Coach stats and stats why OSU will beat Iowa
Record for the past 10 years, including current season
Bob Stoops – 107-22 (past 9 years, including current season – 94-22)
Mack Brown – 105-18 (past 9 years, including current season – 96-15)
Jim Tressel – 99-24 (past 9 years, including current season – 90-21)
Pete Carroll – (past 9 years, including current season – 94-17)
Urban Meyer – (past 9 years, including current season – 91-17)
Nick Saban – 90-32 (past 9 years, including current season – 84-26)
Mike Leach – 81-42 (past 9 years, including current season – 74-36)
Kirk Ferentz – 78-43 (past 9 years, including current season – 75-34)
Les Miles – (past 9 years, including current season – 77-33)
Joe Paterno – 74-45 (past 9 years, including current season – 69-38)
This small sample of coaches included those coaches that had at least coached 9 seasons, with this current one included.
Also the coach has to currently be an active coach for all the past 9 years.
As you can see, “Big Game Bob” is still riding high after all of his great seasons in the past.
Good ole Mack Brown is on his heels and I am sure will pass him very soon.
For Zeekgeek, Kirk Ferentz is an above average coach but is not quite in the company of the more recent elites.
I would more compare him to Mike Leach in ability since their records are so close and neither has a national championship under their belt. Ferentz has 2 conference championships and Leach has a division title.
Now on to why I think Ohio State will beat Iowa in a few weeks.
Ohio St. – QB 61st in the nation in passing efficiency
Iowa – QB 63rd in the nation in passing efficiency
We all know both teams have sketchy QB’s
Rushing offense
Ohio st. – 29th in the nation
Iowa – 89th in the nation
Total offense
Ohio St. – 63rd in the nation
Iowa – 74th in the nation
Rushing defense
Ohio St. – 6th in the nation
Iowa – 39th in the nation
Passing defense
Ohio St. – 14th in the nation
Iowa – 26th in the nation
Total defense
ohio St. – 6th in the nation
Iowa – 19th in the nation
Sacks
Ohio st. – 20th in the nation
Iowa – 55th in the nation
Interceptions
Ohio st. – 3rd in the nation
Iowa – 1st in the nation
Tackles for a loss
Ohio St. – 46th in the nation
Iowa – 77th in the nation
I can’t predict the future, but I know that Iowa has only played one good opponent and beat Penn St., which is why I have picked them in the past. But in this game, they are playing their toughest game of the season and I will have to go with the Buckeyes.
College Football Talk 
Once again, your stats… like your picks, are weak. 😉
First, let me say, I would argue that Mike Leach is ALSO a genius, and I don’t think I’d be in any small amount of company in doing so. You know, they do call him the “Mad Genius” after all. His resume at Texas Tech, competing (and recruiting) against the likes of Texas and Oklahoma is simply amazing. That being said, you are putting Kirk Ferentz in his company, along with the likes of who? Joe Paterno, Les Miles, and Nick Saban? Those guys and the others you mentioned aren’t the middle-of-the-pack “average” coaches in FBS football… they are THE BEST coaches in FBS football. So, yeah, thanks for your good point about Kirk Ferentz.
You do realize, I presume, that the schools you have listed coaches for (excluding Iowa and Texas Tech): Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio State, USC, Florida, Alabama, LSU, and Penn State… all rank in the top-25 (and usually top-10) for recruiting classes year in and year out, right? Not to knock any of those coaches, but just how difficult is it to take the best players in the country to a win each week? Wouldn’t the measure of a coach’s genius as a coach also be measured by how well they meet or exceed the level of expectation? I think so. Iowa and Texas Tech have each had one top-25 recruiting class in their respective tenures (not including the 2010 class). Obviously money and talent go a long, long way in FBS football, so I’d take Kirk Ferentz (or Mike Leach) and their over-performance anytime.
–(As an aside, if you want to see truly amazing under-performance, go compare Texas A&M’s recruiting class rankings over the last 10 years to their final rankings each year. It is not pretty.)–
Here’s a couple more stats for you.
