Posted on 01/04/2015 5:50:00 AM PST by C19fan
With less than two minutes left in the Sugar Bowl on Thursday night, Ohio State, ahead by 7 points and having just recovered an onside kick by Alabama, tried a deep pass along the left sideline — Ohio State’s sideline.
Standing near the bench, Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference for 26 years, sprinted a few steps toward the field to catch a glimpse of the ball as it hurtled through the air.
The pass fell incomplete, but his actions were a sign of the investment that not only Buckeyes fans, but fans of all Big Ten teams, had in the outcome of the game.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“I had a guy send me a note, half-joking, saying this may be the most depressing day of the South since Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox,” said Paul Finebaum, whose radio show is the equivalent of the Southeastern Conference’s fireside chat. “Is that hyperbole? Of course.”
I poked fun at Ole Miss and Miss State getting destroyed by mentioning Grant's Vicksburg Campaign. The SEC is going to bounce back because all the best football talent is in that region. The only states outside the SEC footprint, incl Texas, with that kind of HS talent are Ohio and California. I wonder how Phyllis from Mugla is doing?
But it appears that the new playoff system may have exposed the SEC for what it was: a conference that took advantage of the fact there was no true playoff system until this year. Watch the SEC try to dissuade people from advocating for an eight-team playoff now....
Jimbo Fisher and the Criminoles will continue to recruit prisons and halfway houses for functionally illiterate sociopaths, rapists, theives, misfits and thugs, who will never graduate. Part of the SEC West’s downfall is that it’s always been over-hyped by the sports media. Now, the fickle media will Cannonize Urban Meyer and the Big 10, and PAC 10 as the new college football titans for decades to come. As evidenced with TCU, it’s not about who’s best, but rather which big state schools have the largest alumni base and mass sports media markets. Just watch E$PN turn on the SEC.
“because all the best football talent is in that region” this is obviously true, because the playoff teams are from somewhere other than the south.
But where do their athletes come from?
That is based off analysis by Nate Silver. The SEC has the most HS talent per-capita.
Meyer is able to supplement his base of Ohio with recruits from the South and California. His best defensive player, Joey Bosa, if from Florida. Oregon’s base is California but they bring in players from all over the nation including Texas and Florida.
We will see if it goes in cycles, historically, there have been cycles of universities or regions doing well the way OU was such a power. Even if the “best” are from one region, there is still a lot of talent around the nation for the collegiate level at least. That is what colleges such as Boise State were built on. Let’s not forget ALL of the big colleges get breaks as well and in some ways, lock out the smaller ones.
TCU is awesome and the odd-man out this year. That happens in college ball though regularly. They probably should have had a better shot at it, I don’t know the system well. Ohio State and Oregon have impressive victories as well.
Jimbo Fisher and the "Criminoles" play in the ACC, not the SEC.
I’m well aware of that.
Phyllis was also the subject of a cut-up/send-up by Colin Cowherd that I found to be hilarious. She’s the poster child of any rabid fan of any team that has no connection to reality. Actually, Phyllis has suffered successive shocks over the last two bowl seasons so I’m surprised she’s not in a catatonic state rather than haranguing Finebaum.
The strength of the SEC is that four different teams won consecutive national championships from 2007-2010. Totally unprecedented. What is the closest any other conference can come to this? Maybe the Big10(ish) if you look at a 50 year period. In less than that, the SEC had six different teams win championships.
Memories are short when spinning conspiracy stories about ESPN. They had no room for sympathy for an undefeated Auburn and its stronger schedule in 2004 and they actively promoted Michigan over Florida for the slot in 2006. In the latter instance, ESPN had Big10 games competing against the SEC on CBS. They desperately wanted an Ohio State-Michigan rematch.
ESPN is about ratings; that’s the business they’re in. More eyeballs watch SEC games. Therefore, ESPN is responding to market demand. The free market has decided SEC teams are more fun to watch.
So, the SEC wins championships at a much greater frequency than other conferences and it dominates in regular season TV viewership. I would guess they also have better attendance numbers with at least 8 stadiums well over 80,000 capacity.
I despise what ESPN has done to the game - forcing changes to the clock rules to allow for more commercials (and fewer snaps), deciding start times to fit their needs, not ticket buying fans, etc., but they openly bid for the rights in an open market and they won.
In 2012, the NCAA put into effect for Div 1 schools a 1-A football 85 overall and 25 reserved for first year students - reference link at: http://www.speeddevelopment.net/NCAA_College_Scholarship_Rules_and_Limits_-_CollegeAthletes.com.pdf . However, those students who enroll early will not be counted....
This will have a major effect over the next two to three years all schools come into compliance and the schools who benefited from taking higher numbers such as Alabama (28 in 2014) achieve parity in the numbers game of recruiting scholarships.
One point not being mentioned is that Ohio State Buckeyes have been under sanctions and could only take 22 scholarships the past three years (2015 will be their first 25 scholarship limit class sine 2011), which makes all the more impressive their toppling of Alabama.
The Major Programs like Michigan, Texas, USC, UCLA, Penn State, Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, etc. will still be the prime destinations for the elite student athlete recruits in the scholarship game and the up and comers like TCU, Baylor, Mich State, Boise State, etc. will still be competing better in this new scholarship era where recruiting limits stockpiling talent.
The last time NCAA Football did anything this radical was in the early 1970s when it declared limits on programs. For the old timers here, do you remember when Texas and Oklahoma would suite up 300 kids for a football game (in part to keep them from playing against their own school).
A new scholarship and recruiting era is fittingly brought to fruition with a College Playoff system. No two eras are alike and each period will see it's own winners and lose rise and fall.
So then what does an ACC team have to do with an article about the SEC? Why not talk about equally irrelevant schools like USC or Iowa?
Go Ducks!
The SEC West, over ranked by the media, played teams that were ranked the same but were a lot better. They got beat. (Excluding Ark and A&M. They were matched to teams of similar strength and won.)
The SEC East, not so over ranked, were matched with teams of similar strength and won them all.
It’s been said that Meyer left Florida because of an “out of control” locker room. Miami has always been a school of thugs and now Fisher has turned FSU into “Thug-U”.
I think the same thing happened to Fuller at Tennessee. He lost control. Apparently Mack Brown left Texas with a bunch of thugs on the team. You won’t keep winning with thugs.
Florida, Tennessee and Texas have been trying to rebuild and it’s been like they all got the death penalty.
Lighten up folks, it's a funny line, I hadn't heard this play on words. For-the-record, wasn't FSU in fact, independent not too long ago? Oh well, it is off-topic so sorry if that offends anyone.
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