Ohio State Advantages?
Someone recently posted "when are we going to beat OSU again? and I got to thinking: what advantages do they currently have? What advantages do we currently have? Here's what I came up with, feel free to supply your own:
OSU Advantages:
More money because they're willing to sell their soul
An established successful Big Ten champion coach
A whole team recruited by, and suited to their current coach
A better home state to recruit from, with no legitimate in-state challenger
More instances of recent success
More talent and experience currently.
Michigan Advantages
Better tradition
Better academics
More innovative coach
Much better uniforms/helmet
Better campus
Better strength and conditioning
Both can recruit nationally
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any institutional reason that OSU should own us long-term. Sure they have more in-state talent and less competition for it, but we've been able to steal some good players from Ohio and they rarely can do that in Michigan. I think both teams will be dragged down by the perceived weakness of the Big Ten, as long as we have the BCS. The migration of the American population from the Northeast and Midwest to the Southeast and Southwest will continue to be damaging long-term to the clout of Midwestern schools, but as long as Michigan can keep mining Florida we should be fine.
well for now they would seem to have better talent but in the future when richrods system gets settled in it will even out way more
Right, that's the hope. And when that happens I think we'll see closer games and (hopefully) more victories over OSU.
Interesting thread. Sure Ohio has more top notch high school players than Michigan. High school football is more more serious in Ohio. They produce more more NFL talent than Michian. And of course OSU seems to have top pick of those kids. Kids from up in Ohio loving tOSU and really want to play there.
Of course OSU had more talent at the end years of the Lloyd Carr era. Plus they just seems the be tougher and play harder.
Yes Michigan has more tradition, but how long can they play that card? Does it really matter what happened in 1901?
Actually, if you look at the recruiting rankings, OSU was not ahead of M at the end of the Carr era. The two schools are typically nearly identical in terms of recruiting rankings.
While OSU gets higher ranking Ohio kids (usually) M makes up for it by recruiting much better nationally, like our recent Florida runs.
I think you can attribute OSU's dominance at the end of the Carr era to better talent development, better S&C, and catching more small breaks in the games--most of which were close and came to a few plays here and there. I don't think you'll see this over the long haul, now that we have a modern staff that figures to do just as well as OSU in talent development and S&C.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:21 PM ^
1985 Michigan 27 Ohio State 17 Ann Arbor W
1986 Michigan 26 Ohio State 24 Columbus W
1987 Michigan 20 Ohio State 23 Ann Arbor L
1988 Michigan 34 Ohio State 31 Columbus W
1989 Michigan 28 Ohio State 18 Ann Arbor W
1990 Michigan 16 Ohio State 13 Columbus W
1991 Michigan 31 Ohio State 3 Ann Arbor W
1992 Michigan 13 Ohio State 13 Columbus T
1993 Michigan 28 Ohio State 0 Ann Arbor W
1994 Michigan 6 Ohio State 22 Columbus L
1995 Michigan 31 Ohio State 23 Ann Arbor W
1996 Michigan 13 Ohio State 9 Columbus W
1997 Michigan 20 Ohio State 14 Ann Arbor W
10-2-1 against OSUcks from 1985-1997.
Not only does what happened 100 years ago matter, but what happened from 1985-1997 matters, too.
We can put recruiting under a microscope all we want, but basically, Jim Tressel outcoached Lloyd Carr the last four years of his tenure at UM. The pendulum swings back and forth, but both teams hate losing to each other so much that neither school will allow a long losing streak. In addition, the school with the losing streak always has more motivation to win than the other school.
For reasons I have already posted, I think this is the year the bleeding stops. If Tressel doesn't evolve his offense, RR will start beating him on an annual basis, and he will be fired. I hope Tressel continues to misuse TP and stays in the pro set for the remainder of both of their careers at OSUcks. If that happens, RR will outcoach Tressel as badly as Tressel outcoached Carr.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:27 AM ^
ohio state doesn't use the pro set, they switched to the wildcat formation this year.
edit: BUT, pryor went to tUoO$ so he could specifically play under the pro set. he's screwed now
April 19th, 2009 at 11:12 AM ^
You're dead wrong if you think what happened 20 years ago, let alone 100 years ago, matters to many of these highly rated recruits. Most of these kids think that they're NFL bound and want to play for a program that is known for sending players to the league. These recruits realize that all of those players that went on to the NFL after playing for Michigan happened under a different regime. If and when RR starts winning consistently, recruiting will become a bit easier for us again. I do agree with you, however, that the dominance that Tressel has on us right now has affecting our recruiting to a large degree in the state of Ohio. Let's not forget that more than a handful of our great players over the last 30 or 40 years have come from the Buckeye State. Tressel has done a masterful job of keeping alot of those highly rated recruits from leaving the state. I hope Justin Turner is a sign of that turning around a little bit for us.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:24 AM ^
we have a winner
Forget ND, even up the conference by putting in Ohio University.
