BlueintheLou

December 19th, 2010 at 9:54 PM ^

Who cares? The Big Ten is always underdogs. I fail to understand how the experts have not grasped that the B10 gets mismatched.

B10 5 vs. SEC 4.

B10 5 vs. B12 2.

And on and on.

buckeyejonross

December 21st, 2010 at 1:56 AM ^

What's the difference?

We lost to LSU and had no business even being in that game, we clearly weren't deserving of a spot in 2007, c'mon we lost to Illinois, and didn't beat a single team with a pulse. Our QB was Todd Boeckman.

You also can't play the "they shoulda been in the NC, so it's ok to lose" card as a defense, when you are criticizing us for actually losing in the NC game (to a team that deserved to be there also).

PM

December 20th, 2010 at 8:50 AM ^

probably stems from the fact Big Ten schools are in cold weather with fan bases that like to travel to warm places for the holidays. In other words, bowl games don't care as much about a fair matchup as they do about butts in seats. Big Ten fans tend to travel better than most other conferences which makes them more attractive to bowl games, hence the mistmatches. With Nebraska joining the party this tendancy could become even more pronounced. 

Here's hoping the Big Ten rules the bowl games (fingers crossed) with one exception of course.

bighouseinmate

December 19th, 2010 at 10:07 PM ^

.....above mentioning tOSU and their failures against the SEC is why even reputable sports people have a low opinion of the B10.

That, and since there are 3 B10/SEC matchups on New Year's day, and their overblown opinion of SEC football gives the B10 a bad rap.

Personally, I don't care one bit about the B10 as a whole. As long as UM wins, that is the important thing for us UM fans.

blueheron

December 19th, 2010 at 10:12 PM ^

Ha.  What else could we expect from such an SEC-friendly site?  I'm partly kidding, but it is funny that they seem to routinely have half of the SEC schools in the top ten of their recruiting rankings.  Why bother playing the games, y'all?



I've seen worse articles, but in this one we have:



* Olin Buchanan doing some cherry-picking.  In the case of Notre Dame, for example, he purposely picked their worst loss.  Strangely, he didn't mention their win over USC in Los Angeles.  To his credit, he provides some historical data on Big Ten bowl performance.  On the subject of impressive non-conference wins, what does the SEC have for us?  At first glance the best one I saw was Arkansas' win over Texas A&M.  Not bad, but not epic.



* Tom Dienhart, whom I generally find useless, also providing some historical data.  I guess he wants to see more than one winning bowl record.  Fine.



* David Fox providing ... nothing to support his case.  Useless.



* Mike Huguenin is the only one who comments intelligently on the matchups.  He'd do better to recognize that they're the norm rather than the exception.

 

mGrowOld

December 19th, 2010 at 10:41 PM ^

Regardless of this years outcome, with the addition of Nebraska the slottings going forward become much more favorable. Which should yield much better results.

It does amaze me that the asshats who run services like Rivals never mention things like its our #5 team against another conference's #2. Somehow that's just not suppose to matter.....

BlueDragon

December 19th, 2010 at 10:53 PM ^

I think of it as the Big Ten has more up-and-coming, eye-catching teams that are looking to take a bigger role in the national dialogue about MNCs, BCS games, and the like.  We had a good start with a winning postseason last year, but we gotta build on that momentum and keep kicking the SEC around.

Besides, as the Notorious C.O.N.E. says, "If the haters don't hate you you're doing something wrong."

mzdmv

December 19th, 2010 at 11:02 PM ^

Have they seen their own conference? No team ranked in the top 20 and getting into a BCS bowl only because they're an AQ? A lower-tier B1G team (Illinois, Purdue...) would beat an average Big East team any day.
<br>
<br>Of course we have the most to prove....
<br>
<br>/sarcasm

Victor70

December 19th, 2010 at 11:20 PM ^

because they have already proven they are not very good at football.  The 6th place Big Ten team thumped thier conference champ.  I think the Big East and ACC have proven its time to stop having automatic qualifiers.

Tater

December 19th, 2010 at 11:40 PM ^

I think the Big Ten will go 4-3, but even if they go 7-0, the chronic critics will say they got "lucky" and say they have "the most to prove" next year. 

Next year, it could be even better.  Adding Nebraska was huge for depth and bowl slots.  If Michigan and PSU make it "back" while Iowa and Wiscy continue to sustain relative excellence, the Big Ten will be as good from 1-6 as anyone in the country.  If MSU can somehow sustain excellence for two years in a row, make it 1-7.

The only concern I have for the Big Ten next year is that nobody seems to have the talent to dominate the conference and go undefeated.  As long as the half-assed BCS "championship" game is in place, it looks like it will take an undefeated record, or at the worst a one-loss record, to make it to the title game. 

With the players OSU, Wiscy, and MSU are losing, next year might be a great time for a true "Rodriguez leap."   If the offense learns how to finish drives against good teams and the defense becomes even average, Michigan could win the inaugural Big Ten Championship game and be the 12-1 team coming out of the Big Ten next year. 

One can always dream.

Logan88

December 20th, 2010 at 9:39 AM ^

The Big 10 has the most challenging bowl lineups at this time (bowls just re-aligned this past year IIRC) in my opinion.

 In the table below, I have broken down the current bowl matchups for the BCS conferences. I did NOT include the BCS games as only the Rose Bowl has a set match up and even that can change.

  ACC Big East Big 10 Big 12 Pac 10 SEC Non AQ
ACC NA 2 0 0 1 2 2
Big East 2 NA 0 1 0 1 1
Big 10 0 0 NA 3 0 3 1
Big 12 0 1 3 NA 2 1 0
Pac 10 1 0 0 2 NA 0 2
SEC 2 1 3 1 0 NA 1

In my purely subjective opinion, there is a pretty clear delineation between the Big 10/Big 12/ Pac 10/SEC group of conferences and the group of ACC/Big East/Non AQ conferences.

The breakdown in non-BCS bowl games for the conferences between "good" and "weak" groups is as follows (good group/weak group):

  • Big 10 -- 6/1
  • Big 12 -- 6/1
  • SEC -- 4/4
  • ACC -- 3/4
  • Pac 10 -- 2/3
  • Big East -- 2/3

Further, if you believe the experts, the SEC is considered the strongest conference and the Big 10 plays 3 of its 7 non-BCS games against the SEC, while the Big 12 only plays 1 such matchup.

Conclusion: The Big 10 should struggle in its bowl matchups as it will face, by far, the most challenging lineup.