk it over with his family. Clark and Policy continued to press Billick during his deliberation period, causing Billick to withdraw his own name from consideration; he then became the Ravens head coach, and one year later had a Super Bowl.

With the first overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft, widely regarded as decent but lacking franchise players, Cleveland had an offer from New Orleans that would have sent 8 picks to the Browns in exchange for #1 overall. One of these was the pick that would be #2 overall in 2000, which would have given the Browns the top 2 overall picks in that year's draft. Had the deal been taken, Cleveland would have had 22 picks in their first draft back.

Quarterbacks taken in the 1999 expansion draft: Scott Milanovich
Quarterbacks not taken in the 1999 expansion draft: Kurt Warner

Going into the 2001 NFL Draft, coach Chris Palmer was asked who he would take at #3 overall. Palmer wanted a highly-regarded running back out of TCU; he left the meeting without his job. At the draft, Gerard Warren was taken #3 overall. Out of the top 7 picks in the draft, 6 made a Pro Bowl at some point; only Warren did not. Half of the top 40 picks made a Pro Bowl; Cleveland's top two picks of Warren and Quincy Morgan never did. TCU running back Ladainian Tomlinson set NFL records in an incredible career that will see him enshrined in Canton.

(Hell, this is depressing, and I'm only to April 2001 and haven't said a word about anything that happened on the field)

 

[FANonymous]

Which number of rebuild are they since 99 at this point now?

Still working on rebuild number 1.

 

[Samkow]

I hope OSU gets bounced from the rankings as a form of protest for scheduling this embarrassing/awkward/painful to watch game.

 

[Mayor Bee]

I hope OSU gets bounced from the rankings as a form of protest for scheduling this embarrassing/awkward/painful to watch game.

Not only does my old high school play a tougher schedule than this, I'm pretty sure they'd be 4-0 against what OSU has played so far.

 

[Socks]

OSU better feel shame after that win.

 

[SuperGenius]

You can always rely on a little OSU hate every Saturday in this thread.

It's as if this is the first FBS/FCS game you guys have ever seen. A&M wanted to come here, and, most importantly, wanted the $900k they'd get from it to put into their $6M deficit - particularly knowing the Big Ten has asked their schools to no longer schedule FBS teams by 2016 to accomodate the extra game in the conference schedule.

Regarding other opponents, these games are scheduled years in advance. You never know how good or bad the opponents will be. A few years ago Cal was a top 15 team and San Diego State was improving to a winning program under Brady Hoke. The next two years, OSU has a home and home with Virgina Tech, a perennially solid team who's a little down, but only 2 years removed from consecutive BCS bowl births. After that, they have a home and home with Oklahoma, then Texas, in addition to an expanded conference schedule adding Maryland and Rutgers.

Games like today are boring, but they're hardly only happening in Ohio Stadium. I guess you can be mad that they won 76-0, but ask UM fans what they think of Appalachian State or even Akron...does the fact that UM lost or nearly lost to those teams make it ok when they schedule weak teams? Remember when ND couldn't beat Navy? you never know, on any given day and all of that.

But hey, let's just say OSU sucks and find ways to bash them for being successful, I guess - that's more fun than having some idea of what you're writing about!

 

[Socks]

I don't hate OSU. Just the opposite. But I'd be embarrassed at this result if I were OSU the same as I'd be embarrassed if I were Louisville beating Florida International (seriously who?) the way they did.

 

[Mayor Bee]

You can always rely on a little OSU hate every Saturday in this thread.

It's as if this is the first FBS/FCS game you guys have ever seen. A&M wanted to come here, and, most importantly, wanted the $900k they'd get from it to put into their $6M deficit - particularly knowing the Big Ten has asked their schools to no longer schedule FBS teams by 2016 to accomodate the extra game in the conference schedule.

Regarding other opponents, these games are scheduled years in advance. You never know how good or bad the opponents will be. A few years ago Cal was a top 15 team and San Diego State was improving to a winning program under Brady Hoke. The next two years, OSU has a home and home with Virgina Tech, a perennially solid team who's a little down, but only 2 years removed from consecutive BCS bowl births. After that, they have a home and home with Oklahoma, then Texas, in addition to an expanded conference schedule adding Maryland and Rutgers.

Games like today are boring, but they're hardly only happening in Ohio Stadium. I guess you can be mad that they won 76-0, but ask UM fans what they think of Appalachian State or even Akron...does the fact that UM lost or nearly lost to those teams make it ok when they schedule weak teams? Remember when ND couldn't beat Navy? you never know, on any given day and all of that.

