Big Ten Football weather...Not so bad after all
Having played football in Florida and going through 3-a-days in august in full pads, I would much rather be playing in a more temperate climate. I hope this article is posted all over the south so recruits can make a wise decision...
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/11216/is-big-ten-weather-just-…
(Mod title fix)
March 31st, 2010 at 11:02 AM ^
I'd wearther the weather not make a difference at all.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:12 AM ^
Especially for Big Ten fottball
March 31st, 2010 at 11:22 AM ^
He did mention growing up in Florida....maybe it's an accent thing?
March 31st, 2010 at 11:08 AM ^
Wasn't he selling the b10 by saying that if you want to play in the NFL you better get used to cold games (or something like that). I vaguely remember it and don't remember details.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:27 AM ^
Ask Woody Hayes about B10 weather as he stood on the sideline in a short sleeve dress shirt in December.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:32 AM ^
dresses for wearing at home.*
*Totally not true. Trying to start a rumor.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:50 AM ^
I read somewhere* that Woody was a crossdresser.
*I read it in your post.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:59 AM ^
he loved running right up the middle.
Just sayin'
March 31st, 2010 at 12:03 PM ^
Heels made him feel pretty.
March 31st, 2010 at 12:09 PM ^
so pretty. He felt pretty and Witty* and gay.
*No word yet on how Adrian felt about getting felt by Woody. However, I presume that he wasn't tremendously excited to be felt by a pretty gay Woody.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:53 AM ^
.....but OSU didn't play games in December under Woody....I may be wrong but it could be the only game Woody ever coached in December was his last at the Gator Bowl. They always ended the season in November against Mich and the the only bowl the Big Ten went to prior to 76 was the Rose Bowl. I may have come up with some meaningless trivia on the fly if OSU didn't play in some crap bowl like the Blue Bonnet Bowl in 78 or go see Hawaii 1 year after Michigan.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:29 AM ^
Without doubt goes to the Northwestern game of 2008
March 31st, 2010 at 11:35 AM ^
2nd place probably goes to the 2008 OSU game. Ugh.
So cold, so wet.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:40 AM ^
tied for 2nd, but maybe 3rd... was his first road game at South Bend. I was there and it was brutal. There was torrential rain for about ...oh i don't know, a full week? That was the site of the infamous yakety sax.. South Bend Edition.
Yeah i was at this one too. The rain was redonkulous. We stayed in a tent on Friday and Saturday where some people had set up RVs near the stadium. It eased my pain slightly watching OSU get handled by USC on someone's TV they had set up in their Explorer while tailgating.
On a side note, Notre Dame kids have weird beer pong rules.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:46 AM ^
"So cold, so wet"
Like your MOTHER Trebek!
March 31st, 2010 at 11:55 AM ^
Your mother is a whore, Trebek!
March 31st, 2010 at 12:03 PM ^
I'll take the penis mightier for 200 Trebek
"Yeah I'll take the uhh .. APE TIT for 1000"
I'll take "The rapists" for $400, Trebek
March 31st, 2010 at 12:05 PM ^
Moo.
We would have accepted "bow wow" or "ruff"...
Ah, well met. I'll take famous titties for 400!
And for both games the less-than-stellar performance of the team amplified the terrible weather.
Miserable. I remember the stadium being half empty in the 4th quarter of a 1-TD game. Hypothermia set in as Sheridan's last desparate heave went fluttering out of bounds. I offer a manly high five to all those that braved the elements on this fateful day.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:36 AM ^
Check the piece on Big Ten weather on mgo.licio.us. I thought we had a couple of really warm game days last year in September which are not reflected in the mgo.licio.us data.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:35 AM ^
I'm personally not a fan of the way the Daily Gopher did the "study". They looked at one year, and averaged by team, which weights the temperature toward August when more home games are played in the OOC schedule. I'd prefer to see something that averages it by weekend, with specific emphasis looked at on November. We're about to add an extra week to the end of the season to allow colder temperatures.
