Eleven Warriors

Maybe not drafted in the first round, but you can make a pretty good argument that Drew Brees and Tom Brady both should have been. Both are after Kerry Collins.

Troll pieces. MSU beat Georgia last year, SCum won the Sugar Bowl, the Buckeyes beat Oregon in the Rose Bowl a few years ago (no one on this board needs reminding over what team has the most BCS bowl appearances and wins, including the vacated win over the Razorbacks), and people just talk stupidly with short memories.

Is the SEC the best conference right now? Sure. Is the Big 10 dying???? Give me a break. 

lol this is front page on ESPN now..if it wasn't there to begin with. first thing that pops up

Hodge - I get what you're saying about bringing in coaches and what the Pac 12 has done. But I would argue that there are many ways to skin a cat. Jim Tressel wasn't a big name or well-known commodity when he was hired and that worked out pretty good. Sure he had success at Youngstown State, but his hire didn't make a big splash across the country.

There's no reason to believe that the hiring of Rodriguez, Leach or Graham will work out. Meanwhile, we can't say O'Brien and Beckman won't work out at PSU & Illinois. 

I'm really not sure how some are trying to argue that there is nothing wrong with the B1G or that ESPN is in the wrong for writing this piece. The B1G is most definetly not strong and hasnt been for a few years. I do think that too much emphasis is placed on the bowl records where we have a distinct disadvantage in that 1) We have the furthest to travel and 2) We play at LEAST 3-4 SEC teams each year....of which we typically are on the losing end. All this really proves is that the SEC is better than the B1G but unfortunately the rest of the country does not see it that way. Bowl records need to be taken with a grain of salt...look at the Big East. They typically always have a winning bowl record but who do they play? Aside from the one BCS game they usually play BCS bottom feeders or Sun Belt/Mac teams.

If OSU and TSUN get back to prominance like it sort of looks like could be the case in a few years...it'll look exactly like how the B1G has looked like for years; The Big 2 and Little 8 (10).

@Bucksfan

It isn't so much marquee games in my mind as it is just the specific method in which we've lost. To me:

1) It all started with 41-14. Florida players spent a lot of time after talking about how bad OSU would have done in the SEC.

2) We had the misfortune to follow that with a loss to LSU. The game was actually very close until OSU suddenly and completely mentally fell apart.

3) USC pummeled OSU at USC.

4) Michigan lost to App State and then became truly terrible for years.

5) The B1G lost five big bowl games on one New Year's day.

6) Michigan was pummeled by Alabama in the first big game of the year this year.

That's really it. None of the other "marquee" games really matter. Nobody cares that Wisconsin lost to TCU anymore than they care that Alabama lost to Utah or Oklahoma to Boise in previous bowls. Nobody cares what anybody in the B1G outside of Michigan and OSU.

We're the B1G. That's how the rest the country sees us- Ohio State and Michigan. Combine a horrid Michigan with an OSU that lost three big games badly (Florida, LSU, USC) and there you go. Add in one horrible New year's day massacre and for good measure Penn State's deal. Done.

The good news is I think it is the same on the other end- if OSU and Michigan win a few big games, the B1G will be "good" again, even if nothing changes with any of the other teams. The spotlight is on the big two, and the impressions of everything else are colored by how we do.

I mean, we could talk about this all day.  The Big Ten is absolutely horrible.  This is about as bad as you could expect it ever getting.  No one denies this.  It may have been declining over the last few years, of course.  But, that doesn't mean that there weren't successes of equivalent nature that one could point to.  So, how do we define these things.  Non-conference games?  I did a run-down a few weeks back of how many opportunities that any team ranked in the top-25 have in just having another top-25 team on their nonconference schedule.  Most conferences could only claim 2 or 3 at best.  So, the opportunity to shine in the regular season is overblown...because a truly meangingful nonconference game is simply rare.  Michigan State ended up beating Boise, who is obviously a far cry than what they used to be, and Michigan is obviously en route to a 7-5 year as they try to untangle the Rich Rod mess.  But are we really that shocked that the Big Ten teams played like sh*t on the west coast against the Pac-12?  They always do....going way back...even in the 1990's.