But hey, let's just say OSU sucks and find ways to bash them for being successful, I guess - that's more fun than having some idea of what you're writing about!

Ohio State has a pretty bad tendency to back out of future non-conference games. They had a two-year series with Tennessee, which OSU cancelled. They had a two-year series scheduled with Georgia, which OSU cancelled. Currently they have a two-year series with Oregon scheduled for 2020 and 2021, which I'm sure OSU will cancel.

 

[DEF]

OSU originally scheduled Vanderbilt. They backed out. FAMU was the only team that could be scheduled on short notice.

 

[Mayor Bee]

OSU originally scheduled Vanderbilt. They backed out. FAMU was the only team that could be scheduled on short notice.

Florida A&M was already scheduled when Vanderbilt backed out. It was the first game (Buffalo) that replaced Vandy.

Several teams could be scheduled on short notice; a group of smaller D-1 schools deliberately wait to finalize their schedule for this very reason. It's usually schools like Tulane, Wake Forest, Memphis State, and BYU. Buffalo....Buffalo has never been good and will never be good.

 

[Fro]

OSU originally scheduled Vanderbilt. They backed out. FAMU was the only team that could be scheduled on short notice.

i actually believe SDSU is the replacement for Vandy, not Buffalo, but the point still stands...

in other news...the Crew are 2 points out of a playoff spot with 4 games to play...

 

[DEF]

What I said was what was reported by the announcers during the game.

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

What I said was what was reported by the announcers during the game.

I'm telling you right now, you'll be told those announcers were wrong, or part of a deliberate cover-up.

I hold no love for OSU. I don't really care much for college football in general. But I'm not going to begrudge Ohio State for being part of a system that's a joke.

 

[Viqsi]

I shouldn't get into this debate, as I'm still pissed off.

Two and three weeks ago, it was "OSU should be dominating; they didn't win by as many points as they should have", and so OSU drops in the polls.

Today, it's "How dare OSU run up the score; how classless; who's to blame for this farce; how dare they", and probably another drop in the polls (we'll find out in a few hours).

It wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that the structure of college football is such that the opinions of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose fanboys and haters actually manages to matter.

 

[FANonymous]

I shouldn't get into this debate, as I'm still pissed off.

Two and three weeks ago, it was "OSU should be dominating; they didn't win by as many points as they should have", and so OSU drops in the polls.

Today, it's "How dare OSU run up the score; how classless; who's to blame for this farce; how dare they", and probably another drop in the polls (we'll find out in a few hours).

It wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that the structure of college football is such that the opinions of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose fanboys and haters actually manages to matter.

This is one of my biggest beefs with the system. No matter what OSU does they get slammed for it because two years in a row they just happened to not be the best team in the national championship game. "OSU never schedules difficult non-conference games" because we didn't have a series with USC or Texas within the past ten years. If OSU loses a big game, it was expected, if they win they get no credit beyond the immediate pat on the back.

Oregon makes its living off of blowing out mediocre teams and nobody says a thing. When they play a real team they either win by less than a touchdown, or more often than not they lose. Maybe OSU needs to have 500 different uniform combinations so that they can at least look stylish when a good defense completely shuts them down.

 

[Fro]

according to teh googles buffalo was the replacement for Vandy, i swore i originally read it was SDSU...

 

[Mayor Bee]

This is one of my biggest beefs with the system. No matter what OSU does they get slammed for it because two years in a row they just happened to not be the best team in the national championship game. "OSU never schedules difficult non-conference games" because we didn't have a series with USC or Texas within the past ten years. If OSU loses a big game, it was expected, if they win they get no credit beyond the immediate pat on the back.

Oregon makes its living off of blowing out mediocre teams and nobody says a thing. When they play a real team they either win by less than a touchdown, or more often than not they lose. Maybe OSU needs to have 500 different uniform combinations so that they can at least look stylish when a good defense completely shuts them down.

OSU's problem is that they play in a conference that has been getting worse and worse with every passing year. Scheduling non-conference games against teams that have a shot at a bowl game more than once every 10 years would alleviate some of that, but as of right now, their schedule is on par with the worst of Boise State (awful conference schedule, putrid non-conference).

In the last five years, Oregon out of conference has played Utah State, Purdue, and Boise State (2008); Utah, Purdue, and Boise State (2009); Tennessee, New Mexico, and Portland State (2010); LSU, Nevada, and Missouri State (2011); and Fresno State, Arkansas State, and Tennessee Tech (2012). The last one looks the worst, but the first two opponents were a combined 17-6 in the regular season last year.

