How bad is the Big 10?

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cjbfbp said:
Well, none of the national sportswriters were predicting a Big Ten team in the playoffs even prior to yesterday and CBS Sports predicts only one in the BCS at-large bowls (Michigan State). 1-9 (I think 1-10 now) against the other four power conference teams (with the one win being Washington State) pretty much reflects the state of things right now. The poster who quipped that the Big Ten should be renamed the Big MAC isn't too far off.
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True, the B1G has been very bad. The ACC and the Big East went through a stretch like this a few years back. The Big Ten isn't going to go away. Just gotta hope they make an ACC-like comeback.
 

cjbfbp said:
The poster who quipped that the Big Ten should be renamed the Big MAC isn't too far off.
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That sort of ESPNish talk is cute and all. But here is an important reality:

Top 20 most valuable college football programs:

ACC= zero
Pac12= 1
Big12= 2
SEC= 5
Big10= 6

In college football, most of what goes on outside of the SEC and Big Ten is an ESPN-hyped pillow fight. Programs with 2 or 3 teams with huge resources playing programs that have nothing. We pretend it matters for the fun of it. But it really doesn't. I know this is an unpopular truth.
 

Goldmember said:
It's a horrible start to the year for sure. But the Big Ten has had bad starts before only to finish with some of the best teams.

The problem is really that there isn't an elite team that is in the conversation as a NC contender RIGHT NOW. And that has people freaked-out. The odds are overwhelming that this will change. There will be at least one 1-loss team in the playoff. Maybe 2. One of those will almost certainly be a Big Ten team. Though Nebraska or PSU haven't even lost yet.
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A Big Ten team will not make the playoff this season.
 

Goldmember said:
That sort of ESPNish talk is cute and all. But here is an important reality: Top 20 most valuable college football programs: ACC= zero Pac12= 1 Big12= 2 SEC= 5 Big10= 6 In college football, most of what goes on outside of the SEC and Big Ten is an ESPN-hyped pillow fight. Programs with 2 or 3 teams with huge resources playing programs that have nothing. We pretend it matters for the fun of it. But it really doesn't. I know this is an unpopular truth.
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Big ten has spent too much time building valuable programs. Not enough time building winning programs. Too much concern about the network and TV sets.
Need to get back to winning FB.
 

Goldmember said:
That sort of ESPNish talk is cute and all. But here is an important reality:

Top 20 most valuable college football programs:

ACC= zero
Pac12= 1
Big12= 2
SEC= 5
Big10= 6

In college football, most of what goes on outside of the SEC and Big Ten is an ESPN-hyped pillow fight. Programs with 2 or 3 teams with huge resources playing programs that have nothing. We pretend it matters for the fun of it. But it really doesn't. I know this is an unpopular truth.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "valuable." Are you talking about wealth created for the athletic program by football? Are you talking about revenues? You're certainly not talking about success on the field recently. Do resources matter to fans if a team is underperforming? I could see that factor being #1 to bankers and bondholders.

As far as 2 or 3 very good teams playing against lesser conference teams, you could say the same thing about the Big Ten in recent years. The difference this year is that the conference doesn't appear to have one or two of the most elite national teams.
 


BJN said:
I'd almost take NDSU over any team in the Big Ten.

Seriously not trolling.
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Ya, it's sad but mostly true. I would pick them to beat two-thirds of the Big Ten.
 


If Wisconsin would not have gone full on retard in the 2nd half against LSU, I think the perception would be slightly better but even that would be no consolation at this point. I think the big issue is that the Big Ten went with the trend of trying to implement the spread offense (DickRod at UM, Brewster at UofM) and it really set back 2 programs that were in the upper half of the Big Ten. Pile on PennState getting killed by sanctions (and aging coaching staff) and 3 of the 11 teams at the time in the top half the conference were dragged into the bottom. I don't think the Big Ten needs to evolve, it needs to go back to the style of football better suited to home grown talent. Remember under Mason when the Gophers could run on anyone? That was not a gimmick, that was coaching.
 





Change is better than winning.

