The Buckeye Blog

As a member of the recently formed Big Ten Bloggers, it is time for the weekly “round-table” in which bloggers from around the Big Ten come together to share their immense knowledge, amazing insight and all around ability to B.S. in a head to head, mono et mono analysis of three, count them three questions of immense importance to the future of College Football and specifically, the Big Ten.

This week’s round table is being hosted by Around the Oval. Sean at Around The Oval wrote this week’s questions and and links to all responses can be found there.

Without further adieu, let the round table begin:

1. Which player from your own team are you most looking forward to watching?

I would love to be amazingly insightful and predict the breakout player of the year but I’m going to go with the Little Animal, James Laruinaitis.

He surprised a lot of us last year at Texas and went on to lead the Buckeye defense with 115 tackles. This season is building up to be a great year for some good old fashioned Tresselball and I’m looking forward to seeing Laruinaitis put the fear in more than a few quarterbacks.

2. Which player from another Big Ten team are you most looking forward to watching?
I’m probably doing this for all the wrong reasons but I’m going to have to go with Chad Henne. Face it Michigan, he’s the Brady Quinn of 2007. Michigan is getting loads of hype this year and Henne is a big part of that hype. And like Quinn, what has he done to deserve this respect? Win bowl games…ahh…nope. Beat Ohio State…nope, missed out there also. There is a ton of pressure on Henne this year and yeah, I’m going to enjoy watching him choke.

3. If your team was an action movie star, who would it be?
OK, this one took some thought. I’m going with Mark Wahlberg. Although not really an action hero yet, there are qualities there that I like. The most obvious of course is his role in Invincible. For those of you who haven’t seen Invincible, it is the story of Philadelphia Eagle Vince Papale. Papale is a hometown boy who tried out for the Eagles in an open practice, made the team and actually had his moment in the sun. Nobody believed in him and he proved himself through dedication, determination and talent.

That’s this year’s Buckeyes. They are not getting much respect in the media, at least not the type of respect they are used to getting. Like Papale, they are going to surprise a lot of people. And I’m sure that like in 2002, when they make it to the big show we will be sure to hear the cries that they shouldn’t be there.

That of course is the G rated version.

The real reason I picked Mark Wahlberg is his debut role as Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights. With cajones like that…yeah, he’s a Buckeye.

Wow?!

(Thanks to Eleven Warriors for finding this one)

Described on YouTube as: “Funny Musical Parody about what happens when the Gators win 3 titles, and Grease is on TV way too often”

Be warned, this is painful:

I guess this is what happens when you let amateurs win national championships.

And I thought Michigan fans were lame.

Brutus the Buckeye has been nominated for induction into the Mascot Hall of Fame. If inducted, Brutus will be become a member of only the second class of collegiate mascots inducted into the hall and will join Bucky Badger (Wisconsin), YoUDee the Fightin Blue Hen (U of Delaware), and Aubie (Auburn).

Personally, I don’t think any of them have the personality of Brutus.

Be sure to cast your vote today. The more votes, the better chance of seeing our man Brutus in the Hall.

Cletus, Brutus’s long lost brother was not available for comment at this time (although I’m working on it).

What do you do when you’re a high paid “advocacy” agency and you’ve been caught in an incredibly amateur attempt to “advocate” for one of the biggest cable providers in the country? Blame it on the interns, what else.

In case you missed it, a number of Big Ten fan websites and blogs were hit this past week with a post by someone using the name Victory4msu20. Victory4msu20 was speaking out against the Big Ten Network and promoting the incredibly lame www.puttingfansfirst.com–a very bland, if not obvious, webpage allegedly created by angry fans to pressure the Big Ten Network into meeting Comcast’s demands.

Michigan State forum Spartantailgate.com however, traced the posting back to the computers of Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications–an advocacy agency that lists Comcast as a supporter.

In a somewhat feeble attempt to clear up the…ahem…misunderstanding, Martin Waymire himself appeared on Spartantailgate.com (after taking some serious bashing from people claiming to be former employees) and made the following statement:

To: Trevor Barnes and the posters at SpartanTailgate.com:

Please accept my apologies for the post by one of my company’s employees regarding the Big 10 Network’s insistence that the new channel be forced on all cable customers, not just those interested in sports. You were right to “out” that posting, as it did not clearly point out our company does work for Comcast (which did not pre-approve the message posted).