OSU's issue isn't just that they play weak non-conference teams, it's that they've struggled so badly against them. They nearly lost to Navy, struggled against an Ohio team that went 4-8, lost twice to USC, and struggled last year against a poor Cal team. They blow out the MAC and teams that go something like 3-9. That's it.

 

[Samkow]

It's as if this is the first FBS/FCS game you guys have ever seen.

No, but it was probably the worst.

(And sorry OSU fans but going for it on 4th and 8 on the FAMU 11 when you're up by 20 is running up the score. Not cool)

But anyways, maybe that wouldn't have been so painful if a former president hadn't gone on about how they play such a tough schedule.

"...[H]aving been both a Southeastern Conference president and a Big Ten president, that it's like murderer's row every week for these schools. We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor. We play very fine schools on any given day. So I think until a university runs through that gantlet that there's some reason to believe that they not be the best teams to [be] in the big ballgame."

What's the step below Little Sisters of the Poor?

 

[Mayor Bee]

What's the step below Little Sisters of the Poor?

Florida A&M.

 

[Viqsi]

(And sorry OSU fans but going for it on 4th and 8 on the FAMU 11 when you're up by 20 is running up the score. Not cool)

Eleven yards from the damn end zone. Would you prefer they took a knee?

Seriously, with that particular situation there was literally absolutely nothing OSU could do that would look good. Let's look at all the available options:
Go for it and get there: "how dare you run up the score"
Go for it and fail: "lol you failed against an FCS team"
Take the field goal: "lol you're too scared to go for it against a FCS team"
Take a knee: "how dare you disrespect the opponent"
Punt: At eleven yards from the end zone? See "take a knee", plus it'd probably have gone through the uprights anyways.

What the hell kind of action were they supposed to take? And how come it's OSU who comes under fire for this while nobody says one ****ing word about how, oh, say, the SEC schedules more FCS teams than any other FBS conference in the NCAA, and puts up similar lopsided scores all the ****ing time? Or how Oregon gets to hang 50-60 points on substandard opponents every other game and yet nobody ever calls them out for being classless.

And how much sympathy and sweetness was there for Florida Atlantic this time last year when Alabama crushed them? Or for South Carolina State when they went up against the Aggies? LSU over Idaho? Oregon over Tennessee Tech? Absolutely nobody was crying about how badly victimized those teams were last year!

For ****'s sake, Louisville put up virtually identical point totals in a shutout against FIU (72-0 instead of 76-0) and nobody gives a good ******* - even the fact that they intentionally never stopped the clock for the last 18 minutes of that game so they could get it over with faster is going practically unreported by comparison. And Miami and Savannah State simply DROPPED THE LAST THREE MINUTES of their game.

I'm beginning to think that there's only two reasons folks are pissed at OSU for this one:
1) It's OSU, and
2) Nobody expected them to cover the point spread just in the first half - hell, folks were probably expecting them to not cover it at all.

...yeah, okay, maybe that's not reasonable. I mean, I try not to buy into the "everybody hates OSU and loves everybody else" conspiracy theories, but, really, maintaining that is hard. It's really ****ing hard.

 

[Viqsi]

...and for the record, please forgive me my venting; I'm just extremely frustrated, and need someplace to vent where I'm not going to be beset either by yes-men who think my every pro-OSU word is gold or by dimwitted haters who can't think beyond "lol osu sux sec rulz". Think of it as a compliment.

 

[Samkow]

Eleven yards from the damn end zone. Would you prefer they took a knee?

Realize you're playing somebody that's little better than a local HS team and kick a field goal

 

[Mayor Bee]

Eleven yards from the damn end zone. Would you prefer they took a knee?

Seriously, with that particular situation there was literally absolutely nothing OSU could do that would look good. Let's look at all the available options:
Go for it and get there: "how dare you run up the score"
Go for it and fail: "lol you failed against an FCS team"
Take the field goal: "lol you're too scared to go for it against a FCS team"
Take a knee: "how dare you disrespect the opponent"
Punt: At eleven yards from the end zone? See "take a knee", plus it'd probably have gone through the uprights anyways.

What the hell kind of action were they supposed to take? And how come it's OSU who comes under fire for this while nobody says one ****ing word about how, oh, say, the SEC schedules more FCS teams than any other FBS conference in the NCAA, and puts up similar lopsided scores all the ****ing time? Or how Oregon gets to hang 50-60 points on substandard opponents every other game and yet nobody ever calls them out for being classless.

Attempt the field goal. No one remembers any singular possession from a game like this, but running things like fake FGs or going for it on 4th down is certainly remembered.