The teams are lousy.  But, they could recruit and coach their way out of this mess.  The conference needs to ask itself how crazy it wants to get.  It could very easily outspend the SEC on coaching staffs if it wanted to.  If you think Michigan blew the Les Miles thing...yeah, they blew it because they could have offered him 8 million instead of 4.  If you think you're the winningest program ever, you better pay like it.  Minnesota fired Glen Mason.  Why?  That was stupid.  He should have gotten a raise!

The conference as a whole is very, very cheap.  But you could also accuse the SEC of inflating the market price...which I believe Gene Smith actually said at one point.

CPLUNK, yeah, of course all of those are very negative events over the last 5 years involving Ohio State and Michigan.  I just think it's unfair if one really wants to debate the quality of a conference, you know?  I mean, Ohio State did beat a top-10 Oregon, then a top-10 Arkansas.  The year before the conference went 0-5 on one day, the top-4 ranked Big Ten teams all won their bowl games...including 2 BCS games.  And in that same year the Big Ten lost those 5 New Years Day bowl games, Ohio State won the Sugar Bowl against a top-10 Arkansas team...which was a game that was played on New Years Day the prior year!  That Sugar Bowl could have easily been played on New Years Day, the B1G could have went 1-5 that day...and the one marquee win wouldn't have meant jack in the headlines.

So, I find it exceptionally convenient for the media to point out the negative events WHEN IT SUITS THEIR PURPOSE, and subsequently ignore the positives when it doesn't...and I think that strategy is blatantly obvious over the last 5 years.

I seriously doubt that the bashing of the Big Ten by the media will ever cease, even with marquee wins.  And I say that because I think the conference has had marquee wins that haven't made a damn bit of difference in the perception.  And as Dumpus pointed out above, it's very obvious WHY it is that way.  Oregon just won its first Rose Bowl since before America entered World War ONE, got blasted by LSU last year, lost the national title to a sloppy Auburn team, and that's the 2nd-best Pac-12 team of the 2000's?  They also lost embarrassingly to Boise State to open the season on a Thursday night the year that we faced them in the Rose Bowl...yet, they were still ranked higher than us before that Rose Bowl.  Why are we held to such a different standard?

@Bucksfan-

I'm not saying it is fair. It definitely isnt fair. Nobody counts the OSU wins against Arkansas or Oregon at all. Arkansas is dismissed for the tat five and Oregon is off the radar for some reason. I think because Oregon just doesn't carry the cachet of a USC, LSU, Alabama, etc.

Basically our Big two both have to be good and we've got to beat a blueblood- Alabama, LSU, USC or Oklahoma- in flat out dominating fashion before anything will change. 

No, it isn't fair. We just had the bad luck to have our negative events happen at the exact same time that forces at work caused people to start thinking in terms of "conferences".

We have the largest fan base in the US. That means everything we do is under a bigger microscope than Oklahoma.

Bucks - To be fair, you are kind of doing the same thing you accuse the media of doing...picking and choosing certain years/games to fit your argument. I'm kind if with you in that the B1G isn't as bad as its made out to be(except this year), but OVERALL, over the last 5-10 years the B1G has struggled COLLECTIVELY against top competition...both in non-conf and in bowl games. You point out the only respectable year(2009) the league has had in a decade as if that offsets what happened the next year. The facts are there, other that OSU, the rest of the league has more often than not crapped the bed.

And the reason Oregon was ranked higher was because their first lost was early, allowing them to move up before they lost to a respectable Stanford team. We lost to PURDUE, and dropped 11 spots. By the time the game was played they were 7 and we were 8. It's not like it was a stretch to see why it played out that way.

Good article and sadly there is alot of reality to it. I see any conference not named the SEC to be in decline. I feel that the SEC has formed a dominace over the rest of the country and I don't see it changing anytime soon. Fact=they recruit as a conference better than any other. Fact=They dominate on national level and have won title last 7-8 years straight. I can't explain why kids from the south are better at football then the rest of the country but they are and they play a whole different brand of ball down there. B1G is having an exceptionally bad year as a whole but even with a good year we can't touch the SEC. Lets face the facts Buckeye and B1G homers we are 2nd, 3rd, 4th even 5th best aslong as the SEC is around. I came back to reality after our second beatdown in BCS title game against LSU and so should the rest of you.

