Tressel, Minnesota, and Defenders of the Big 10

Under intense scrutiny from fans and reporters alike, Coach Tressel stood up at Tuesday’s press conference and did exactly what Coach Tressel always does — say nothing of substance. He faced some tough questions too. Should Pyror have been benched for Bauserman? When Beockman had a bad game turnoverwise against USC, you started Pryor the next game. Isn’t this a similar scenario?

Over and over again, the reporters questioned Tressel’s support of Pryor and Tress stuck to his guns. Other questions regarding offensive play calling, penalties, whatever didn’t do much better. According to Tressel, there is data we don’t know about, things we don’t see in practice that support his answers. While this may be the case, what we do see is the performance of the last three weeks or so which leaves me to wonder — how bad are things in practice? This is the best we’ve got?

Bob Hunter of the Columbus Dispatch has a great column this morning summarizing the press conference. I think his exact words were, “Bleah.” Hunter said that he was ready with the big guns and yet Tressel managed to differ 13 questions regarding Pryor. More poignant however, is that Hunter is recognizing a trend we’ve seen before with John Cooper and with Earl Bruce. Is history repeating itself?

Vegas Still Believes
I don’t know what the odds makers see that we don’t but the spread is currently 17 1/2 in favor of the Buckeyes over Minnesota. Maybe they see something in the offense that the rest of us don’t but at this point, we need a radical shift from the decline of the last two weeks for the Buckeyes to cover.

That doesn’t mean they won’t.

At the very least, last weekend’s loss to Purdue should have been a wake up call. One thing Tressel said in his press conference was that going into the game, the Buckeyes weren’t taking Purdue seriously. While we still don’t know if the offense can do it, we do know our defense can. If they step up and play like they were playing, Minnesota is in trouble.

Minnesota has one thing going for it and that’s wide receiver Eric Decker and Penn State pretty much shut him down last weekend. They’ve tried the run without much success and most important, Minnesota quarterback Adam Weber doesn’t seem to do well under pressure. If anybody can pressure a quarterback, it’s Kurt Coleman and company. The Buckeyes have the secondary to handle the pass. If the defensive line can bring their four man attack, they can shut down Minnesota.

This of course leaves us with the offense. While I’m sure they heard the message, can they do anything about it. While the defense might be good for a touchdown or two, nothing so far says the offense is. One good thing to note, the Buckeyes aren’t much for losing streaks. You have to go to 2004 before you find the Buckeyes stringing together losses.

Before the game, I said that Purdue might be just what the doctor ordered. Although I was way off in my reasoning (and my apologies to Purdue), it still may hold true. A good drubbing might be just what Pryor and company needed. I sure hope so.

Strength of the Big 10
In my post game frustration Saturday, I wrote a somewhat tongue in cheek post about the strength of the Big 10 and the difficulty of the conference. While the general consensus was that I’d lost my mind, a couple of defenders have actually come to my rescue.

“Barga” left a comment demonstrating how if you run the numbers, the Big Ten actually comes out second only to the SEC. His post lead me to another, more in depth analysison The Rivalry Esq. which again, demonstrates the strength of the Big 10.

While the Rivalry analysis is somewhat in depth, he does run the numbers a couple of different ways and Barga adds yet another all coming up with the same results.

Reading The Rivalry’s analysis may take a while but there are a couple of choice comments from the end of the post that I strongly agree with:

“First, the ascendancy of the SEC over the last several years and the great year that the Big 12 had in 2008 seems to have pushed those two conferences to the forefront of commentators and voters thoughts when evaluating the conferences relative power among the BCS, regardless if this is matched by play on the field or not…

“Finally, while the middle schools of the SEC, the Big 12, and the Pac-10 are mediocre and the bottom schools truly rotten, the dominance of the conference power houses (Florida, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, and USC) casts a halo around the rest of the conference that makes their conference look stronger as a whole. With OSU’s recent faltering, the Big 10 doesn’t really have a star team that has the same effect…

Part of what helps Florida cast such a glow over some of the lesser SEC schools is that when they play teams perceived as easier they tend to beat them by 40 or 50 points. While I personally find such pummeling of inferior competition distasteful, it’s clear that it makes an impact in the broadcast world. This is most easily illustrated by the attention that the major college football broadcasters – ESPN and CBS – pay to the SEC. Heck, they’ve even got a new SEC / ESPN logo these days. Dare to dream, I suppose…

“Perhaps if Iowa continues their play and earns some style points along the way this all will change. The ideal situation for the Big 10 as far as reputation gathering goes, would be for the trio of Iowa, Penn State, and Ohio State (or another three, though those are currently the most likely) to return to dominance and stay there for a few years. This would then hopefully start to change the pervasive, yet misleading, aura of weakness around the Big 10.

Notice how he didn’t mention Michigan?

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