CBJ Board Other Sports Thread: Part VIII

[1857 Howitzer]

Say what you want about yesterday's OSU game, but one cool thing is that 21 walk-ons that likely would never see the field normally got playing time.

 

[Robert]

Yesterday..... OSU beat Wisconsin but by only 7 points vs a 23rd ranked team from a very weak NCAA football conference....

Meyer is a great coach but being undeafed vs Big 10 or high school talent is hardly hard....

The OSU defense is still suspect... I love OSU but based on my opinion there are ten NCAA teams that could beat Ohio State if given the chance...

 

[FANonymous]

Yesterday..... OSU beat Wisconsin but by only 7 points vs a 23rd ranked team from a very weak NCAA football conference....

Meyer is a great coach but being undeafed vs Big 10 or high school talent is hardly hard....

The OSU defense is still suspect... I love OSU but based on my opinion there are ten NCAA teams that could beat Ohio State if given the chance...

It doesn't matter how many teams "could" beat you, it only matters how many of them actually get the job done. I remember OSU not having a chance against the Miami Hurricanes. I remember OSU was going to get blown out by the Oregon Ducks. And obviously OSU was going to lose to Arkansas, they never beat an SEC team. Vacated win or not we all know what happened in those games and still the next year rolls around and the media haters like Mark May and friends return in full force polluting the public perception of a consistently great football team.

If going undefeated in the Big Ten is so easy, why aren't more teams doing it?

 

[EspenK]

If going undefeated in the Big Ten is so easy, why aren't more teams doing it?

Cause they have to play each other and someone has to lose?

 

[Mayor Bee]

It doesn't matter how many teams "could" beat you, it only matters how many of them actually get the job done. I remember OSU not having a chance against the Miami Hurricanes. I remember OSU was going to get blown out by the Oregon Ducks. And obviously OSU was going to lose to Arkansas, they never beat an SEC team. Vacated win or not we all know what happened in those games and still the next year rolls around and the media haters like Mark May and friends return in full force polluting the public perception of a consistently great football team.

If going undefeated in the Big Ten is so easy, why aren't more teams doing it?

Big 1G football right now looks a lot like the ACC all through the 90s. There's one clear top team, and a whole lot of steaming garbage below it. Of course, the real difference there is that Florida State recognized that the ACC was junk, and they had the balls to play a couple of non-conference teams that weren't Connecticut School for the Deaf and Blind.

Florida State from 1992-2001, which was their first 10 years in the ACC.
Non-conference games (24-8-1 record)- Miami (ten times, 6-4 FSU), Florida (ten times, 6-3-1 FSU), USC (twice, 2-0 FSU), Notre Dame (twice, 1-1), Texas A&M, UCF, Southern Mississippi, Louisiana Tech, Louisville, BYU, Tulane, Kansas, UAB
Conference games (76-4 record) - Duke, Clemson, NC State, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia Tech
Bowl games (7-3 record) - Nebraska (2), Florida, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Tennessee, Virginia Tech (twice), Oklahoma
Overall - 107-15-1

 

[FANonymous]

Cause they have to play each other and someone has to lose?

But when the same thing happens in the SEC it's because the conference is "sooooo strong."

It's all self fulfilling prophecies. The SEC is strong because they play the SEC, which is strong, because they play the SEC... and the silly polls reflect it. People act like there's no bad team in the SEC but Kentucky sure sucks. Has Vanderbilt ever been good? Tennessee hasn't been relevant for a while now. Mississippi State? Give me a break.

If one of those teams beats an Alabama or a Georgia, it's because the conference is "so strong top to bottom" [ ] but if OSU gets beat by Purdue, it's clearly because OSU sucks. There is a blatant media bias, it's just sad to see the lies taking hold here too.

Is OSU the best team in the nation? Likely not. Does that mean they suck? No. What do you want OSU to do? Recruit for other teams in the b1g so that the competition is closer? Or you just want them to change schedules that were laid out years in advance? Good luck scheduling a big name school on such short notice. And what happens when the school that is good now and scheduled for 2018 turns out to not be good that year? Is that also the buckeye's fault?

Yeesh.

 

[EspenK]

But when the same thing happens in the SEC it's because the conference is "sooooo strong."