On top of that, these were game time temperatures. As anyone who was at the epic 3OT MSU win would know, starting temperatures and ending temperatures are not the same. I have no idea how to find this, but I'd like to see the high and low temperatures per game over the last 10-15 years at least.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:42 AM ^
Here is a link to weather underground - go to the "History & Almanac" section about halfway down the page.
http://www.wunderground.com/US/MI/Ann_Arbor.html
I looked up a couple of games from last year and sure enough, game time temps were much higher than the article shows. I remember the Purdue game last year - had to be in the 60's - we were sitting in T-shirts.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:51 AM ^
Yeah, he looked at just the "daily mean", not even the game time temps. So that last game for Michigan was played between 51 degrees at kick off to 54 degrees by the end of the game. Sure, if you want to include tail gate time before, it was 46 at 9am with hazy skies. Still not your average frozen tundra.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:49 AM ^
I found one website that would compile information from a date range that you enter, but it was apparently something you have to pay for, which stinks.
Alternatively, I found that weather underground will let you look up individual dates with specific temperatures by the hour (at the bottom of the page.) This service is gratis.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KARB/2003/9/13/DailyHistory…
March 31st, 2010 at 11:54 AM ^
Its a silly discussion on a silly subject.
The Big 10 has nice(r) weather in Summer and early Fall and cold(er) in late fall and early winter.
Later in the year there is the risk of occasional harsh circumstances, and high probability of many unpleasant circumstances, particularly for southerners used to mild/warm weather.
Looking at an average temp over the season doesn't tell you anything noteworthy, especially over one year. Its not always freezing, but any sane person already knew that. Sometimes it is, and the exception is usually what sticks in peoples mind.
As for southern/western recruits, selling them on the NFL readiness aspect of cold weather is a good idea. OTOH, selling them on January through March...good luck.
March 31st, 2010 at 12:00 PM ^
You're exactly right. Coaches can work the "get used to NFL weather" angle, but at the end of the day, you still have to sell them on the fact that they'll be walking to class in sometimes bone-chilling weather.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:44 AM ^
Gee, if the Big Ten "frozen tundra" is a myth, then I guess the myth about needing bulky linemen "for leverage when the weather turns cold" is a myth, too. But don't tell any of RR's detractors that.
March 31st, 2010 at 12:32 PM ^
Snow Bowl, 45 punts, victory to the good guys 9-3. MYTH?
Edit: Also, 3 a days in Michigan in August is no fun eaither. 90 degrees 90 percent humidity plus Mosquitos.
March 31st, 2010 at 12:38 PM ^
in Michigan are two of the nicest months of the year for temperature, low precipitation and humidity. No data to draw upon, just 28 years of experience living in southeastern lower MI. It's really only the last two, maybe three games of the season in November when the weather gets weird. January and February can be brutal though.
So yeah, I think the "spread won't work in the B10 because of the bad weather" argument is ridiculous.
I'm not sure I understand why the author didn't just use the enormous amount of historical data that's easily available on the web. It would have been much more accurate.
Playing a football game impacts the weather severely, so taking into account the days before or after a game is clearly unjustified. Only the weather on game day in the past is relevant to the likely weather on future game days. The more variables you hold constant the better, right?
Zoltan isn't at Michigan anymore, so his punts won't affect the jet stream on Saturdays. Besides, then the author should only have used data re: Michigan.
If you read the comments, he said he wasn't that concerned as he was just looking for clicks. True story.
I still can't believe this took off nationally. I commented on the story a few hours after it came out denouncing the science behind it. The next day, BOOM. Everywhere.
I really don't understand the media's interest in it. I was pretty surprised Brian linked to it in mgolicious. The study is dubious at best.
Public radio's "On The Media" recently had an apt quote from some journalist, which I am sure to botch, but it was something like "journalists are addicted to numbers but tend to be math illiterate." It's not hard to imagine why the media would be on this like a duck on a junebug without bothering to examine (or understand) the methodology.