Eleven Warriors

     I don't know about you, but I've always considered the Big Ten to be a Union conference, by which I mean a conference from states who fought for the North in the Civil War.  The SEC is the Confederate conference and the Big Ten is the Union conference.  Do the rest of you have the same perception (or is it just me)?

    Coming from this perspective, it has been SHOCKING to me to hear people suggest that teams like Virginia Tech, Virginia, Georgia Tech, UNC, and Duke are on Delany's target list for expansion to 16 teams.  Tonight on the Big Ten Network, the guys were openly discussing Delany's desire to move the B1G's footprint into the southern states for demographic reasons.  I hope this is wrong.  If the B1G starts admitting teams from the old Confederacy, that would completely shatter my image of what this conference is all about.  And I am bewildered that the B1G's northern cultural roots being incompatible with the admission of southern schools is NEVER brought up in these discussions.

     Some people have complained that the addition of Mid-Atlantic schools like Maryland and Rutgers violate their image of the B1G as a Midwestern conference.  The addition of teams from Maryland and New Jersey didn't bother me at all, because I've never thought of the B1G as a Midwestern conference; I've always thought of it as a Union conference.  And Maryland and New Jersey were Union states.  So all is well (at least in my mind).  But adding teams from the old South would go too far.  I wouldn't know what this conference is about any more.  I fervently hope that expanding further south is not being seriously considered.  No Confederate schools in the Big Ten!

     Personally, I hope the B1G is done expanding (in any direction) for a long, long time.  I think 14 teams is a good place to stop.  But if expansion is inevitable, I hope we get one or more of Notre Dame (duh), Pittsburgh, Syracuse, or Kansas. 

     I know some people will say that restricting the Big Ten's expansion based on something that happened 150 years ago is irrational.  So be it!  There's not much about sports fandom that *is* rational.  The traditions that we value in sports have very little to do with rationality and everything to do with emotional commitment and sentimentality. 

     Ok, I'm done.  Go ahead and fire away.  Let me know what you think.

My dad and I made the trip to Happy Valley on Saturday.  After what I had read here on 11W, I was a bit trepidatious.  I had read many horror stories about poor treatment of our fans by theirs.  So I wasn't sure what to expect.  I was worried enough that I roleplayed how to deal with belligerent fans with my dad during the long car ride there.

So we got there.  We drove through a sea of folks in white.  A few times we had to stop people to ask directions.  Even though we were in our OSU reds (and even though my silver car is covered in buckeye leaf stickers), everyone who we stopped to ask for directions was helpful.  Then we parked, got out of the car, and joined the throng headed toward the stadium.  One female fan looked at my Ohio State garb and said, "Boo!"  I just pretended she was getting into the Halloween spirit.  :-)

We made our way into the stadium and found our seats.  Our seats were close to field in the north endzone.  We were right in the front row, but that meant that a lot of people had to walk in front of us to get to their seats.  A number of people who walked by shook our hands and wished us good luck.  At one point during the game, the guy in the creepy Nittany Lion mascot outfit came by.  I wondered what kind of ribbing he'd give us when he saw us.  He noticed us as he was walking by.  He stopped and held out his hand for us to give him five.  (BTW, if you were wondering, yes, that Nittany Lion outfit is STINKY!)

After the game, we had to walk back to where we parked the car mostly in the dark.  I figured that we would surely be accosted by some bitter, drunken fan.  When we were about halfway to our car, a guy leaning against a white pickup truck, finally yelled out to us with slurred speech.  "Here it comes," I thought.  Despite my initial expectations, what he actually said to us was, "Hey, guys.  Good game.  Thanks for coming to State College."  I shook his hand and wished his team the best for the remainder of the season. 

The following day, we were waiting outside a McDonalds in Phillipsburg (close to State College) waiting to meet up with some family.  While we were there, at least 4 different people came up to us and congratulated us on the Buckeye victory.  One lady who spoke to us told us that she worked on campus and she had heard about a concerted effort from Penn State fans to make opposing fans feel welcome (kind of like what we tried to organize for visiting Cornhusker fans).  All I can say is: Mission Accomplished.