It's all self fulfilling prophecies. The SEC is strong because they play the SEC, which is strong, because they play the SEC... and the silly polls reflect it. People act like there's no bad team in the SEC but Kentucky sure sucks. Has Vanderbilt ever been good? Tennessee hasn't been relevant for a while now. Mississippi State? Give me a break.

If one of those teams beats an Alabama or a Georgia, it's because the conference is "so strong top to bottom" [ ] but if OSU gets beat by Purdue, it's clearly because OSU sucks. There is a blatant media bias, it's just sad to see the lies taking hold here too.

Is OSU the best team in the nation? Likely not. Does that mean they suck? No. What do you want OSU to do? Recruit for other teams in the b1g so that the competition is closer? Or you just want them to change schedules that were laid out years in advance? Good luck scheduling a big name school on such short notice. And what happens when the school that is good now and scheduled for 2018 turns out to not be good that year? Is that also the buckeye's fault?

Yeesh.

Wasn't criticizing your view just displaying my wit (or lack thereof)

I think the reason SEC is so highly rated is they have won, what, 6 national championships in a row?

 

[FANonymous]

Wasn't criticizing your view just displaying my wit (or lack thereof)

I think the reason SEC is so highly rated is they have won, what, 6 national championships in a row?

Please understand I wasn't directing that rant at you, it was just something that I've heard people actually say and believe. I could tell you were being sarcastic.

And good for the SEC, but the media hype around the conference is ridiculous. They're guaranteed 1 spot in the national championship game with a surprisingly large number of people thinking they should get both. Like all football elsewhere is irrelevant. Which sounds surprisingly similar to a sentiment that is shared by some NHL fans where anything in the "sunbelt" is obviously a bad market for hockey. Plenty of people are willing to speak out against that ignorant bias, but not for college football?

 

[Mayor Bee]

But when the same thing happens in the SEC it's because the conference is "sooooo strong."

It's all self fulfilling prophecies. The SEC is strong because they play the SEC, which is strong, because they play the SEC... and the silly polls reflect it. People act like there's no bad team in the SEC but Kentucky sure sucks. Has Vanderbilt ever been good? Tennessee hasn't been relevant for a while now. Mississippi State? Give me a break.

If one of those teams beats an Alabama or a Georgia, it's because the conference is "so strong top to bottom" [ ] but if OSU gets beat by Purdue, it's clearly because OSU sucks. There is a blatant media bias, it's just sad to see the lies taking hold here too.

The SEC is extremely strong because the smallest child can see that, almost top to bottom, the teams that compose it are good. As a collective in the BCS era, SEC teams are 73-50 in bowl games and 17-8 in actual BCS bowls. That's the second-best overall bowl winning percentage (.593 compared to the Big East's .613, although the Big East has played 48 fewer bowl games), and far and away the best BCS bowl winning percentange. Conferences that are above .500 in BCS bowls are the SEC, Pac-12 (13-7 record), Big East (8-7), and two small conferences (Mountain West 3-1, WAC 2-1).

The B1G, by the way, is third-worst in bowl winning percentage (.443 just barely ahead of the Sun Belt's .434 and the MAC's .428). You mention Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, and Mississippi State. They'll be the bottom four in the SEC this year, and any one of them would be in the top half of the B1G.

I grant that it hasn't always been this way; the B1G could make a case for being the overall strongest conference as recently as 2002 or 2003. Since then, they've collapsed and the SEC has become dominant. The reason, I would speculate, is due to population shifts and coaching. SEC coaching was largely awful from around 1991-2000, with the top two guys in any year being Steve Spurrier and Philip Fulmer.

Is OSU the best team in the nation? Likely not. Does that mean they suck? No. What do you want OSU to do? Recruit for other teams in the b1g so that the competition is closer? Or you just want them to change schedules that were laid out years in advance? Good luck scheduling a big name school on such short notice. And what happens when the school that is good now and scheduled for 2018 turns out to not be good that year? Is that also the buckeye's fault?

It's not even a case of "changing schedules", since not every non-conference schedule is set years in advance. OSU still has two vacancies for 2015. Major series may be set up to 10 years out, but not all spots are booked even a year in advance.

