FRAUDS! A closer look: Here's a complete list of Big 10 football wins this year

I won't disagree.

The fact that today, in 2008, college football "decides" a "national champion" in this way, is mind-boggling.

It is a fantastic product on the field. The bowl system is incomprehensibly stupid.

 

Re: FRAUDS! A closer look: Here's a complete list of Big 10 football wins this y

Poindexter, let's not forget that since the BCS was formed, the Big Ten has a winning record against the SEC in bowl games (OK, OK, barely above .500)

That said, Michigan really needed to hire an SEC coach. Any SEC coach. To beat Tressel every year.

 

Florida was a one-man team. That's why, to me, Tebow deserved the Heisman. Everyone kept talking about how many losses Florida had, but I kept thinking how bad their record would have been without Tebow. Michigan played a hell of a game, and Chad Henne is a pretty good quarterback. There are some questions about his health as he goes into the next level, but having seen Henne in person, he shows quite a bit of poise and other intangibles. I think Mike Hart has a lot of, no pun intended, heart and drive, but I don't know about his speed. Again, having seen him in person, he seems slow.
The question for Michigan is how quickly it can assemble the personnel to run the spread offense. Ryan Mallet is not a spread option quarterback. He's not particularly mobile.

To get back to the topic of the thread ... As a southerner living in the Midwest and being a fan of a school that runs a pretty good spread offense, what has struck me most about the Big Ten is, as usual, how far behind the times some of the teams are. It seems like the teams in the conference are never on the leading edge and never all that innovative. Didn't it take Joe Tiller coming in at Purdue before some of the conference started embracing the forward pass with regularity? Maybe I'm wrong but i thought some of those teams were still stuck in the Woody Hayes era.
Outside of Illinois, there aren't any decent spread offenses in the Big Ten. And even Illinois' offense has a weakness, namely Juice Williams' passing ability. So I don't know if that's part of the problem the Big Ten teams seem to have in defending the spread.
Florida and LSU have used it to beat Ohio State. Illinois beat Ohio State. Oregon and Appie State used it against Michigan.
My point is the Big Ten never seems to be on that cutting edge like some other schools and conferences.

 

Re: FRAUDS! A closer look: Here's a complete list of Big 10 football wins this y

FishHack,

Northwestern won the Big Ten seven years ago with the spread. Ohio State ran a version of it 2 years in a row with Troy Smith. Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois run it. Michigan State ran it with John L. Smith. Penn State ran a variation of it. Indiana runs it. That's 7 of the 11 teams.

 

But do they run it well? Ohio State did pretty well last year. That was part of my point. I can try to play the violin right now. That doesn't mean in seven years I'm going to play it any better.
I know Northwestern runs it. I saw it in person. It wasn't all that great. Basanez did okay in it the last couple of years, but it was nothing compared to when I've seen it run at a high level.
My other point is about innovation. The Big Ten will probably be the last to figure out how to stop the offense too.

 

Nobody could stop Northwestern when they started running it. Now teams stop them, but Northwestern remains a dangerous offense. Do they run it well? Hard to say, since so few people truly understand the philosophy of the spread offense. Michigan has the players to run spread right now. Spread-option? You're right - Mallett likely won't work in ANY option offense. But you can still "spread" with Mallett at QB.

 

My use of word "spread" was short for spread option. I should have clarified that before. There is a slight difference.

 

Maybe I should let this horse die, but it appears to still have legs ...

Anyway, Rosenberg of the Free Press -- yeah, I know, a Big Ten paper -- does a pretty solid job this morning on exploding the SEC myth. The Big Ten has a better record head-to-head against the SEC, and he notes that Ohio State, Illinois and Michigan essentially were playing road games.

If I knew how to link, I'd do it ... solid read, without bashing the SEC.

 

It is an excellent read:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080110/COL22/801100415/1048