bicranium

Being an analyst/calling games at ESPN does not take anywhere near the toll on you mentally or physically that being a head coach at a major university does. Nor does it take as much time. He's probably basically off Sunday-Wednesday or Thursday.

I have never seen a single other person outside of this forum refer to Urban as a job jumper. He took the natural progression of an absolute star HC then resigned due to health concerns.

So you don't like any uniform when they go all white I guess? Such a clean look. Texas all whites, Penn State's simple uniforms, Oregon when they go to an all white... all look great IMO. Either way they were a HUGE upgrade over their pro combat jerseys from last season that looked like they had a fanny pack on or something. And I have no prediction on the MD-Miami game tonight. I don't know enough about who each team returns from last year and I have a great deal of respect for both of the new coaches (Edsall at MD and Golden at Miami). Should be a very well coached game at least. You say this based on... what? I'm not denying what you're saying just wondering if you're saying that as a fan who doesn't like Urban or as someone who's privy to some of the conversations going on right now between Urban and OSU.

If you think Urban or anyone else would treat the OSU job like the BGSU or Utah jobs then I guess go right ahead. I think there is a risk with Urban with the heart thing and losing his drive like he did at Florida because of his health but I don't think he'd leave OSU for any other job.

Every coach in the country not named Joe Paterno is a "habitual job jumper" if Urban Meyer is.

Georgia's uniforms sucked. And the way they said Georgia on the backs of the jerseys like the players' names was dumb. Boise State's jerseys were pretty awesome. Their helmets were incredible. I don't get why Urban would be viewed as a "habitual job jumper." He moved his way up the ladder. MAC school to MWC school to SEC school. Habitual job jumpers IMO are guys like Petrino and Saban. I think Urban would have stayed at Florida for a very long time had whatever happened with him not happened. He was only ever going to leave for Notre Dame (think he's smart enough to see that ND probably won't ever be what they were) or Ohio State (when he resigned at Florida the OSU job looked very far away from opening still).

There isn't a team in the MWC that should even be competitive with Boise this year. They'll go undefeated. Just a matter of whether or not teams like Oklahoma, Bama, LSU, etc. stumble. Like I've said before, BSU gets an entire off-season to prepare for one game a year then the rest of the season to get ready for their bowl game. And as far as Braxton is concerned... I didn't see anything wrong with his demeanor. Again, we have no idea why he didn't have a headset on/wasn't with the other QB's when he was on the sidelines. But can you imagine being as hyped as he was coming in and you get your first chance to show something in front of 105k people and you get to hand the ball off for a minimal gain, throw a nice pass that's dropped and your All-American, senior center has an incredibly rare bad snap that you have to hop on and you're done. If he was all smiles immediately after that then I'd worry...lol. Oh and about the blitzing... the Akron coach did not love it...lol. Not sure if anyone caught it on the broadcast but when Fickell and Ianello shook hands after the game you could hear Ianello say something about blitzing while up that much that late was not good football but good luck the rest of the season. Fickell just kinda scowled at him as the little guy ran away.

I don't think you can say Braxton was a cry baby. You have no idea what was going on with that. Maybe he just doesn't have the experience those guys (Guiton, Graham and Siems) have with signaling everything in. He seemed happy after the game and spoke well of his relationship with Bauserman and seemed very sincere and practically giddy about having just played his first game as a Buckeye. When Tressel initially resigned I was all for Urban. But given the way Fickell has handled everything, I say if he gets 10 wins I'd love him to stay. Would be great to potentially be set for 20 years or so.

LOL'd hard the other day when I saw TCU was ahead of us in both polls. Not sure how anyone could think a school like that would be able to reload after losing a ton of seniors. Yeah, they're in Texas so they get a lot of decent depth from leftover Texas players but they're still a non-BCS school whose success is reliant upon redshirting basically everyone they recruit.

No one thought A&M would leave Texas either though but then the Longhorn Network comes out and A&M gets pissed and leaves. Saw something about Oklahoma gunning for their own network now. And Okie St.'s big money guy, T. Boone Pickens, said A&M made a mistake leaving the Big 12 implying he had some grand idea for the remaining conference members. We'll see what happens.

The SEC is offering those teams. They need a 14th to go with A&M.