No, the problem is that OSU books schools that have never been good, this year being a prime example. Buffalo has always been putrid, Florida A&M is a bad joke, and San Diego State hasn't been relevant since Marshall Faulk was there. Yes, California has fallen on hard times, and undoubtedly that game looked better when it was scheduled. But the fact that people are bemoaning the fact that "OSU got screwed by Vanderbilt" says all that needs to be said about the non-conference schedule.

OSU doesn't need to schedule a bunch of top-5 teams out of conference. What they need to do is stick to the BCS conferences and play four games against teams whose idea of a moral victory isn't losing by less than 42 points. Call up Missouri, Georgia Tech, and West Virginia. They're all mostly stuck in that 6-6 to 8-4 territory, but they're from legitimate conferences, and beating Missouri (even in a bad year) looks a lot more impressive than pummeling South Carolina A&T.

 

[Mayor Bee]

And good for the SEC, but the media hype around the conference is ridiculous. They're guaranteed 1 spot in the national championship game with a surprisingly large number of people thinking they should get both. Like all football elsewhere is irrelevant. Which sounds surprisingly similar to a sentiment that is shared by some NHL fans where anything in the "sunbelt" is obviously a bad market for hockey. Plenty of people are willing to speak out against that ignorant bias, but not for college football?

That's not comparable at all. People who speak out against "the sunbelt" are of a belief that "the sunbelt" is inherently negative or downright hostile to hockey. They believe that no matter what happens on the ice, attracting crowds and drawing fans will always be a losing battle and that this will never change no matter what. There's also a heavy dose of nationalism thrown in there as well.

In college football, plenty of people recognize the complete dominance of the SEC as of this moment. It hasn't always been this way, and it won't always be this way. But at this particular moment in time, SEC football is being played at such a high level that a one-loss SEC team will generally be looked at over top of an unbeaten team from another conference. That's not a guarantee; if the SEC team barely won 11 games and got pounded in their one loss while, say, a Pac-12 team annihilates everyone in their wake while going 12-0, it's another story.

 

[FANonymous]

They'll be the bottom four in the SEC this year, and any one of them would be in the top half of the B1G.

Just wow.

 

[End of Line]

Just go and get the job done week in and week out. How many ugly wins did they have in 2002? Still won the title. Let people think what they want to about OSU. Just prove everyone wrong like they have in the past. Use everything the national pundits say as motivation going forward.

 

[Viqsi]

You mention Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, and Mississippi State. They'll be the bottom four in the SEC this year, and any one of them would be in the top half of the B1G.

I generally don't think of you as being the type to write patently absurd nonsense, but this takes the cake. I hope to G-d's sake that by "upper half" you mean "one of them might have a fair chance at 6th". I'd put Ohio State, Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Michigan easily over any one of them, and would expect Nebraska, Michigan State, and Iowa to make strong cases to keep them out of the top half.

The SEC's middle-of-the-road teams are miles ahead of the B1G's, to be sure (Florida would instantly be the #2 team here, for example), and they've got more top-end teams. But their bottom teams are not nearly that good.

I grant that it hasn't always been this way; the B1G could make a case for being the overall strongest conference as recently as 2002 or 2003. Since then, they've collapsed and the SEC has become dominant. The reason, I would speculate, is due to population shifts and coaching. SEC coaching was largely awful from around 1991-2000, with the top two guys in any year being Steve Spurrier and Philip Fulmer.

I think the talent base has always been there; they just didn't have folks who could recruit worth a damn. Which is why it continues to amuse me that so many of the best coaches in the SEC are from B1G country.

* * *​

Just go and get the job done week in and week out. How many ugly wins did they have in 2002? Still won the title. Let people think what they want to about OSU. Just prove everyone wrong like they have in the past. Use everything the national pundits say as motivation going forward.

The only problem with this theory is that we're being continuously penalized for winning. Check out the total "points" in the AP poll sometime. With one exception, we've dropped every week since the preseason.

 

[Viqsi]

In college football, plenty of people recognize the complete dominance of the SEC as of this moment. It hasn't always been this way, and it won't always be this way. But at this particular moment in time, SEC football is being played at such a high level that a one-loss SEC team will generally be looked at over top of an unbeaten team from another conference. That's not a guarantee; if the SEC team barely won 11 games and got pounded in their one loss while, say, a Pac-12 team annihilates everyone in their wake while going 12-0, it's another story.

