If you haven't already begun to emerge from offseason hibernation, today brings a double jolt to remind you that the start of college football season is closer than you might imagine.
For starters, we're a month away from hitting the field against Marshall in a rare Thursday night tilt in the Shoe. Closer to the now, Big Ten Media Days kickoff today in Chicago.
For those of you near a TV, both the Big Ten Network and ESPN News will air coverage beginning at 11am ET. For the rest of us, the network will also
stream all of the press conferences online (Tressel goes on at 2pm ET). If you want to turn things up to eleven, you can
follow us on Twitter, as we'll be on the scene weighing in with an appropriate amounts of snark and reverence. HEY, THERE'S JOE PATERNO! Also, a quick thank you to everyone that
submitted a question last week.
We'll spend the day discussing the media's preseason picks for top teams (Ohio State, Iowa, Wisconsin), offensive player of the year (Pryor with a slight chance of Clay, igniting howls from Penn State fans if it is the former) and defensive player of the year (Clayborn), but the better part of today will be spent with one eye towards 2011. Indeed, you'll soon know the thoughts of every coach in the league on the addition of Nebraska, divisional alignment, a championship game, and future expansion.
Unfortunately, we likely won't be getting any hard information on divisions or the championship game, but Dr. Tom Osborne will be in the house to help hammer out some of those details in the hopes of announcing something soon.
Speaking of big games, the Pac-10 said the idea of hosting a marquee annual kickoff game pitting a league team against one from another conference is in the discussion stage. The report mentioned the Big Ten as a potential partner, but with plans to hold the event at the Rose Bowl, I can't imagine Jim Delany would be too eager to play two guaranteed "home" games for Pac-10 teams every season. It makes sense in January, but if we're talking about a season opener, may I suggest Soldier Field?
When John Maynard Keynes was criticized for having changed his monetary policy during the great depression, his response was brilliantly succinct:
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
Well, the facts have changed, sir. After long having advocated more open practices based on the USC model of weekday openness and Saturday curb-stompings, the problems the SEC and, well, USC, are currently experiencing remind us that sometimes the Kremlin/Lubyanka setup on Olentangy River Road really is the way to go.
The tailgate is coming and it will be fierce. We'll have more details soon (including a pretty neat surprise), but keep the morning and early afternoon of Saturday, the 11th open and set your GPS to 40.010804,-83.027458.
Comments
"Coach Tressel, Give us some insight into the upcoming season and the challenge of living up to the expectations of a pre-season #2 ranking in the polls."
JT: "Well as you know we don't put much stock in pre-season polls. We've got 12 games to play and all of those teams will be wanting to ruin our Big Ten Championship hopes and national title aspirations. We are just going to go out and work hard everyday and try to be successful against so many well-coached and prepared football teams. When you've got Joe Paterno, Kirk Ferentz, who I believe has been Big Ten Coach of The Year like what 15 times preparing for you and so forth, you've got a lot of work to do. So we understand what is in front of us and we are going to try to get better everyday."
+1
Man you guys are gonna make things difficult for me on gameday huh? That's some serious foot traveling I might have to do. Oh well, could be worse.
In other news, does anything good ever really come from these? I haven't paid much attention in the past, but when someone asks another coach about Pryor they're just going to say how much of a great player he is, and vise-versa with all the others. Coaches are saying we take it one game at a time and we want balance and all that good stuff.
"Pryor with a slight chance of Clay, igniting howls from Penn State fans if it is the former..."
Ah, you know us too well, my friend!
Soldier field would be an awesome venue to hold an annual kickoff game. I would even be good with alternating years between Chicago and the Rose Bowl.
Big Ten media days start today, but you wouldn't know it by visiting ESPN or Sports Illustrated, or even Sporting News for that matter. These d-bags ruined their tighty whiteys every day for a week leading up to when the SEC came together in Hicksville, USA, and their college football page is still inundated with last week's Pac-10 nonsense as of this morning.
4 teams in last year's final top-16, 3 in the top-10, all 4 won their bowls, 2 were BCS games, one was the first Rose Bowl win since 2000. Phil Steele has the Big Ten tied for 3rd toughest conference in America...highest in years. Yet, not a peep.
I have a feeling that the BT Network has lost these guys a lot of money, and now they have no reason to cover teams that they don't have exclusive rights to.
At this point, I've got nothing against Pryor. But he's not the best QB in the league--that's Kirk Cousins--and John Clay is by far the best offensive player in the Big Ten. That's just foolish to vote for Terrelle.
Disagree
Devon,
Please try to say your statement out loud without laughing.... it may take a while. kirk cousins LOL. The smell of jealousy, ohh PSU.....
I think the rest of 11W will join with me and lol at this statement.
Just curious, though...
More passing yards
A higher completion percentage
More touchdown passes
Fewer interceptions
A higher quarterback rating.
How else would you measure two quarterbacks?
Kirk cousins like to interception away a game or two a year(see ND)
I dont' know I'm thinking wins might be up there.... but that's just me.
So Terrelle Pryor's way better than Jake Locker, then?
I guess we'll just have to see how this season turns out, I'm sure he';s better than Newsome though, and that given the option you'd pick Pryor over your current starter. But like I said, we'll have to wait 13 games to find out and can look back at the entire season.
Mel Kiper thinks Locker is Tim Tebow with John Elway's arm surgically attached to him. I think he's good, but I don't agree with Kiper's haircut's sentiment at all.
I like to measure qb's with wins and losses
I'd take Pryor over Newsome in a heartbeat. But he's one of, oh, two dozen quarterbacks in that boat.
i can see through your white-out colored glasses.
To Devon,
I like to measure QB "greatness" if you will by comparing which QB's put their teams in a better position to win....
For example, using your stat methodology, you would consider someone like matt cassel (NE year) a better QB than *Ben Roethlisberger. you're telling me that since Cassel (who put up huge numbers the year Brady got hurt) was statistically dominant in compared to Roethlisbergers' pedestrian 200-220 yards/gm, mid-to-high 20s in TDs a season... you would rather have matt cassel on your team?
In my mind, when the team takes the field, I am 10X more comfortable having Terrelle call the shots over a Qb like Kirk Cousins. But whatever makes you sleep better at night buddy, keeping preaching the Cousins name! lol
*I know he is a complete douchebag in person and tough to argue for but there is no denying his skills
You bet your butt he's better than Locker. Listen, I have to choose today between Jake and TP, I'm taking TP. I bet you like Darryl Clark too :-p