Strength of schedule
Iowa – 22nd
Ohio State – 69th
Wins vs. current BCS ranked opponents
Iowa – 3
Ohio State – 1
You may have the opinion that Arizona and Wisconsin aren’t “good” teams, Jon, but Wisconsin is the best team Ohio State has beaten. Iowa’s two Big-10 non-played teams this year are Purdue and Illinois (two of the conference’s bottom four), while Ohio State doesn’t get either Michigan State or Northwestern (two of the middle three). And, by the way, Iowa doesn’t have that gaudy number two in their loss column like the Buckeyes.
I also cannot predict the future, and I will agree with you that the game against Ohio State will be Iowa’s toughest of the year. But not because of the caliber of the opponent (which I think will be born out next week when Ohio State travels to Happy Valley) but rather because of the pressure the Hawkeyes will be facing to travel to a location where the team hasn’t won since 1991 and put their Big-10 title (not to mention Rose Bowl or possible national championship) hopes on the line. But, this is why I’m taking Iowa into the Rose Bowl… too many (unlikely) things have to happen for Iowa to make the national championship. But very few (quite likely) things have to happen for Iowa to win the Big-10.
I’m still holding out for the unlikely.
zeekgeek
November 3, 2009 at 12:37 am
LOL, no I dont need my opinion to show that Arizona and Wisconsin are NOT good teams. Its pretty apparent in their mediocre performances this season.
I really hope that you check yourself when you say you would pick someone just cause they have a nickname or cause they get winning seasons with sub par recruiting.
Last I checked Mack Brown brought UNC out of a huge slump in a few seasons and made them into a football powerhouse (i may note they never ever reached the same level since)
Urban Meyer, same story…turned Utah into BCS buster team outta no where when BYU and TCU were the ones known for the Mountain west.
You make it sound like just cause you have a good school name that you automatically will translate that into wins….case and point, Notre Dame…they fell from grace cause their coach had a great team and he made it pretty hard to just go in and win. Same for K-state, great team…changed up the style and they suck. Nebraska, Clemson, Auburn….need I go on, all of these teams had AWESOME teams with coachs that were great at some things but not what the programs needed.
So forgive me for keeping my Championship caliber coach instead of taking your “mad scientist” or your clairvoyant coin-toss coach.
Jon Castano
November 3, 2009 at 1:40 am
Well, I guess me and the voters of the AP, USAToday, and Harris polls (and the computer rankings) can agree to disagree with you about Arizona (5-2) and Wisconsin (6-2).
Secondly, I’m not saying Mack Brown isn’t a good coach, or even a genius, but taking Texas – TEXAS – out of a “slump” with your $90 million annual football revenue and the pure athletic talent readily available to be recruited in Texas isn’t exactly rocket science. No doubt, he gets it done, but with 27 top-10 finishes since 1939 (roughly 1/3 the time) and the third most all-time wins, I think Texas’ “slump” was relative, and most FBS schools would have traded for it in a heartbeat.
Urban Meyer… not NEARLY the same story. Turning Utah into a BCS-buster does not remotely compare with “turning around” a program like Texas.
And I didn’t say anything about a “good school name”… you picked those schools. What I said was that recruiting and money translate into wins, and there is more than ample evidence to back that up. One might try to argue that it’s the other way around… that wins translate into recruiting and money, and that may be half-true. Certainly teams like Iowa and Texas Tech benefit on the recruitment trail from good seasons, but the revenue has been there and will be there for year after year. The likes of Texas and Ohio State typically take in around $90 million in revenue every year while schools like Iowa and Oregon bring in around $30 million. The top-25 revenue lists very closely mirror the revenue lists. Certainly coaches have a huge impact (maybe more than money) on recruiting, so they deserve all the credit in the world.
