O.K. So I’ve heard from the eggman. From what I gather, the weekend was a little rough. Today I received an email threatening to line me up in his crosshairs if I didn’t get his post up poste haste. Naturally, he forgot to attach the actual post.
Let’s just get on with the questions.
This week’s questions come to us by way of Penn State blog Run Up the Score. From some good old fashioned self loathing Penn State style, check him out.
1. We’re halfway through the season. Practically the entire national media has declared that the Big Ten is having a down year. Is this cyclical, or is the conference actually becoming less and less relevant? What is your team doing to enhance or destroy the conference’s reputation?
I can’t believe the Big Ten is becoming less relevant. Less relevant to whom? The Pac 10? The Big 12? Maybe you mean the SEC? I’m not buying it. Michigan choked but how many of you out there can’t say you didn’t expect it. Their senior class combined with LLLLLoyd Carr have established a reputation for falling flat on their face at the first sign of pressure. The talking heads need to cover their asses so instead of admitting they were wrong about Michigan, they blame it on the Big Ten.
With the rise of Illinois and Indiana, we may be seeing more parity in the Big Ten than a decline in relevance. There is no question that there needs to be some big changes in the Big Ten (ahem…Penn State, UM). Illinois however has arrived on the scene a year earlier than expected. That can’t be anything but good for the Big Ten.
As I remember, the Illini were a real thorn in the Buckeyes side for a period in the 80s.
Now if the rest of the Big Ten can get up off their asses! I hate to shout from the top but Ohio State is doing just fine and we need the rest of the Big Ten to step it up and quit sleepwalking through easy games. We at Ohio State look to the Big Ten to be strong. If they’re not, we don’t look near as good when we beat them.
2. Illinois is winning football games. Football games! Illinois! How much longer will we have to put up with this crap?
We need to put up with this crap until teams such as Penn State, Michigan, Iowa can get it together to clean house and get their program in order. Sorry guys, you all know it is over due. We did it about seven years ago and look where it got us. Illinois already has and look where it got them. Welcome to the 90s guys. Let’s get up to speed.
3. I’m a man! I’m 32! For you, fair Big Ten Blogger, where does the line get drawn when, as Sunday Morning QB eloquently states, “second-guessing the split-second decisions of college kids under extreme physical duress”? Hypothetically speaking, would you settle for saying that your underwhelming quarterback “simply isn’t performing well and needs to be replaced”, or would you call him “a functional retard that is one drool cup shy of riding the short bus to practice”?
Never has this concept shown itself more powerfully than on the morning of Jan. 9th 2007. It took a little while but slowly I accepted the fact that yes, the sun did rise again, the world continued to turn and no matter how difficult I found it to be, life would go on. In search of clarity I retreated to the mountains on the outskirts of Phoenix. Under the hot sun, I walked. I fasted for 40 minutes and 40 seconds. I wondered among the petroglyphs of the ancient Anastasie who had come before–strange drawings and symbols of a language lost to time. As I looked upon these drawings, scattered at random throughout the dried desert riverbed through which I walked, I suddenly felt a perfect exhilaration. All blind ambition was gone. I was part and particle with all that had come before and all that is yet to come. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanished. I became a transparent eye-ball. I was nothing. I saw all. And in that moment of clarity I realized:
Dammit, those are 20 year old kids out there. They’re half my age for crissakes! I have wrapped my entire identity for the past four months around a bunch of teenagers, the type of guys I wanted nothing to do with when I was their age. So they blew it. Maybe they are just kids and we ask way too much of them.
It was at that moment that I was able to put the 2007 BCS Championship game behind me. And that moment of clarity served me well. I mean really, it lasted at least until the 2007 spring game.
(with apologies to Mr. Emerson)
4. Finally, a quick two-part question. Which player or players on your team have you been pleasantly surprised with this season, and what is the most important game remaining on your schedule?
I’m enjoying watching Brian Robiskie. He’s got speed and the ability to make an impressive play. He has filled Ted Ginn’s shoes well. The entire defensive line has also been great. Every game they just seem to get better. They are bringing back old-style Tressel ball. When a punt becomes an offensive play or when you throw an interception, force three and out and come up better than you were when you threw the interception…that’s a good defense.
Toughest Game? Michigan. Always has been, always will be.
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Jimma? I think question 2 was refering to the wee hours of January 8 after you stopped by my rented motor home with those damn Florida license plates. There were certain signs of our demise. Those license plates…my Buckeye Tree dying in the Colorado desert…Erick Moore (gator and south florida grad) calling a blow out with Florida winning.
No, my dear friend. Your walk through the desert on January 9 was probably fueled only by that Peyote button that you popped from some negotiation via one of Wayne’s friends or just by chance, on an early morning hike, you came upon a sweat lodge and said what the hell? What else could go wrong? Certainly the cops won’t show up and break up this sweat on January 9?
So? Maybe the breakdown on January 8, 2007 was simply caused by The Ohio State University football team being abducted by aliens and forced to eat magic mushrooms and they were having some bad flashback of their youth. Or the week before? I mean Gonzo was sleeping in an “oxygen tent” that simulated and prepared his body like he was sleeping at the top of Pike’s Peak. Or higher?