Our staffer is indeed a MSU student, and did attend Commissioner Delaney’s kickoff in East Lansing. And he is a big Spartan fan. Given a chance to buy the network as part of a sports tier, he probably would!

That doesn’t excuse our failure to identify that the posting was done by our company advocating for a particular position.

Again, my apologies. Go Spartans…at least until they play my Northwestern Wildcats!

David Waymire
Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications

You will notice that while quickly blaming the intern, he makes no mention of Putting Fans First. Is this his site? We have yet to learn.

Be sure to check out the entire thread and follow the developing story at SpartanTailgate.com

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In another note:
As I write this I am watching the CNN report on the flooding on my home town of Findlay, Ohio. Fortunately, my parents who still live there are dry but it looks as though they are in the minority. My thoughts and wishes go out to those in Findlay, Shelby, and the rest of the flood stricken regions of Ohio.

August is the loneliest month. At least it is for a college football sports writer. Just tune into ESPN’s College Football Live for a few moments if you don’t know what I mean. How many times will Mark May tell us that USC is the greatest team in the history universe (while Herbstreet smiles and politely nods his head) before they just give in and show replays of the 1987 Blue Bonnet bowl?

As you can see by this site, I am not much for preseason analysis. Preseason rankings (while good to the Buckeyes last year) do nothing more than build hype leaving more deserved teams in the dust. Need an example…there are people out there that actually believe that LLLLLLoyd Carr, Chad Henne and the rest of _ichigan will actually beat Ohio State this year.

All that aside, in order to fill the void, the writers at Scout.com have produced the “2007 Ultimate College Football playoff”, a fictional “March Madness” style tournament seeding all 119 teams and creating post game reports for every single, albeit fictional, game. They even go so far as to quote players and coaches and provide a “fun stat” for each game.

Just in case you’re wondering, #3 seed Ohio State gets knocked out the third round to #6 seed Oklahoma State in what appears to have been a good defensive game (3rd down conversions Oklahoma State = 3 for 12, Ohio State 1 for 10).

Naturally, #2 seed Michigan also got knocked out in the third round to #7 seed Boston College. Michigan played a much closer game losing by missing a last minute field goal that “sailed wide from the start.” The game also featured an end zone reception thrown by UM quarterback Chad Henne and an “uncharacteristic fumble” by Sports Illustrated coverboy Mike Hart.

With Ohio State and Michigan losing in the third round, Scout.com writers were spared the difficulties of writing a post game Ohio State/Michigan match up in the semifinals.

While I won’t give away the ending, Wisconsin beat out…get this…Clemson to go to the national championship game against…guess…no go ahead, guess…could it be…why, it’s that media Cinderella story…USC!!

(Did I mention that I think USC is getting more than a little hype this year.)

The entire exercise is the equivalent of two-a-days for the Scout.com writers. As for myself, I sure hope March goes better…my bracket was a disaster site after Virginia got knocked out in the first round.

In what can be deemed as nothing short of a brilliant marketing move, someone using the computers of Martin Waymire Communications (outed by Spartan Tailgate) has been posting to a number of Big Ten fan sites using the name “Victory4msu20.” Blogs and forums including Go Spartans.net (Scout), Wildcat Review have been hit with the following post:

Whats going on with the BTN?

I’m a MSU student and a big fan of Big 10 sports so I went to the Big 10 Network’s kick-off party in East Lansing last week. Big 10 Commissioner Jim Delaney was there telling everybody how great this new TV package is going to be for college football and b-ball fans. WHAT A CROCK! Delaney is like the emperor who wore no clothes…the BTC has already sold its best games to ABC and ESPN. How delusional is Delaney and these other Big 10 greedmongers who want to charge us for the games we’d be able to see for free on our local cable station? If you want to learn more about the Big 10’s big time rip off, I found a web site that explains a lot… www.puttingfansfirst.org

Putting Fans First truly carries the look and feel of the hardcore fan website, complete with stock photography of angry fans in generic school colors, news links and even a petition you can sign to let the Big Ten network know your anger.

Amazingly however, according to Michigan Sports Center, if you tune in to the the right channel on Comcast, you will see the following image:

Coincidence? I think not. Apparently, Martin Waymire Communications states that they receive support from Comcast.

