[NU Sports] It's over

Sun Jan 2 13:21:03 CST 2011

 Fortunately (perhaps unfortunately for those who value the quality of games), the Bowl season is all about money and power, and the only real measure of success is how much cash the conference raked in, and split 12 ways.  And a second BCS bowl is huge in terms of dollars (is it $6 million each ?)

If any conference school is willing to forego that half-million dollars (6 million split 12 ways), I would like to see them step forward.

Failing that, the press should just publish the important stat - for each conference, the measure of success/failure is total Bowl game take divided by conference split rules.

That would be refreshing after watching one of last night's SportCenters.  Two over-giggly anchors admit that they are 'Big Ten guys', then admit the conference had 'a bad day'.  The third anchor then asked (as a joke, I hope), whether Nebraska might be having second thoughts about joining the Big Ten.  Such insight is what keeps us all locked into so-called Sports journalism.

Chuck Herron   Tech '85 

-----Original Message-----
From: wildelk2 at aol.com
To: Jeff.Beamsley at covisint.com; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Sun, Jan 2, 2011 12:05 pm
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] It's over

    First of all Jeff, I am a statistics wonk; I'm not sure what a wonk is but I 

are one!    

    Good points in your post point to something patently obvious to me.   Why do 

we consistently get 2 teams in the BCS?  Money, and only money.  The Big 10 

should do the right thing and tell the BCS to shove it; break ranks and send our 

champ to the Rose Bowl; end of story. If were not going to have a play-off, we 

should put our teams in position to win more bowl games. To wit:

Rose:  Ohio St. vs. TCU

Capital One:  Wisconsin vs. Alabama

Outback:  Mich. St. vs. Florida

Gator:  PSU vs. Miss. St.

Insight:  Michigan vs. Missouri

Texas:  Iowa vs. Baylor

Ticket City: Illinois vs. Texas Tech

Little Caesar's: Northwestern vs. NIU

   Would we win all of them? No. But this line-up looks much evenly matched than 

what we get every bowl season. FWIW, I think we'd have a hell of a time with 

NIU.

   Later,   Eric  

-----Original Message-----

From: Beamsley, Jeff <Jeff.Beamsley at covisint.com>

To: Eric West <e-west at northwestern.edu>; nwu-sports at tssi.com

Sent: Sun, Jan 2, 2011 8:11 am

Subject: RE: [NU Sports] It's over

I was reacting to the suggestion that losing the bowl game was going to damage 

NU's football future.

I'm as tired of "moral" victories as the next guy.

I'm also just as tired of the suggestion that the NU football program is either 

fundamentally or fatally flawed.

Neither is the case.

The team isn't perfect, but very few teams are.

We could use more talented players, but that's true of virtually any team. The 

real question is are we getting the most out of the players that we have.  I 

think the answer there is yes.

Our bowl loss this year was the norm for the BT.  We were matched up against a 

better team as was the case with most of the BT teams this year.  The last three 

years that we've played in bowl games the BT overall has a losing record.  The 

BT IS the most powerful conference in the country in terms of money, but it's 

not where the best football is being played.  

It would be nice to have an "easy" win to get the bowl game monkey off our back.  

The reality for us in the BT right now is that we are a middle of the pack team 

playing in a very competitive conference.  That means we get beat up during 

conference play.  The good news is that we get to go to a bowl. The bad news is 

that we get matched up with a middle of the pack team from another powerful 

football conference and are often the underdogs.  You don't have to be a 

statistics wonk to realize that you are going to have a losing record if you 

consistently play teams that are better than you.  

NU will have a much better team next year that it did this year.  The team next 

year will benefit from the "near misses" this year and hopefully learn how to 

put opponents away when they have the chance and finish games when they have a 

chance to win.  Those two qualities were lacking in this young team and it 

showed yesterday.  What they have already clearly learned is that they can 

overcome significant adversity and that's what will make them a dangerous team 

next year.  

Jeff

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From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com on behalf of Eric West

Sent: Sun 1/2/2011 12:31 AM

To: nwu-sports at tssi.com

Subject: Re: [NU Sports] It's over

On 1/1/2011 4:21 PM, Beamsley, Jeff wrote:

> We lost.

> Big deal.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you overall, but I have to take issue with

that. Not winning a bowl game is a big deal, as it is basically the

team's primary goal each year.

> Nobody at halftime would have given this team a snowball's chance in hell to 

have the ball with a chance to win at the end of the game. Yet there they we 

were.

I'm also tired of the "moral victory" angle. I bet the team is tired of

that too. We're in a better place than that, and have been for 10 years

if not 15. If anything, their (not-quite) comeback today made it more

frustrating, because it suggested that once again our team only played a

partial game.

The great news is they can still get better. For today, we have a right

to be sad. I just want a bowl win.

Eric West

e-west at northwestern.edu

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