Or, they were just as despondant as I after that miserable event at the Arizona Diamond Backs field, A.K.A. a Pep Rally.
Move the NC Game every 4 years back to Tempe in the ASU Stadium and out of that sterile enviroment A.K.A. Cardinal stadium in Glendale.
Ohio State plays it’s last game on Nov. 17. LSU will likely play their last game 2 weeks later in early December. I think that time gap hurt us last year. In the event we do play for the NC, I hope Butch Reynolds gets the green light to do nothing but speed and cardio drills with this crew. And that Tressel doesn’t have them peak too soon.
Do your mom and dad read this blog? If so, I don’t even know you and I’m just joking about the above comments.
Go Bucks. Beat Everyone!
you buckeye fans are funny.
how is the big ten not down?
michigan, a team that is undefeated in the big ten and could end up a one or two loss team, lost to app state at home.
ill, what i think is probably the best team in the big ten, lost to missouri, a good team but not great, and we are talking about, at worst, one of the B10′s top 3 teams
minnesota lost to TWO mac schools, TWO, that f’n terrible.
northwestern lost to duke, it doesn’t really get worse than that.
iowa has lost 8 in a row during b10 play, sad.
penn state continues to think they can play football without a quarterback, they did it from 2000-2004 with mills, robinson was awesome, and now the last 2 years have been a travistshamockary with morelli. their defense is world class but that what leads to 6-4 losses to iowa.
wiscy never had much talent but always exicuted and stayed away from dumb mistakes, this is how you win games against good teams…however you are never getting over the hump with that kind of strategy. its not their fault, however. OSU and Um get all the press in the conf, regardless of what is actually happening on the field…but anyway you look at it they are never going to be anything but a solid football team…at least not until the b10 changes their marketing.
MSU bombs every year, a win over them is never even worth the gas money to get your players there b/c you can rest assured by the end of the season they will be a 5 loss team, no matter who they beat weeks 1 – 5.
indiana is in the right place at the right time. i’d love to give them credit for a job well done, but the reality is they haven’t beaten a quality team in 5 years.
which brings me to OSU: once again totally setting themselves up for another national embarassment. They have a solid defense, but there are nothing but crap offenses in the big ten (osu included). Ill does have talent, and i think they will give the buckeyes some trouble, but they aren’t going to be able to line up on defense to prevent the run up the middle every down game plan.
my point is: even if osu runs the table, and no matter how much denial they are in over how terrible the b10 is this year, the truth is we are probably tied with the acc for worst football conf. A one loss Pac10 and SEC team is a lock over a one loss B10 team. The BE and B12 can all make a case, I suppose it will come down to why we are talking about. Its sad that a one loss OSU would get in over a one loss missouri, yet a one loss Ill, in the same conf as OSU, would be left out against a one loss Oklahoma.
Ok, I’ll give you that Minnesota sucks, Northwestern is still Northwestern, Iowa, yeah, they suck too, but Penn State…yeah, they kind of suck.
MSU will let probably let you down. I think in a couple of years, with the new coach, MSU will come of age.
Yeah, Indiana hasn’t beaten a quality team in five years.
Michigan lost to App State and Oregon. If they win out in the Big Ten, I give up.
Purdue looked so good until last weekend. Up against a national caliber team, they didn’t fare so well.
But Illinois. Oh, Illinois. They might be good.
That leaves Ohio State, with an offense that hasn’t really been tested.
Ok, the coffee’s on the boil but I won’t give you that we are as bad as the ACC. I live in ACC country and let me tell you, it just isn’t football–at least not in the way Big Ten is football.
As for setting up for a national embarrassment, last year’s loss wasn’t due to overconfidence based on a light schedule. We beat national champion’s Texas second game of the season (who had beaten us the year before on way to said championship). We beat a #2 ranked Michigan. I don’t think there has ever been a team that faced three #2 teams in one season.
Then, we sat for two months waiting to play the national championship game. We have the same problem again this year. If we go to the big show, our last game of the regular season is on Nov. 17th. We then wait until the second week of Jan. before we play again. This after watching two weeks of bowl games.
The BCS championship isn’t a finale, it’s an afterthought. The BCS needs to bring that game back in line as the last game of the New Years weekend.
No question this year’s schedule doesn’t help. However, when we scheduled Washington, they were good. Kent State…I’ve got nothing here. I’m all for helping the in-state school but we’ve done our charity work for the season. This should be a much bigger out of conference game.
If Ohio State runs the table, I think they will have the talent and skill to win the win the BCS. I think this team is a lot like the ’02 BCS Champion Team–strong defense, maybe even stronger, and a capable offense with a couple of stand out players. The defense keeps OSU in the game allowing the offense to do what they need to do.
The biggest problem, if we go, will be the time off. This year however, I think Tressel will learn from last year’s mistakes. From what I understand, there is a picture of the loss to Florida in the locker room as motivation. Over coming that embarrassment is the number one thing driving this team. Tressel didn’t have anything like that last year to play from. He is much better in the underdog position. Now he’s got the motivation to go with it. A potent combination.
Thanks for the comment and let’s all pull for getting the Big Ten back where they belong.