BTW with A&M to the SEC happening the conference supposedly has offers out to WVU, VT, Mizzou, Oklahoma and NC State. First team to accept wins. Have to think one of the Big 12 teams jumps at the offer since that conference is falling apart. Excited to see Rod Smith A LOT in tomorrow's game thanks to the suspension of Jordan Hall and injury to Jamaal Berry. Good thing none of our RB's transferred out as many people were predicting. Our top 3 are out and we're still going to have 2 studs back there with Smith and Carlos Hyde.

The gift bag the three players got supposedly contained a t-shirt, a mouse pad and "another small item." Probably an iPod or a watch or something. And lol at the guy above who mentioned "buying players."

ie. Hocking and Union counties.

I think the media kinda wore themselves out on OSU. After all the OSU stuff we had UNC stuff, Oregon stuff and now a gigantic Miami story. But there's NFL pre-season football and the college season is fast approaching. From March through the summer there was NOTHING. Except for OSU. Definitely sucked. To us common folk, yes. To the NCAA, the money our players received for the gifts and awards they were given by the university is identical to any money a player receives from a booster. Hell, selling your awards and whatnot like our players did was perfectly acceptable up until I think 2004. I think a distinction should be made.

This isn't anywhere near the end of this thing. When I first glanced at the story I noticed that the worst violations took place near the beginning of the 2000's because that's when Miami was good. Over the last few years Miami hasn't been that good so Shapiro wasn't dishing out the benefits like he did in the first part of the decade. This was much like what happened with OSU in December. Miami ruled them indefinitely ineligible and let the NCAA handle the rest. The NCAA decided that the story and documents were legit and handed out the appropriate penalties for these individual players. Look at the dollar amounts. Their DL Vernon is missing 6 games for $1,200 in benefits. Pryor took over $2,500 according to the NCAA findings and he was only going to miss 5 games. Posey, Herron, Adams and Thomas took between $1,000 and $1,500 and are only going to miss 5 games. Jordan Whiting took about $150 in benefits and is missing the opener this Saturday. So the punishments there fit the crimes. The worst punishments from this story were always going to be institutional in nature and those will come down the line. I believe the NCAA press release even acknowledged that university officials knew of or participated in the improper benefits so that's basically a lock for failure to monitor if not lack of institutional control, neither of which OSU was hit with.

Missouri is top 25 pre-season this year and both Maryland and Missouri finished last season in the top 25. Let me know the next time Akron does either.

Very true. I think they actually ramped it up for the 2nd time. The NCAA was just kinda like... c'mon now... stop it... the first time around. So SMU was like, time to set up some slush funds and get a legitimate payroll going for these players...lol.

Pretty sure they already do that for free.

When I first skimmed the article I saw most of the worst stuff took place outside of the normal statute of limitations and was disappointed. Then I read that if the violations went on for such a long period of time and were so severe the NCAA will basically say fuck the statute of limitations, you're going to burn. Pretty sure that's what's going to happen to Miami with this. Should be several Miami players out for our game against them on September 17th.

Not very impressive on the field in many cases, yes, but they bring in HUGE dollars for research and as I've said, that's a big factor here. Also like I said, these aren't my suggestions. These are the teams that have been talked about behind the scenes for about a year now. And I still think you have it mixed up with your BTN thing. States with a Big 10 team in their state, for the most part, have the BTN as part of basic cable. States without a Big 10 team (out west, down south, etc.) have the BTN as part of a special sports tier. The Big 10 hasn't had everyone play everyone for as long as I've followed football. I think it's actually upped to 3 teams we won't be playing in the league with the addition of Nebraska. In 2017 I think the Big 10 is going to a 9 game conference schedule. And I guarantee you I'm not the only one who wants to see OSU-Maryland. And I'd bet tons of people would rather watch OSU-Maryland than OSU-Akron. Saying Rutgers, ND, Maryland and Missouri would be bottom feeders as well is just being ignorant. Missouri and Rutgers were ranked in the top 3 in the BCS within the last 4-5 years at times. ND has been top 10 within that time frame. Maryland finished last season ranked in the top 25.