Yeah, tell that one to Oklahoma State.

Yes, it still pisses me off that while a rematch was obviously the wrong way to go when it was B1G teams involved, a SEC rematch is clearly the best choice. ******* lying biased mother****ers...

 

[Jyrki]

Both the Indians and the Reds are playoff-bound, how about that. First time in 18 years.

 

[Doug19]

I believe Ohio State played down to their opponent last night, not Wisconsin rising up to the challenge. Roby had a rough night, if he was playing as his normal self the score is probably closer to 31-10, I don't know why the offense stalled, the play calling in the second half was pretty putrid IMO. They were attacking often in the first, but seemed quite conservative in the second half.

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

It's all self fulfilling prophecies. The SEC is strong because they play the SEC, which is strong, because they play the SEC... and the silly polls reflect it.

And good for the SEC, but the media hype around the conference is ridiculous. They're guaranteed 1 spot in the national championship game ...

This, this, a thousand times this.

Head-to-head or bowl records or whatever doesn't change the fact that the way college football decided who's best is in large part, as Fan says, a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's just one of the handful of things that makes college football a joke.

 

[Viqsi]

I believe Ohio State played down to their opponent last night, not Wisconsin rising up to the challenge.

That's, like, the exact opposite of the impression I got from the first half. Did kind of let up a little in the second half, but, well, that's been the story all season.

Roby had a rough night, if he was playing as his normal self the score is probably closer to 31-10

I frankly didn't think that was Roby having a rough night as much as Abbrederis really being that earth-shakingly awesome. I mean, it obviously did start to get to Roby as the game went on, but still. Yikes.

I don't know why the offense stalled, the play calling in the second half was pretty putrid IMO. They were attacking often in the first, but seemed quite conservative in the second half.

It stalled because Wisconsin Borland did a pretty good job of taking Hyde out of the game as it progressed, which apparently scared people.

 

[Samkow]

Both the Indians and the Reds are playoff-bound, how about that. First time in 18 years.

And the Browns and Bengals played the worst football game in 18 years as well.

 

[Mayor Bee]

I generally don't think of you as being the type to write patently absurd nonsense, but this takes the cake. I hope to G-d's sake that by "upper half" you mean "one of them might have a fair chance at 6th". I'd put Ohio State, Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Michigan easily over any one of them, and would expect Nebraska, Michigan State, and Iowa to make strong cases to keep them out of the top half.

After seeing Michigan bumble around with Akron and UConn, I wouldn't put them over anyone "easily", even a good 1-AA school. At this point, no B1G team has what I would call an impressive win, whether in-conference or out.

The SEC's middle-of-the-road teams are miles ahead of the B1G's, to be sure (Florida would instantly be the #2 team here, for example), and they've got more top-end teams. But their bottom teams are not nearly that good.

I'm sure we'll get to see come bowl season.

I think the talent base has always been there; they just didn't have folks who could recruit worth a damn. Which is why it continues to amuse me that so many of the best coaches in the SEC are from B1G country.

I don't think recruiting was the issue back in the day. SEC teams were still getting four- and five-star recruits, but they weren't developing them worth a damn. The SEC in those days had a pretty high flameout rate in the NFL, because these guys maintained the athleticism and the ability to tantalize in the gym, but it didn't translate to the field.

Yeah, tell that one to Oklahoma State.

Yes, it still pisses me off that while a rematch was obviously the wrong way to go when it was B1G teams involved, a SEC rematch is clearly the best choice. ******* lying biased mother****ers...

I completely agree; I actually supported Oklahoma State making it into the championship game. They had one loss, and it happened to come less than 24 hours after a devastating accident that cast a pall over Oklahoma State as a whole. Alabama was the better team, but their body of work over the year (to me) did not put them over Oklahoma State considering the circumstances.

 

[Mayor Bee]

This, this, a thousand times this.

Head-to-head or bowl records or whatever doesn't change the fact that the way college football decided who's best is in large part, as Fan says, a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's just one of the handful of things that makes college football a joke.