Iceland12 said:
Assumed he live in Colorado or Washington state.
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I really don't know what is the problem with some Gopher fans. You wanted Mason gone, were glad Weber graduated, wanted Nelson run out of the program. It is like you want change for the sake of change - like we are just one great mind away from the Rose Bowl. We aren't. And if you still feel that Kill is a huge improvement over Mason, I am sorry but you are delusional. Tell me what is our team identity? Please don't say defense because I think our defense getting shown up by TCU's put that to bed. I would rather develop an identity like Mason had with running the ball. The only chance the Gophers had at the Rose Bowl in the last 40 years is if Mason has cared half as much about recruiting as he did getting a job at tOSU. The fact he had more success than all other coaches over this timespan despite this glaring weakness should remove your rose colored glasses on this program and its current state.
 

csom_1991 said:
I really don't know what is the problem with some Gopher fans. You wanted Mason gone, were glad Weber graduated, wanted Nelson run out of the program. It is like you want change for the sake of change - like we are just one great mind away from the Rose Bowl. We aren't. And if you still feel that Kill is a huge improvement over Mason, I am sorry but you are delusional. Tell me what is our team identity? Please don't say defense because I think our defense getting shown up by TCU's put that to bed. I would rather develop an identity like Mason had with running the ball. The only chance the Gophers had at the Rose Bowl in the last 40 years is if Mason has cared half as much about recruiting as he did getting a job at tOSU. The fact he had more success than all other coaches over this timespan despite this glaring weakness should remove your rose colored glasses on this program and its current state.
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Hey, nice try! Assumed that after reading your last post that you must have smoked a couple of bowls, but this is a better effort. Not going attract any responses really, and if you're writing it to me you're WAY off-base, but it's good to see that you dropped the brain-damaged act.

Or sobered-up.
 

cjbfbp said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "valuable." Are you talking about wealth created for the athletic program by football? Are you talking about revenues? You're certainly not talking about success on the field recently. Do resources matter to fans if a team is underperforming? I could see that factor being #1 to bankers and bondholders.

As far as 2 or 3 very good teams playing against lesser conference teams, you could say the same thing about the Big Ten in recent years. The difference this year is that the conference doesn't appear to have one or two of the most elite national teams.
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It's not what I mean. Not my rankings. Forbes and the WSJ have both valued programs with similar results. The Top 20 I cited is the WSJs. It is a measure of what the programs would sell for. This is important because it is a measure of:
1. How many fans there are and how passionate they are both at the games and via media consumption.
2. The programs' ability to generate cash to pay for the things that help field a competitive team.

For the most part, and not surprisingly, program values are also near-perfectly correlated to recruiting "rankings".

The weekly "polls" and "rankings" college football fans love are mostly an illusion. The power-balance in college football doesn't shift much from-year-to-year. The idea that it changes weekly is, of course and admission that the rankings/polls themselves are actually meaningless.
 



Goldmember said:
It's not what I mean. Not my rankings. Forbes and the WSJ have both valued programs with similar results. The Top 20 I cited is the WSJs. It is a measure of what the programs would sell for. This is important because it is a measure of:
1. How many fans there are and how passionate they are both at the games and via media consumption.
2. The programs' ability to generate cash to pay for the things that help field a competitive team.

For the most part, and not surprisingly, program values are also near-perfectly correlated to recruiting "rankings".

The weekly "polls" and "rankings" college football fans love are mostly an illusion. The power-balance in college football doesn't shift much from-year-to-year. The idea that it changes weekly is, of course and admission that the rankings/polls themselves are actually meaningless.
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But the "power-balance" isn't going to determine who gets into the playoff. Win/loss and SOS, that's what matters.
 

Goldmember said:
It's not what I mean. Not my rankings. Forbes and the WSJ have both valued programs with similar results. The Top 20 I cited is the WSJs. It is a measure of what the programs would sell for. This is important because it is a measure of:
1. How many fans there are and how passionate they are both at the games and via media consumption.
2. The programs' ability to generate cash to pay for the things that help field a competitive team.
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Actually, you mean exactly what I characterized. Look, these are very large universities, with solid fan bases, and located in areas with reasonably good levels of wealth. Their fan bases are also more committed to the whole traditional college football experience than, let's say, Californians. They don't have as much competition for D1 sports as some other places. Minnesota has no other FBS football program, Wisconsin has no other FBS football program, Nebraska has no other FBS football program, Ohio has other FBS programs but none of the same stature, Penn State has only one in-state competitor of stature (Pitt), Illinois has no comparable athletic power in the state, and the two Michigan schools split most of the allegiance in that state. Compare this to Texas which has U of T, A&M, Tech, TCU, SMU, Houston, and some lesser D1 schools like UTEP, UTSA, Texas State, and North Texas.

None of this means that the Big Ten is destined to have, along with the SEC, the best football programs. The conference is still one of the leaders in basketball, but football has taken a dive relative to the SEC, PAC 12, and Big 12.
 



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Goldmember said:
It's not what I mean. Not my rankings. Forbes and the WSJ have both valued programs with similar results. The Top 20 I cited is the WSJs. It is a measure of what the programs would sell for. This is important because it is a measure of:
1. How many fans there are and how passionate they are both at the games and via media consumption.
2. The programs' ability to generate cash to pay for the things that help field a competitive team.