The B1G is so down because the perennial big boys, OSU and TSUN, are still in transition, and the Johnny-Come-Lately B1G contenders, MSU and Wisconsin, have taken a step back from where they were the last two years.  The only teams that are having above-average years are teams that have comprised the lower tier of the conference - Purdue, NW, and Minnesota.  And even at that, who knows how they'll do against OSU, TSUN, Nebraska, etc.  This OSU team is 4-0, but after those 4 games, this season could potentially go many different directions.  We'll learn a lot about OSU on Saturday at MSU. 

When OSU and TSUN get back to being elite once again, the conference's reputation will come back.  These two programs are the most important programs in the conference.  The B1G has been dumped on the last several years because of TSUN's struggles from App State to the Rich Rod era, OSU's little run of big stage losses (particularly the ones of double-digit variety), and then when TSUN finally had a good year, OSU went down the tubes with scandal and transition.  It hasn't been since 2006 that OSU and TSUN have both been good in the same year.  That's what the B1G needs to fix much of its reputation issues. 

And as much as I don't like the whole conference warfare that the media has created, and as much as I want to only care about what OSU does and root only for OSU and whoever plays TSUN, it could cost OSU a BCS bid or a playoff bid some day if the B1G is horrible and OSU is in a debate with several other teams for a spot. 

I think another thing to take into consideration is all the coaching changes. Alot of Big Ten programs are in transition years (OSU, scUM, UI, UI, MINN, Penn st (not that it matters for the next ten years)). These programs will all be better in a few years with some stability. Minn is already looking better then they have in the past going 4-0 for the first time in a while. I fully believe that scUM and OSU will be national contenders in the near future. Nebraska I think just doesn't have the ability to recruit at a elite level to be a consistent national contender but they will have their years. If OSU and scUM can compete for national titles that will help restore some of the BIGs brand. I do think that the BIG is unfairly portrayed sometimes. This year most of the SEC is average at best. Alabama is at another level but no one else is really that impressive. What gets old is that when a SEC teams loses its because the other team is that good and when the BIG loses its because they are that bad. Gets on my nerves.

"Big Ten teams are 1-9 in the past 10 Rose Bowls" This is absolutely terrible. 

Let's assume that OSU and MSU are the top 2 in B1G. They would finish behind Bama,LSU, S. Carolina, Georgia, Florida in the SEC. Nobody on here has any argument that SEC isn't dominating the world now and last 8 years. I love OSU and B1G but I live in a real world and I can't see any angle where the SEC isn't kicking everyones butt including our beloved Buckeye's.

Adamant73...I'll give you an argument, since I'm bored today... On what are you basing your opinions for Georgia, Florida, or South Carolina?  Georgia's best win so far was their 41-20 win over Missouri, which was basically the same score in their game against lowly Buffalo.  South Carolina doesn't even have a marquee win yet, unless you consider a sloppy struggle against now-1-4 Vandy a big win.  Florida has played 3 conference games already, but struggled with Bowling Green in their opener.  They close out their season against Louisiana-Lafayette, Jacksonville St., then Florida State.  We won't really know if Florida is any good untill they get close to winning their division...then maybe the last game against FSU.

@Dumpus - Yes! +1000. Well put.

Proof that Schlabach just doesn't get it.  Here is a quote from his article:

Ohio State will eventually become a national powerhouse again under new coach Urban Meyer, but the Buckeyes are ineligible for a bowl game this season because of NCAA sanctions. Beating Michigan at season's end won't even feel as rewarding after the Wolverines lost to Alabama 41-14 and Notre Dame 13-6.

Beating Michigan is always completely rewarding and always has been, even when Tate Forcier was the QB.  You think this team won't be "as" happy in November when we beat them just because they lost to Bama and ND?  If anything, we'll be MORE jacked up when we win because that IS our bowl game this year.

That being said, I don't think the rest of his article was that trollish.  The stat about B1G being 8-11 in BCS games was interesting, especially considering OSU is responsible for 4 or 5 of those 8 wins ('02-'03, '03-'04, '05-'06, '09-'10, not sure if he's counting '10-'11).  Pretty telling stat.

BUCKSFAN-from what we've all seen I think that OSU vs Arkansas would be a pretty close game. Remember that OSU vs UAB was pretty close.