To your first paragraph... I don't think that's accurate. In fact, I think it's the exact opposite. In states with Big 10 schools the BTN is part of basic cable. In states without Big 10 schools the BTN is typically part of a special sports tier (like all the regional Fox Sports channels). As to your second paragraph... I think those big time matchups would only happen more frequently. You're not going to be punished for losing against a big time OOC opponent early in the season because you can still merely win your own conference and be in the hunt for a national title. So like in college basketball you'd end up with more marquee OOC games. For example, Ohio State basketball plays Florida, Kansas and Duke this year in basketball. And all those games are going to do, win or lose, is make the team better prepared for league play and the post season. We'd get to see less games against Akron and Toledo in the future if a playoff involving 4 super conferences was put into place. And for your third paragraph it's very simple... neither Oklahoma nor Oklahoma St. are AAU members. Nebraska was an AAU member all the way up until this spring, several months after their addition to the conference was made official. Missouri, Maryland and Rutgers are all AAU members. Notre Dame is absolutely a special case. Their institution is highly reputable as far as academics are concerned and they have a national following. I'd watch OSU-Maryland in football. They just got a potentially great HC in Randy Edsall and have been a good program recently. Just not the past few years. I mean, who wants to watch Indiana vs. Minnesota in football? Or Northwestern vs. basically anyone in basketball? There's plenty of crappy matchups in conference already. And teams like Missouri, Rutgers and ND have been highly ranked in the BCS much more recently than any of the Big 10's bottom feeders. Plus it's not like those 4 schools are my idea...lol. It's coming from the best OSU insider on the web who has sources all over the country regarding all sports. He's been saying those 4 schools for a year now.

It's not just about football. Missouri, Rutgers and Maryland are all AAU institutions (big research money) and they all increase the Big 10 TV market. Missouri brings St. Louis/Kansas City, Rutgers brings NYC and Maryland brings the east coast/DC area. And I have no idea why you think it would be the same 4 teams in the playoffs every year. SEC - Alabama, Florida and LSU have been top 10 programs for a few years now Big 10 - Ohio State, Nebraska, Wisconsin then the possibility of Michigan coming back on and PSU is a sleeping giant Pac 12 - iffy but of course USC and Oregon are the premier teams in that league. Don't think Stanford will have staying power with Harbaugh gone and this being Luck's last season Other teams that are left out right now/could be part of those conferences or another conference would obviously be Texas and Oklahoma. Seriously... saying it would be the same 4 teams every single year is just dumb.

I'm not exactly thrilled about a future playoff system because I love how controversial and interesting the BCS season is as far as bids and placement and whatnot. It's a lot easier to like all that controversy when you're a fan of a team with a fanbase as notorious as Ohio State's because you know the BCS bowls love our money and will almost always pick us for at-large bids if we're not an automatic qualifier. One thing I would absolutely look forward to if we went to a playoff is better out of conference matchups. Granted OSU already has a wonderful, marquee matchup every year in the OOC schedule for the next 10 years or so it will be nice to see a rise in games like OSU-USC, OSU-Texas, FSU-OU, etc. if those games don't look to hurt you much at all if you're given the opportunity to simply win your conference and have a shot at the title in a playoff. Also I don't agree that it would be the same 4 teams every year at all. The SEC has 4-5 teams that would have a shot, the Big 10 has 3-4 teams then you look at the upcoming expansion. A&M to the SEC is done and the SEC is looking to go to 16 with Clemson, FSU and Missouri. The Big 10 wants Missouri too. The rumor for about a year now was that the Big 10 would go to 16 with Missouri, Maryland, ND and Rutgers. If Missouri goes to the SEC then the Big 10 will look next to Virginia Tech.

And as for ESPN, alittlelessordinary covered most of that. I'd love to see the Big 10 continue to move away from ESPN/ABC and put more games and exclusive coverage on the Big Ten Network. Of course we're going to continue to watch our favorite team play their games on ESPN. Sure as hell aren't going to support their "original" programming and watch stuff like SportsCenter, Outside the Lines, etc. Don't go to their website anymore either. There's an article out there about Jim Delany and the Big 10/ESPN negotiations that took place back in 2004 where ESPN lowballed him on a new coverage offer and Delany threatened to do his own thing (the BTN) and ESPN basically said I dare you so he did it. And that network alone provided each member school with around $8 million last year. A 20% increase over the previous year and it's only going to continue to rise. ESPN is mad that 1) they lost the ability to maximize their profits off of OSU and the Big 10 and 2) the Big Ten Network has shown other conferences that they can go away from ESPN, do their own network and make TONS of money.