You can keep Mack Brown, he’s great. But I wouldn’t want Stoops at Iowa, for example. Or Mike Leach either, for that matter. But to suggest that they aren’t championship-caliber is pretty weak. The NFL doesn’t seem to think so. I bet if you took that list of coaches and mixed them all around to different schools, you wouldn’t have too much difference in the end results, that’s all.
zeekgeek
November 3, 2009 at 9:35 am
Rankings may closely mirror revenue lists and recruiting ranks, but it still takes a good coach to win with good players. Just ask Ron Zook, Larry Coker, Rich Rodriguez and scores of others who have gotten really good recruits but found winning difficult. It still takes a great coach to win, even with great recruits. I’d also point out that great recruits go where great coaches are. Team name and legacy helps, but it’s not everything.
And, as a less important note, Leach’s nickname is the Mad Scientist, not the Mad Genius.
You have a point about Ohio State’s strength of schedule versus Iowa’s strength of schedule. But using the voters to say that a team is good is pretty ridiculous. I’ll point out that the voters also thought Mississippi and Oklahoma State were top-five teams. I’d point out that they still have Virginia Tech ranked with three losses and that they have USC ranked 12th despite two losses, one of which is to a really bad unranked team. The rankings are wrong about their team evaluations all the time. Their opinions of Arizona and Wisconsin prove nothing.
Austin Swafford
November 3, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Excuse me, I meant to say the yearly top-25 RANKINGS very closely mirror the revenue lists. My bad.
zeekgeek
November 3, 2009 at 9:37 am
I never disputed that it takes good coaching to win with talented players, nor that a good coach is an attraction for good recruits, in fact quite the opposite. That’s why I said a good coach maybe has a bigger impact on recruiting than money. But by your own reasoning then, wouldn’t it take an even better coach to win with less talented recruits? That’s exactly why I wouldn’t put coaches like Ron Zook, Larry Coker, or Rich Rodriquez among that top-tier of coaches… because they don’t exceed expectations. But I’d argue that Kirk Ferentz (and Mike Leach, and Chip Kelly for that matter) do exceed expectations by winning more with less money, less talented recruits, and less history behind their programs.
As for your assertion about voters, let me remind YOU that Mississippi and Oklahoma State were ranked that way in the preseason, which is pretty much just guess-work, and that Mississippi hasn’t been inside the top-20 since week 3, and that Oklahoma State now sits at 19 after their only two losses to so-called powerhouses Houston and Texas. So it sounds to me like the voters are getting it right in week 9. Virginia Tech shouldn’t be ranked between 22 and 24? Who would you put ahead of them, Clemson? South Florida? Texas Tech? Those are coin-toss choices if you ask me. And USC has two losses to in-conference (top-ranked Pac-10 conference, by the way) foes on the road, one a squeaker to, yes, a lesser team, and one a blowout to a top-10 team. Should they be behind Ohio State, who lost to Purdue and at home to your so-called over-ranked USC? And finally, what about the computers? Are they suspect as well? They have Arizona’s SoS at 12 and Wisconsin’s at 18. Arizona’s two losses were at Iowa (#4) and at your so-called really bad unranked Washington… you know, the same Washington that beat USC and almost beat LSU. Wisconsin lost to Iowa and to Ohio State, the team everyone keeps saying will own Iowa in a couple weeks.
I’m not saying the voters always get it right, every time, every week, 100%. But the consistency in the rankings between four prestigious polls and the computer rankings is ABSOLUTELY NOT “pretty ridiculous”. Their opinions do prove something… they prove that the vast majority of those who are in charge of judging FBS college football happen to agree with me.
I think the issue here is that you and Jon seem to continuously suggest that most of the teams ranked outside the top-10 (and some of the ones in the top-10) are terrible, or vastly over-rated. But nobody is arguing that there isn’t some ENORMOUS gap between the level of play of teams like Florida, Alabama, and Texas, compared to everybody else. But that difference doesn’t make all those teams terrible, it just makes them not as good. Some of them (*gasp!*) are actually pretty good football teams. There’s gotta be somebody ranked #4-#25. If the pollsters are so wrong all the time, maybe you should do your own list?