I've been saying for years that the only way to properly slot the two best teams in is by going strictly with the computer polls. It removes the possibility of human tampering, campaigning, and other underhanded methods of screwing the system up. I've messed around with formulas and algorithms enough times to know that if you try to skew something in order to achieve a particular goal, it creates a cascading effect of unintended consequences.

 

[Dr. Fire]

How about them Browns. I left them for dead at 0-2. Since trading Richardson, and Hoyer starting at QB they are 2-0.

Truth be told, the defense won the game today.

And what up with the Browns FG kicker? I am sorry, but you gotta split the up-rights on those chip shots.

 

[Doug19]

That's, like, the exact opposite of the impression I got from the first half. Did kind of let up a little in the second half, but, well, that's been the story all season.



I frankly didn't think that was Roby having a rough night as much as Abbrederis really being that earth-shakingly awesome. I mean, it obviously did start to get to Roby as the game went on, but still. Yikes.



It stalled because Wisconsin Borland did a pretty good job of taking Hyde out of the game as it progressed, which apparently scared people.

First half Ohio State didn't play down, unfortunately the 2nd half they did. As far as Roby is concerned, we are talking about a potential top 10 pick in the draft. He is one of the top if not top corner in the college game.

Surely Abbrederis's play was great, but Roby was also not his usual self. He was falling for double moves all night, grabbing and clutching, etc. I'm wondering if his game wasn't effected the rest of the night due to the tweaked lower back he sustained after making a tackle on I think it was the second drive. Abbrederis dominated the first half, however Wisconsin didn't show up for the second half on offense either, which leads me to the play calling point.

As for Hyde they did stop him in the second half, which leads to my gripe on the play calling. They stopped going vertically down the field in the second half. Wisconsin was able to stack 8 and 9 defenders in the box because of this. There was 8 pass attempts in the second half which resulted in 36 yards (4.5 yards per attempt) compared to 17 attempts in the first half for 162 yards (9.53 yards per attempt). I felt that the bucks were playing to not lose in the second half rather than to continue to drive the play like they were in the first half. Our running game worked well in the first because Wisconsin had to respect the long ball, not so much in the second half however. I'd be curious to see what the time of possession stats were per quarter (I couldn't find them), but at the end of the day we won a close one against Wisconsin, like they usually always are; however this game could have easily been a blowout if they would of stuck with first half buckeye football on offense.

 

[Viqsi]

After seeing Michigan bumble around with Akron and UConn, I wouldn't put them over anyone "easily", even a good 1-AA school. At this point, no B1G team has what I would call an impressive win, whether in-conference or out.

...and yet you are apparently willing to say that for Kentucky (1-3, only victory against Miami, beaten badly by WKU), Mississippi State (2-2, has beaten Troy and a FCS program and that's it), Tennessee (seems only able to beat teams that are FCS or were until quite recently), and Vanderbilt (3-2 against nobodies).

Double standard much?

(And I'm just going to go ahead and assume you don't think much of Michigan beating then-#14 Notre Dame.)

 

[pete goegan]

I believe Ohio State played down to their opponent last night, not Wisconsin rising up to the challenge. Roby had a rough night, if he was playing as his normal self the score is probably closer to 31-10, I don't know why the offense stalled, the play calling in the second half was pretty putrid IMO. They were attacking often in the first, but seemed quite conservative in the second half.

I've been a Buckeye fan for a very long time; but I think the best players on the field, last night, were 4 and 44 in white. I'm not so sure that's not the "normal" Roby, OSU pass defense has always been weak. It's hard to cover a guy who has great hands and runs good routes if you don't face similar route-runners in practice.

I haven't seen much of the promised, innovative, new Urban offense, yet - still underutilizing the backs and tight ends in the passing game, pass routes are rudimentary (first three TDs were "go"routes, no wonder they got shut down in the second half), few carries for Hall (even after Hyde became ineffective due, perhaps, to fatigue), the line provided no running room, late, etc.

OSU has a lot of potential, but a long way to go. Best play of the night, on offense, was the only second half Bucks TD, a great play by Miller and Brown - Brown blocked for a run by Miller but, when he saw his QB in trouble, he rolled off the block and Miller threw a dart where only Brown could get it. That was bigtime!