[NU Sports] Buckeyes-Trojans

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> I might as well make my annual assertion that I view every
> loss by another Big Ten team as good for us. I don't care if
> everyone views our conference as weak; being part of the
> awful ACC in the 1990s never seemed to hurt Florida State.

Well, that was a pretty different scenario. FSU came into the conference with a great rep from their bucketful of 10-1 years (daggum Miami!), so they didn't need to earn respect. In fact, you could say that a mediocre ACC has dragged down FSU's once mighty rep significantly.

NU doesn't have FSU's history. Winning a strong league helps our bowl position much more than winning one perceived as weak (or even going 9-3 or 10-2 in a "weak" league, not being in the top 25 and not earning recognition).

> I hereby provide my annual assertion
> as well that every other team in
> the Big Ten can lose every game they play, and I would be

:) - well, normally I wouldn't argue too much - but the OSU/USC game was built up with so much hype nationally that the rep of the league was also on the line there.

Again, not my rules - and not fair. No one bashes the SEC because Tennessee loses to UCLA two years straight, gets waxed at Cal or UGa loses to OkieState. No one denegrates the Big XII because OU drops games against Boise State, West Virginia and BYU or when Okie State loses to Houston.

But for some reason (cough... John Saunders and the dimwitted bachelor ...cough), our fortunes seem to be tied to OSU. Nevermind that they're losing close games against top 5 teams, their losses somehow mean that the Big Ten is a weak league. PSU and OSU will be underranked in the polls all year after this and as we saw with Michigan (#25 in one poll, not ranked in another), a third team is going to have to beat PSU/OSU or go 11-1 to get ranked and some respect.

> Just as a for instance -- let's say Iowa had lost one more
> game than we
> had last year. Who would have gone to the Florida bowl in

They did. And they still went ahead of us. And they will forever until we earn respect. Beating Iowa on the field didn't get that. Going 10-2 in a weak league won't get that. Going 10-2 in a strong league or winning a bowl game will get that.

Look at our 9-win seasons in '96 and '08. When the Big Ten was seen as strong, we were highly ranked (even though we lost to OSU in '96 and didn't play OSU) ... last year, we barely got noticed.

> Because the Big Ten teams are (more or less) assigned to
> bowls one
> through six based on the order of finish, every

How often has THAT happened in the last decade???

If every team we play in league play is perceived as weak, we don't get a chance to earn that respect -- that's why we needed an OSU win. Or a Purdue win at Autzen. Or an MSU win in South Bend this weekend. And plenty of bowl wins in the SEC's backyard (though that Michigan smackdown of the glass-jawed Gators in Orlando seems to be conveniently forgotten in all this Big Ten bashing ... because OSU lost to LSU and USC on the road??? And now last-minute losses to #2 Texas and #3 USC???).

Besides, as competitors we should want to beat the best. I wanted to play OSU in 1995 (maybe not '96 :) ) - we had a team that would have matched up quite well with them. I want to win the Big Ten and have it be a worthwhile accomplishment. I understand why we play the NC schedule we do (it's smart under the stupid B(C)S system) ... but a narrow win over EMU doesn't mean a fraction of as much as a narrow win over a top 10 ranked Michigan or OSU or PSU.

GO CATS!!!
And for a couple more weeks at least, GO BIG TEN!!!:)
-SjT