As for Mad Scientist or Mad Genius… you are right, he has been called the Mad Scientist. However, he has in fact been dubbed both. 60-Minutes actually ran a story about him, one in December of 2008 titled “Texas Tech’s Mad Scientist” and then ran the same segment in January of 2009 retitled “Texas Tech’s Mad Genius”… and many, many other news organizations, sports announcers, and fans have called him both as well.
zeekgeek
November 3, 2009 at 4:09 pm
First of all…Texas is a “so-called” powerhouse? Texas IS a powerhouse by every definitely of the word. No need to throw in so-called.
And just because we think teams are overrated doesn’t mean we don’t think they’re good. It just means we don’t think they deserve their particular ranking. Maybe overrated is the wrong word to use in a season like this because there are a lot of teams that aren’t that good. It seems to be a down year for college football as a whole. Though I genuinely think that some of these teams with two or more losses are genuinely overrated. At what point to losses start to hurt you, regardless of where the team is ranked?
I’ve tried to say fairly objective on this. I even withheld comment when you called Ferentz a genius and insinuated that their trail-the-whole-game-to-come-back-at-the-end pattern is actually planned. I’m withholding ultimate judgement on Iowa until after they play Ohio State. I think they’ve looked good, but not great, but I can always be wrong on that. I’ll admit I’ve been a bit skeptical about the Big 10 since they keep playing these great games in conference and then get absolutely crushed in their bowl games.
We’ll see if that changes this year. But I do have to say outright, I do get tired of Big 10 fans talking so much smack year in and year out like this time around it’s different. I think you should take it down a notch until your conference wins something again.
Austin Swafford
November 3, 2009 at 6:49 pm
I do actually feel there is a massive gap between the top 3 and the 4-25. I only feel that because I watch Texas and their short comings and the same with Bama and Florida. I do feel that the BCS gets it wrong by extending Floridas lead on number 2. I would say Iowa is the premier team in the Big 10 “this season” and if they do beat Ohio St. I would say they pretty much solidify it for this season only. Not that they have not been good, but to be great you have to turn talent and circumstance into wins and then into championships. I dont care if you have money or players or whatever. If Iowa wants to turn a corner and not have to rely on obscure stats or last second victories and be looked at as a so called Powerhouse, they (meaning Kirk Ferentz and company) need to get a BCS win or National Championship. Till then, if I am a Texas homer or not I would never consider Iowa anything but a cinderella.
Let me sum up.
Kirk Ferentz is at most a good coach with a working program that can turn out wins. In his career of coaching which is 13 years, he has had 6 losing seasons. This is including when he coached at Maine. You can blame it on anything you want but they are losing seasons. Also you can say that those days were when he was a new coach but 2 of those 6 were within the past 3 years. I would venture to say that Iowa’s success is partly due to Joe Pa taking one more step closer to needing to retire and end his great run at Penn St. (also Ferentz probably has his number like stoops used to have mack browns) and because Jim Tressel and his buckeyes are having a down year, because they are…. no two ways around it. Couple that with Rich Rod needing one more year to bring Michigan back to par and then we will see if Iowa can pull off another 8-0. If they do and are undefeated this time next year it will show me that Iowa, coach and team both have turned a corner and the Big 11 will have 4 teams that should be known as teams to beat.
