Coaching Quality

i'll admit the sec has far better coaches than bigten. (but the speed thing is crap, unless you're talking about linemen.)

and the reason I say this is many of the coaches you listed are/were the reason the Big X went from a very weak conference, constantly overrated, to a conference that for awhile played on the same level as the SEC. As I stated, I'm just guessing your age but I have to ask if you remember the days of The Big Two and The Little Eight. Regardless of who won, we all knew it came down to a game in Nov to decide the Big X championship. And it remained that way for quite awhile. While I will agree with you that the timing may be right for your opinion on this, these guys were the reason we got up off the mat for awhile anyways. Prior to the infusion of new coaching in the conference, no one would have though IA could possibly contend, let alone win the conference. But suddenly they were right up there with the Big 2. PSU, when JoePa was still aware, made the conference more competitive too. Tiller, Barnett, Ferentz and Alvarez should be remembered for actually making their programs viable again. I don't doubt you are correct in stating RR is going to whip some ass, but along with Tressel who, let's fact it, has been there three times, are among the top 5 coaches in the country. Look at the recruiting though. The others, including the coach at MN are actually winning some battles with the big boys here too, in addition to on the field. Like I said, you may be right in the fact it's time, as it was for LC to move on, but let's give certain people the respect they deserve. The Big X in never considered lower than the no. 3 conference in debates around the nation now. I was there when that just wasn't the case.

In addition to coaching, Joe Tiller has been peddling low-cost diabetes drugs to seniors and espousing the benefits of oatmeal. He's great at nothing, good at everything, and that's gotta count for something.