This article will not fully answer your question but you may find some insights here: http://ssbea.mercer.edu/recruiting.htm
Summary:
Whether the athlete made an “official visit” to a specific college
Whether the school is in a BCS conference
The distance from the high school athlete’s hometown to a specific school
Whether the recruit is in the same state as a specific school
The final AP Ranking of a specific school in the previous year of competition
The number of conference titles a school has recorded in recent years
Whether the school is currently under a “bowl ban” for violating NCAA rules
The current number of scholarship reductions a school faces for violating NCAA rules
The size of the team’s stadium (measured in terms of seating capacity)
Whether the school has an on-campus stadium
The current age of the team’s stadium
April 18th, 2009 at 10:30 PM ^
I actually think the understated reason is the lack of an instate opponent of quality to compete for recruits for OSU.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:21 AM ^
That would seem to give them an advantage, but recruiting rankings over the years have been about equal for the two programs. We do more national recruiting to compensate for having fewer in-state players.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:38 PM ^
Well, as much as I hate to say this, OSU has a sweet Rec center and aquatics center. Not that that has anything to do with recruiting, but Michigan really needs to do something with the CCRB.
ah, fresh air
but as sedieso said, their synchronized swimming team may continue to dominate us due to our lack of quality swimming facilities.
Michigan advantages:
Superior academics
Innovative coach
Barwis
College town
A marked history of success at churning out NFL-caliber offensive linemen, running backs, receivers, quarterbacks, and to a lesser extent, cornerbacks
Ohio State advantages:
Proven winner of a coach with a formidable Big Ten track record
Talent-rich state
A marked history of success at churning out NFL-Caliber defensive linemen, linebackers, defensive backs and receivers
Batshit insane fanbase that worships you as Gods, for better or for worse
Draws:
Facilities
Recruiting scope
National appeal
"Tradition"
"Success"
Uniforms/helmets (really, no one picks their college destination based on the uniforms and helmets the team wears, unless they habitually look like shit, i.e. Oregon)
When a recruit looks at these two teams, the two most striking differences he sees are probably the "recent success" chasm and the gap in overall academic reputation (which is frequently exaggerated here, but I expect no less - after all, it is a rivalry which means reality can go fuck itself right in its own hoity-toity ass). Everything else is basically a draw.
UM has turned out a pretty steady quantity of defensive linemen too, linebackers not as much, but D-line's are on par in general.
Actually, Michigan has more current NFL linebackers in terms of numbers and is probably at least on par with OSU in terms of "visibility" amongst current NFL linebackers.
Michigan 10: Woodley and Foote--Steelers, June--Texas, Hobson--Cards, Harris--Jets, Jones--Bengels, Crable and Woods--Pats, Orr--Browns, Graham--Lions.
OSU 7: Vrabel--Chiefs, Hawk--Packers, Gholston--Jets, Diggs--Panthers, Carpenter--Cowboys, Grant--Rams, Wilhelm--Chargers.
FWIW. But overall I agree. The tradition/helmet thing is in the eye of the beholder and the importance of academics is probably overstated.
You can't say that Michigan has "better" uniforms and a "better" campus. Sure, I like to think that, and every other Michigan fan would like to think that, but it's purely subjective. You'd have a hard time finding an OSU fan that agrees with you or a Michigan fan that disagrees with you.
Yeah, those ones were definitely my subjective opinion...they probably don't give us any advantage over a recruit who is undecided. I think the winged helmet is an advantage over OSU, though.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:20 AM ^
i agree a lot with what every1 has said. but i really do think tradition plays a key role in the whole situation. if it weren't for the tradition of UM football, you wouldnt have the fans that go out for the games every year. such as myself that drives over 3 hours for the games every year. and i believe that with the tradition and the turnout for the games it makes the recruits experience that much better. imagine if there werent tradition and the stadium was half full. how many recruits would be drawn to that. a lot of my friends go to OSU and they arent the typical fan they understand football. and most of them actually think UM has a chance to beat OSU this year. Just saying.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:23 AM ^
as long as the recruits can't see those fans..i hate when i go to my seats and all i hear all game long is "down in front" pisssses me off!
As far as campuses go, i think one can make a distinction between which is "better", HOWEVER, it must be clear what a prospective recruit wants. If you to live in a big city, then Columbus is a big city. If you want a college town, then Ann Arbor is a college town.
For example, my boss' dad is a huge OSU fan. When he (my boss) moved to southeast lower michigan (to take a job in detroit), his dad told him to go to Ann Arbor. "but you hate ann arbor", he said.
"Yeah, I hate UofM, but ann arbor is a great town."
Just an example.