BTW i guess I suck at understanding what “sum up” means lol
Jon Castano
November 3, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Ah, here is the gist of it. According to you, it takes BCS wins or a National Championship (which, I guess counts as a BCS win) to qualify as either a Powerhouse or anything other than a Cinderella. Gotchya. So by that standard, only 47 teams since the inception of the BCS system in the 1998-1999 season are qualified to be considered a Powerhouse or anything other than a Cinderella. They are:
USC (6)
Ohio State (4)
LSU (4)
Florida (4)
Miami (3)
Texas (3)
Georgia (2)
Oklahoma (2)
West Virginia (2)
Wisconsin (2)
Auburn (1)
Boise State (1)
Florida State (1)
Kansas (1)
Louisville (1)
Michigan (1)
Nebraska (1)
Oregon (1)
Oregon State (1)
Penn State (1)
Tennessee (1)
Virginia Tech (1)
Washington (1)
Now, certainly there are some cream-of-the-crop types on that list (mostly with multiple wins)… but I see quite a few names I would personally be hesitant to call a Powerhouse. Wisconsin? Oregon State? Really? And, by the way, if the BCS is so bad, why are you using it as your measure for success?
And are you really going to suggest that Joe Paterno taking Penn State to an 8-1 record so far this season is “one more step closer to needing to retire”? Are you serious? Or that the Buckeyes having a “down year” is somehow affecting Iowa’s success? Are you sure? Really?
Also, Kirk “at most a good coach” Ferentz has only five losing seasons in his career… sorry, 6-6 actually isn’t a losing season. It’s not good, but not a losing season. And yes, two of the five were at Maine. (Again, really? You’re counting Maine? A school with a student body of 12,000?) Two more were his first two at Iowa after inheriting a terrible situation where everyone knew coaching legend Hayden Fry was leaving but not who would replace him until the last minute (typically a tough sell to potential recruits). And the fifth was only a losing season if you count the bowl loss (which you should) to Texas in a game they probably shouldn’t have been invited to in the first place.
And once again, you are making up arguments for me. I never said Iowa should be considered a Powerhouse, or anything other than a Cinderella. OF COURSE they’re a Cinderella. I don’t think Iowa has any aspirations to become an elite year-in and year-out national championship contender. As I’ve said before, they simply don’t have the revenue for it. You might not care, but I guarantee you that the Athletic Directors, Regents, University Presidents, and State Legislatures certainly do.
-(Revenue, by the way, is what typically gets a school the best of the best coaches and staff… Ferentz is the highest-paid state employee in Iowa by far, and has probably only stayed as long as he has because his children have been attending those famously good Iowa public schools.)-
The difference between “great” and “good” might be an interesting debate to some, but not me. There’s too much ambiguity… and you will never convince me that any of it would be applied equally to every team, regardless of their name, or history, or coach, or conference, or whatever else people want to use to push their own worldviews.
I’m just gonna sit back and enjoy the ride while it lasts.
zeekgeek
November 3, 2009 at 7:33 pm
That sounds like a lot of hyperbole from Zeekgeek, almost as boring as reading Melville.
Read the writing on the wall: IOWA IS DUE FOR AN UPSET. Its simple. They have played a great season and deserve tons of credit but how many times can you snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? Eventually you get bit and lose.
However if they run the table and stay undefeated, along with Texas and Bama/Florida its going to get real messy in the BCS and might be the thing CFB have needed to crack the BCS $$ armor and get a play off system…
T-Rizzle
November 3, 2009 at 7:49 pm
“I don’t think Iowa has any aspirations to become an elite year-in and year-out national championship contender.” Why would any major national school not want that…..how can you say Iowa as program has no aspirations of that.
Jon Castano
November 3, 2009 at 8:00 pm
And another by the way… 🙂
I’ll take it down a notch when BCS bowl games are played in Chicago, or when people like you stop insinuating that because Ohio State has lost some national championship games that the Big-10 is crap. Ohio State, by the way, has just as many BCS national championships as Texas. You can’t pick and choose which seasons to count as meaningful and expect me to take that opinion seriously.
And I’ll throw in “so-called” while you throw in “overrated”. (But, in all honesty, the so-called was referring to Houston, and to some other media types – not yourself, Austin. I’d call Texas a powerhouse.)