For the most part, and not surprisingly, program values are also near-perfectly correlated to recruiting "rankings".

The weekly "polls" and "rankings" college football fans love are mostly an illusion. The power-balance in college football doesn't shift much from-year-to-year. The idea that it changes weekly is, of course and admission that the rankings/polls themselves are actually meaningless.
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Polls and rankings may be an illusion. The Big Ten's 10% winning percentage against the Power 5 is not though.
 


csom_1991 said:
Please don't say defense because I think our defense getting shown up by TCU's put that to bed.
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I'm not sure how anyone can say the defense was "shown up". This isn't 1985. Good offenses, especially ones that run a no huddle, are going to rack up yards against just about anyone.

- TCU averaged 5.8 yards a play which is just about average.
- We forced two turnovers.
- TCU was 2 for 12 on 3rd downs.
- TCU started four possessions at our 39 yard line or closer.
- The average length of their three TD drives was 28 yards.
- The average length of the six total drives was 30.5.

It wasn't a great defensive performance, but I don't think it was bad either. The defense certainly played well enough to win in my opinion.

I would rather develop an identity like Mason had with running the ball.
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Have you not noticed we run the ball a lot and that the coaches want that to be our identity? We might not be as successful as his teams were at running the ball, but I think they know what they want to do.

And if you still feel that Kill is a huge improvement over Mason, I am sorry but you are delusional.
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Well, it is only year four. But I agree it is hard to say that right now. I think Kill can be a big improvement over Mason but we'll see if he actually is. It's funny how people remember Mason. Some only think about the great years of 1999 and 2003 while others only remember the meltdowns. He's done things no other Gophers coach has done in a long time. Mason was better than Kill in year 3. Year 4 and 5 were not very good for Mason (went 6-6 and 4-7 respectively). If we win only four games in 2015, people will be calling for Kill's head.
 

I remember well the Mason meltdowns. I also remember him basically showing the fans that he has no commitment by openly lobbying for the tOSU job and not really trying at recruiting because he thought this was a stepping stone and he would be on to bigger and better things before the lack of recruiting caught up to him. It was not all high fives and smiles when he was here. Despite that, he won - and we had an offense that was nationally recognized and was churning out pro RB's at a pace never seen before. Hell, if he stuck around, I think we probably could have gotten some 5 stars because they could see RB at Minn will get you noticed by the NFL.

I like Kill as a person and as a story. The problem comes in that I do not see the same level of 'coaching up' talent that Mason had. Also, I don't see an identity. Running the ball a lot without success is very different from running the ball with success. Just because you are committed to it does not mean it will become your identity when you do a bad job at it. I still remember the people on this board cheering on Brewster and his spread offense and recruiting. They were shortsighted then and I think they are still short sighted now. The hate for Mason goes well beyond the field and into what they thought were personal slights. If they were real men, they would admit their mistakes and not try to rewrite history now. It is like that weekly phenomenon where they all predict an easy victory over a garbage team until we are outclassed and then that opponent is the greatest thing since the '92 Dallas Cowboys.
 


Let's just hope when the 'Power 5 Conferences' hold their planning meetings, the Big Ten is still invited.
 


Bad enough that we could win the damn thing if we weren't stuck in a quagmire of mediocrity.
 

NEB, WIS, MSU can compete with anyone this year. If one of these teams runs the table, no way they are left out.
 

It's too bad so many B1G teams took a dump last week (us included). Going 12-1 with 3 wins over the ACC, one road win over a ranked SEC team from a mid-to-lower tier B1G team, and some pretty solid wins over non Power 5 conferences yesterday (plus Rutgers beating Navy) was nice to see. A just a couple wins over power 5 teams last week could have given enough credit to the league to balance the marquee losses.
 

Conference strength is overrated.

Yes the SEC, Big 12, and PAC 12 are deeper than the big ten. But that mean a 2 loss Oklahoma, Stanford, or Auburn is any better than a 2 loss Michigan state.
Hopefully the committee compares teams and not conferences. (Not saying Michigan state would be better than those teams, just saying conference affiliation shouldn't be the reason why)
 

Some guy said:
Conference strength is overrated.
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It is.
But the reason why "conference strength" doesn't matter is because fans are relying on crappy tools to formulate their understanding of relative conference strength.

Rankings and winning % in a given week don't matter. The Big Ten has a bad start. Everyone FREAKS. The next week the conference is 12-1, with mostly non-competitive, blow-out wins (which is more common than not). The conference's weakest football program beats the SEC East Champion. This is NOT unusual; so no one really even bothers to mention it.
 

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