Mark Schlabach Article

[RailBaronYarr]

Ok so this article was posted about schedule strengths, and once again the large media takes some time to rip on the Big Ten. Now, how tough our conference actually is can still be debated, but I hate how he singles out the Big Ten as having a weak schedule. taking a look back at that Phil Steele ranking of schedule difficulty from a few weeks back (here) and doing some spreadsheet work, I see the rankings of the conferences as follows. Average team schedule ranking (101 teams included):

ACC: 26.7
Big East: 46.28
Big 12: 50.22
Big Ten 50.63
SEC: 53.44
PAC 10: 71.6

Let's take a step back and remember this is based on Phil's toughest schedule method which factors in previous year's schedules and some other hoodoo. But Big 10 is right there with the rest of them. And Indiana (27), Michigan (41), and Wisconsin (46) are actually in the top 50% of schedule tough-ness.

I just am really sick of hearing about how bad the Big Ten is at everything. Too bad we only won one stinkin' bowl this past year, furthering the media's ability to harp on our teams.

 

[GopherGod]

Ok so this article was posted about schedule strengths, and once again the large media takes some time to rip on the Big Ten. Now, how tough our conference actually is can still be debated, but I hate how he singles out the Big Ten as having a weak schedule. taking a look back at that Phil Steele ranking of schedule difficulty from a few weeks back (here) and doing some spreadsheet work, I see the rankings of the conferences as follows. Average team schedule ranking (101 teams included):

ACC: 26.7
Big East: 46.28
Big 12: 50.22
Big Ten 50.63
SEC: 53.44
PAC 10: 71.6

Let's take a step back and remember this is based on Phil's toughest schedule method which factors in previous year's schedules and some other hoodoo. But Big 10 is right there with the rest of them. And Indiana (27), Michigan (41), and Wisconsin (46) are actually in the top 50% of schedule tough-ness.

I just am really sick of hearing about how bad the Big Ten is at everything. Too bad we only won one stinkin' bowl this past year, furthering the media's ability to harp on our teams.

Fair or not the Big Ten teams have only themselves to blame. When your top teams go into the important games such as the BCS bowl games and get blown out by teams from the other conferences it is going to happen until the Big 10 can atleast be competitive.

 

[re3886]

We have covered this before...

Fair or not the Big Ten teams have only themselves to blame. When your top teams go into the important games such as the BCS bowl games and get blown out by teams from the other conferences it is going to happen until the Big 10 can atleast be competitive.

When Big Ten teams play home games against teams they see in BCS games, they have a winning record. period. BCS Bowl game are all but home games for the other schools, Even during the regular season when traveling to other BCS schools, the Big Ten is close to .500. Move the BCS games to truly neutral sites, say the Medowlands or something of that nature, and I would imagine the records would rise to the .500 mark as well. Is it the lay-off, or other teams get better in their conference play, then the Big Ten does? I don't know. I just know that this argument loses it's punch when all games are concidered, not just The Bowl Games themselves.