Plus, I didn’t insinuate that Iowa or Kirk Ferentz planned their comeback, just that he planned to have the wind at the teams back in the fourth quarter. That way, if they were behind, they’d have a better shot at taking the lead, and if they were ahead they’d have a better chance at stopping Indiana from mounting a comeback of their own. It was pure hyperbole, but the point of saying Ferentz is a genius is that he takes into account small details that would normally work against him (like winning the coin toss and taking the ball) and does the smart thing (deferring instead so he could choose direction). Sheesh. I say something nice about a coach I like and you guys are ready to curb-stomp me… wth?
zeekgeek
November 3, 2009 at 8:01 pm
LOL! Well Austin doesn’t like the Big 10 to begin with as we all know.
I just am making it known that my new found confidence in Iowa is not going to extend past the Ohio St. game. Thats all, but we will all see when the dust clears.
Jon Castano
November 3, 2009 at 8:06 pm
And Jon, that’s not entirely accurate. I don’t have an inherent problem with the Big 10. I’m just tired of people thinking they’re great for beating up on each each other, going 10-1 in a conference that’s not that good and then going to BCS Bowls and getting crushed. I’m tired of people acting like it’ll be different this time around. I’ll turn around on the Big 10 the second they give me a reason to. Like I said, win some big games and we can talk. I have no problem with the Big 10. I’m just tired of watching them play badly in BCS Bowls. I just want a good game.
I’ll point out that earlier this year I actually posted an article that made a great point about pollsters and pundits using a double standard for Oklahoma as for Ohio State. I posted that in defense of Ohio State, which has been vilified even more than teams and conferences that have done the same thing – going to big games and choking. I’ll stand up and defend the Big 10 when I think they deserve it and I’ve shown that I will.
Austin Swafford
November 4, 2009 at 1:42 am
It’s not just Ohio State. It’s also Penn State. It’s also Iowa, by the way, who choked against Texas in an Alamo Bowl I thought they were going to win. You think the Big 10’s problem is that they don’t play enough bowl games close to where they live? That’s a lousy, cop-out excuse. Great teams win no matter where they play. Venue is no excuse. When Michigan lost to Texas at the Rose Bowl, they weren’t exactly playing in Dallas. It was a long drive for both of them and Michigan lost. Boise State traveled down to Tempe and beat Oklahoma. Utah went to the Sugar Bowl and played Alabama in what was a virtual home game for them and they CRUSHED them.
Venue is no excuse. That’s weak.
Austin Swafford
November 4, 2009 at 1:28 am
And yes, Iowa went to Florida and beat South Carolina last year. See, I can pick and choose my examples too. Actually, great teams DO NOT win no matter where they play… the SEC has a losing record percentage worse than the Big 10’s at venues outside their home states. USC is 4-1 at the Rose Bowl, but an almost-human 2-1 away from it. The statistics, no matter how you try to rearrange them, always show that home vs. away is significant.
And the Big 10 DOES win big games. You don’t think Michigan vs. Ohio State is big every year? This is what I’m talking about picking and choosing… you say the Big 10 beats up on itself and then says some 10-1 team is good, but you arbitrarily call the conference “not that good”. Guess what? The SEC does the same thing, and the Pac-10, and the Big-12. The only difference is that a couple of those conferences have a championship game so maybe (sometimes) the two best don’t meet ’til then. But are you really gonna tell me that Texas’ loss last year to Texas Tech WASN’T in part due to their tough schedule? Because everyone else I know in Texas has.
For all everyone rails against the BCS you put a lot of weight on those bowl games. You know, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced they have nothing at all to do with how good a team is. They are money-machines, pure and simple. Between the automatic qualifiers, contracts with the conferences, contracts with the advertisers, and agreements with the various voters, they are CLEARLY manipulated at some level. Those match-ups might be entertaining, but more often than not they just add to the questions rather than answering any of them. On purpose… because controversy makes more money than closure. If that’s going to be your end-all-be-all measuring stick, then I’m probably never going to agree with your assessments.