Not to think that Comcast is the only one making a weak attempt at this sort of marketing, in late July, “Buckeyegirl45″ made the rounds at Buckeyes 247 and Killer Nuts posting such fan based gems as:

The BTN is not only good for all the sports that they will show, but also for the money that the network will generate for Big Ten schools. …..Some schools are already creating new facilities, scholastic programs, and restoring past programs that were sacrificed to budget cuts. So, the money that the BTN is requesting will not go solely to the network. They are not “greedy.”

BTN is one of the first of its kind services that include a central video channel, a full high-def channel, video on demand content, broadband, and mobile applications in its base price to distributors. Comparing it to lower costing, traditional video channels is illogical. The price for which the BTN is asking from the cable companies is so that operators purchasing the range of BTN services for one of the central eight states that make up the immediate Big Ten region will also be able to provide BTN into another five to six outlying state virtually free of addtional charge. …..

Not only will the schools financially benefit but they will also benefit in educational ways. There will be 600 hours of campus programming that will be run by students. Students will be offered internships to get hands on experience running a network. This will definitely help so many Big Ten students that will be able to use this education to find great jobs in the future.

All of this info can be found at bigtennetwork.com

I’m blaming Time Warner in this whole thing. …

Brings a tear to your eye doesn’t it.

I’ll say this for Buckeyegirl45, she at least spent the time to modify the press release for each site.

As I said before, both sides of this debate are wrong. This is about greed, greed and more greed and no matter what happens, the fans will lose out in the end.

So far, I can’t think of anything I like about the Big Ten Network other than that commercial (above). Bottom line, this is about greed, greed and more greed. Cable providers such as Comcast or Time Warner won’t ink a deal because they say the Big Ten Network is charging too much per viewer to place it on their “expanded basic” linup. The Big Ten won’t ink a deal because they won’t lower their price enough for Comcast or Time Warner to place it in their “expanded basic” lineup.

Wow, what a great deal for the Big Ten fan. In the past, if you lived in Ohio you could always count on good old WBNS 10 T.V. for the live broadcast with all the necessary Ohio State cheer leading along the way. Thanks to the Big Ten Network, WBNS has lost their broadcast rights so at the very least, you will need to subscribe to an “expanded” cable service to watch the game.

Remember how much fun it was to watch a home game in the tailgate lot outside The Shoe when you couldn’t get a ticket? So much for that.

But what bothers me even more is that I don’t live in Ohio and guess what, I’m not the only one. If any conference has fans spread around the country it is the Big Ten. It is bad enough that Ohio residents are going to have to pay to see the Buckeyes on television, the odds of seeing a non network game here in Annapolis are about as good as catching the Navy/Ball State game in Columbus. (We got Ohio State/Indiana last year when Columbus didn’t due to ESPN U)

Finding the games out here has often been a challenge but now, it looks like I will be doomed to a world of pay-per view if I can even find the games. Nothing I love more than paying $20 a weekend on top of my normal cable bill. That is of course the Big Ten Network at least makes the games available. And with the ESPN $20/Sat package, I got an entire day worth of games. Who knows what I’ll get with the Big Ten Network.

Maybe John Hopkins could join the Big Ten. Just think of all those Mid-Atlantic viewers that would bring.

Oh, and by the way, the Big Ten Network has 64 of the Big Ten’s 99 conference basketball games this season (plus three Big Ten tourney games). Oh joy!

I know, I should be writing about the upcoming season but doesn’t everybody need one of these? It sure would look good at that next tailgate…oh the stories he could tell.

No air conditioned training facilities for this team. The Associated Press reported today that despite 90+ degree heat and a new multi-million dollar training facility, the Buckeyes were practicing outside and will continue to do so despite the temperature.

Tressel told the AP,

” “We play noon games the first two and 12:30 (p.m.) at Washington,” Tressel said. “From what we hear from the grounds people over at the (Ohio) Stadium, you’re talking 130-plus (degrees) on that turf if it’s a hot, sunny, 12-noon game. So we need this heat.”

Wow, did he say 130 degree heat?! Last year the players could swim on the field, this year they can cook their dinner on it.

Either way, it sounds like Tressel is diving in full force. I think the number 10 ranking, the loss to Florida, all the questions about rebuilding…sounds like a Tressel kind of year.