The SEC plays a brutally tough conference schedule, and also happens to be located in immediate proximity to FCS schools that are actually, y'know, good. Schools like Georgia Southern and Appalachian State would be decent FBS teams, and most SEC-area FCS schools catch the runoff from guys who don't make it in the SEC or ACC. Most of these are either later-developing players or guys who run into legal trouble.

It's funny, because for years I've heard from media (up here especially) that "this SEC team hasn't left their home territory in xx number of years to play a non-conference game". Of course not. Within the SEC lands are Miami, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Memphis, and a lot of other FBS schools. Up here, it's the MAC, plus Notre Dame and Pitt.

And how much sympathy and sweetness was there for Florida Atlantic this time last year when Alabama crushed them? Or for South Carolina State when they went up against the Aggies? LSU over Idaho? Oregon over Tennessee Tech? Absolutely nobody was crying about how badly victimized those teams were last year!

For ****'s sake, Louisville put up virtually identical point totals in a shutout against FIU (72-0 instead of 76-0) and nobody gives a good ******* - even the fact that they intentionally never stopped the clock for the last 18 minutes of that game so they could get it over with faster is going practically unreported by comparison. And Miami and Savannah State simply DROPPED THE LAST THREE MINUTES of their game.

I think it's safe to say I follow more of the national football media than you do. Nothing personal, just a measure of my own passion. Believe me when I say that no one was inordinately ragging on OSU yesterday. Miami and Savannah State got the least focus because Miami isn't expected to contend this year, while Louisville and OSU split things pretty equally. I'm guessing this is because people are looking at Teddy Bridgewater's Heisman chances, and OSU gets focus because they're in the top 5.

I'm beginning to think that there's only two reasons folks are pissed at OSU for this one:
1) It's OSU, and
2) Nobody expected them to cover the point spread just in the first half - hell, folks were probably expecting them to not cover it at all.

...yeah, okay, maybe that's not reasonable. I mean, I try not to buy into the "everybody hates OSU and loves everybody else" conspiracy theories, but, really, maintaining that is hard. It's really ****ing hard.

It's not reasonable.

Part of being a fan is being unreasonable and irrational at times. It feels weird and unnatural, particularly if the rest of one's life is led by reason, logic, and rationality. But my advice is the same as it always is: win out, and let the end result speak for itself.

 

[Viqsi]

It's not reasonable.

Part of being a fan is being unreasonable and irrational at times. It feels weird and unnatural, particularly if the rest of one's life is led by reason, logic, and rationality. But my advice is the same as it always is: win out, and let the end result speak for itself.

It'd be easier if we were assured of the opportunity to do so, but at the rate things are going that's not going to be allowed to happen. We didn't actually drop a place in the AP polls this week, but we did lose points. Again. And Stanford is rapidly gaining ground.

Show me another top-10-at-any-time-this-year team that's getting repeatedly penalized for winning its games like it's supposed to.

Again: it wouldn't matter to me nearly as much if it weren't for the fact that this boneheaded *******-run idiocy actually dictates your team's opportunities.

 

[Mayor Bee]

It'd be easier if we were assured of the opportunity to do so, but at the rate things are going that's not going to be allowed to happen. We didn't actually drop a place in the AP polls this week, but we did lose points. Again. And Stanford is rapidly gaining ground.

Show me another top-10-at-any-time-this-year team that's getting repeatedly penalized for winning its games like it's supposed to.

Again: it wouldn't matter to me nearly as much if it weren't for the fact that this boneheaded *******-run idiocy actually dictates your team's opportunities.

Alabama has defeated three FBS teams, including Texas A&M and Virginia Tech.

Oregon has defeated two FBS teams (and one FCS), one ACC and one SEC.

Clemson had defeated two FBS and one FCS school, one ACC and one being a top-5 Georgia team.

LSU has defeated four FBS schools, including nationally-ranked TCU.

Stanford has defeated three FBS schools, including a conference (Pac-12) win.

Ohio State has defeated three FBS schools, only one being from a major conference (Cal) and that one being projected as a bottom-feeder. They're in the same boat as Florida State, although FSU's first week opponent (Pitt) is easily the toughest one so far if the schedules were combined.

If you want to argue that the system of having a preseason ranking setup, with teams only moving down with a loss and there being a much tougher time cracking the top five if you start on the outside, I don't disagree with that. If you want to argue that no rankings should exist until the middle of October, I completely agree that it's reasonable. If you want to argue that the human polls are junk and the computer polls at least put everyone on equal footing without human bias, I'm way ahead of you.