Weak is the arbitrary idea that one conference is better than another based on cherry-picked statistics and hasty generalizations (or secundum quid, for you fallacy fans). I’ll leave those arguments to the pundits.
zeekgeek
November 4, 2009 at 11:53 am
Big out-of-conference games. More specifically, big bowl games. That’s what you talked about. Of course the Big 10 wins big games when they play each other. One Big 10 team wins no matter what the outcome. Did you seriously just use that as an argument? Thanks for the laugh.
I didn’t think I was picking and choosing. We were talking about big bowl games, right? You said, “I’ll take it down a notch when BCS bowl games are played in Chicago, or when people like you stop insinuating that because Ohio State has lost some national championship games that the Big-10 is crap.”
I invoked BCS Bowls. I threw in the Alamo Bowl from 2006 just for kicks, because Iowa was up 14-0 at one point in that game and went into the 4th quarter up 21-20 with a great chance to upset 9-3 Texas. You countered with the Outback Bowl and a win over 7-5 South Carolina.
I wasn’t being selective. I was directly rebutting your complaint that BCS Bowls aren’t played in Big 10 country. I pointed out that there aren’t any played in Big 12 country, either. I pointed out that you keep pretending that people are holding Ohio State’s championship losses against the whole conference when it isn’t JUST Ohio State and isn’t JUST the national championship, but also Ohio State in other BCS Bowls, AND Michigan AND Penn State, among others.
And you countered with the Outback Bowl. When answering a comment about the BCS. Good work.
Austin Swafford
November 4, 2009 at 4:29 pm
“You don’t think Michigan vs. Ohio State is big every year?”
Zeek, I think Austin meant games that dont involve two people in the same conference
Jon Castano
November 4, 2009 at 5:24 pm
On a sidenote lets take it down just one notch on all the underlying tone of thinking the other is not very well versed in football. We are all friends here guys 🙂 this aint a Jim Rome show or something.
Jon Castano
November 4, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I say we take it up a notch, lets get an Anchorman Melee on!!
“I stabbed a guy with a Trident!”
T-Rizzle
November 4, 2009 at 6:08 pm
After much thought….I agree.
Jon Castano
November 4, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Note to self: “Sir, I’m going to need you to calm down.” 🙂
I’ll take it down to a 3 for the moment and then give it a rest. I’m sorry I seem to have misled you, Austin and Jon… I wasn’t talking about bowl games, I was trying to figure out what y’all were using to determine what teams and/or conferences you were calling elite, good, or weaksauce. I got the impression it was BCS bowl wins that was doing it for ya. I happen to think that there is actually no good way to determine which team is better than another besides head-to-head match-ups, and since everyone doesn’t play everyone else it’s just pure hyperbole. I also happen to think that there is no way at all to convincingly rank one conference over another. Bowl games especially, and BCS bowl games even more so… how can I compare the Big 10 to the Big 12 if the two automatic qualifiers not in the national championship are in the Rose Bowl and Fiesta Bowl playing someone else? The bowls, in my humble opinion, are basically exhibition games for paychecks and don’t really tell us much.
My point about Ohio State was simply that while they may have had two bad losses in the national championship game, that makes them 1-2, and they are 4-3 in BCS bowl games, which makes them pretty much better than everyone but USC. Sure, teams like Texas, Florida, LSU, and Miami have better win percentages, but again, that’s not BCS wins. I just think if people are gonna gripe about the Big 10, it should probably be about Michigan.
And I’m not going to hold Iowa in any sort of bad light for losing to Texas in the 2006 Alamo bowl. Iowa was 6-6 against 9-3 Texas, and a heavy underdog. In all honesty, speaking even as a fan, Iowa had no business being there. The only reason they were was because they were tied with Minnesota and the bowl committee knew that Iowa traveled better. They were right… that bowl set a record for the fastest Alamo Bowl sellout in it’s history. Losing by only two points, even after giving up that lead, was pretty much their MO that season. I was just happy to see the two teams play, as I had predicted they would in the preseason. True story. I just got the bowl wrong. 😉
zeekgeek
November 4, 2009 at 8:29 pm