In short, during my 2 day stay in central PA I literally heard only a single negative word uttered in reference to my OSU fandom:  "Boo!"  And that came from a college-aged girl.  Everyone else we interacted with was more than friendly to us.  In fact, my dad commented that we actually had a worse time with Indiana fans than with Penn State fans!  (At the Indiana game, we were accosted by one angry fan in the 4th quarter.)  So, if you have read all the bad stuff that I have about Penn State fans here on 11W and are reluctant to make the trip out to State College, don't be!  They have apparently decided to turn over a new leaf.  It is officially safe to return to State College!

P.S.  If any of you had a different experience on Saturday (or a similar one), feel free to let us all know in the comments.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was watching The Game with my 90 year old grandfather.  And he was generally perplexed by all the fuss over the BCS and the general opinion voiced by most college football fans that a playoff system is necessary to determine a national champion.  In a very endearing "in-my-day"-style rant, he said that for most of his life, college football teams played for school pride and for love of the game, not for national championships.  Getting to a bowl game was icing on the cake, and winning that bowl game was all the validation a team needed.  Sure, some newspaper folks polled a few insiders to determine a "national number one," but more often than not, the voting was split and most fans put very little stock in the results of these polls.

My grandfather's views gave me an opportunity to reconsider the conventional wisdom that a playoff system is needed in college football.  Although he didn't put it exactly this way, my grandfather was essentially asking why we all have to be so focused on who's number one.  Why can't we enjoy the games, the pageantry, the traditions, the highs, and the lows without needing to crown a national champion at the end of it all?  After all, (as Lou Holtz is fond of pointing out) over the course of a season, you get a different team every week.  Each week a team has to contend with injuries, illnesses, studying for midterm exams, travel time, home field advantage, etc.  All of these varied inputs can affect the outcome of a game and have nothing to do with the skill of the players or the planning of the coaches.  And then there are also factors related to sheer dumb luck, like freak weather conditions and how the ball bounces during a fumble.  Given all of these uncontrollable factors, even a victory on the field of play does not even really decide who the better team is!  And we all know this already.  We acknowledge it when we say things like "Ohio State beats that team 9 times out of 10."  When we say something like that, we are recognizing that an inferior team can beat a better one on any given Saturday due to a combination of factors, at least some of which are beyond either team's control.  So if the best team is not guaranteed to win any given game, then even with a playoff system, there's no guarantee that the best team will be crowned national champion.  Then there are other factors, like improvement over the course of a year.  So a team that loses two games at the beginning of the season (and thus would probably get left out of any 8-team playoff scheme), could end up being the "best" team at the end of a season (i.e. a team that could beat those other 8 teams that do make the playoffs).  For these reasons, it is unreasonable to expect a playoff system, no matter how it is devised, to reliably select the "best team in college football."

Then why is it so imperative to create a playoff system for college football?  I've heard some exclaim with dismay that football is the only sport in college athletics without a playoff system.  But isn't that what makes college football unique?  The bowl games are part of the character and tradition of college football.  Taking that away and replacing it with a generic playoff (just like in every other sport) would be to eliminate something that makes college football special and contributes to its sense of history and tradition.

So I know some of you will call me crazy for voicing this contrary opinion.  If you feel it necessary to demean the people who disagree with you, then do what you have to do.  (I'm used to it from my last blog post.)  But consider whether the desire to rank order that which is inherently unrankable is a rational goal.  To put the question another way, isn't an Ohio State victory over the Pac-10 (or 12 or 16) champion in the Rose Bowl just as satisfying as winning the "National Championship Game" against an opponent picked by some inscrutable combination of people and computers? 

I guess all I'm really tryng to do in this blog post is give you all the same opportunity my grandfather gave me to reconsider the "need" for a playoff system before automatically jumping on the bandwagon.

With all the recent talk about Urban Meyer's inevitability as the next head coach of our beloved Buckeyes, I have to ask you all:  what's the argument against re-hiring Jim Tressel?  It was Ramzy's moving article describing the unseen good that Jim Tressel did as head coach that originally brought me to this website.  So if we all know what a quality human being Jim Tressel is, and we all know what an amazing head coach he was, then why are we not supporting him as the next head coach?

I ask you, if you could have anyone, wouldn't it be Tressel?  Do you care what ESPN thinks?  Do you care what the NCAA thinks?  Do you care what ANYBODY else thinks who doesn't care about Buckeye football?  Then get behind this movement:  RE-HIRE TRESSEL!  (Seriously.)