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Buckeye Blogger Network
This is the continuation of the article posted this morning looking at a solution to the current problems.
To the victors, the spoils.
Many people have spilled an incredible amount of ink over the years trying to determine a just system for selecting a national champion. Our own Malibuckeye came up with his own system a while back and expounded upon it in length. I honestly believe there is only one possible method of satisfactorily deciding a champion with all of the proper criteria. That answer is to allow the teams to decide it on the field in a playoff format. But, unlike with many other views, the playoff isn’t the critical factor. The biggest issue is to start to make the regular season important again.
The best way to determine who gets to play in the Division 1A Playoff, while simultaneously allowing fair access to all of the conferences, is to restrict access only to conference champions. Yes, you heard that right – conference champions only.
Objectivity, Balance, and Power. Two of these are not possessed by the BCS.
This is the first of a two part article on this year’s BCS problems.
When you think of justice it obviously brings to mind the concepts of the court of law, lady justice, and a jury of your peers. Rarely do people consider justice in college football. They may use words like “fair” and “just” or their antonyms freely, but never in any rigorous context.
What the last 48 hours should have demonstrated to college football fans is that the current bowl system is inherently unjust – meant in the strictest philosophical sense.
What is the definition of justice? Dictionary.com suggests (irritatingly as the fifth definition) “the administering of deserved punishment and reward”. This gets at the very heart of the matter.
The BCS as a system was designed to solve the age old problem of determining who is the college football national champion in any given year. Where in previous years the AP and Coaches polls – and a laundry list of other polls before that – occasionally chose different teams, the BCS was supposed to be the unifying consensus. That, of course, went out the window in early 2004 when the AP poll decided to vote USC #1 over LSU, the team that won the national championship game that year.
But the ludicrousness of the BCS doesn’t even begin there. It begins with the very concept of using a poll to determine anything of importance at all.
After stuffing our bellies full of delicious dead bird, it’s finally time to ignore the family again and focus on the things that truly matter.
It's just about time to get back to this.
A worthy offensive gameplan. If Bollman comes into this game with his standard Walrusball offense it will be a disservice to the rivalry. The point of The Game is to try to win, not trying to make the other team’s defense look better than they really are.
A Jake Stoneburner touchdown. He finally got one last week against Penn State after not catching one for about 8 straight games. Time to go back to him again. If you want to do it more than once, I won’t complain.
Weeping M*ch*g*n fans. This has been the bandage on the wound that was the Cooper years. Not seeing it won’t rip it off, but it will certainly slow the healing. Yes, M*ch*g*n fans, we still haven’t done enough to you to close that wound. Maybe another decade of soul crushing will be sufficient.
Beat M*ch*g*n. This is the single most important thing we do all year. Go get it Bucks!
Dr. Jon Woods dots the I in the first ever Second Script in a single game.
I’m not going to wax philosophic after that Penn State game. Being in the stadium for Dr. Wood’s last home game was wonderful – particularly getting a chance to shake his hand and thank him for everything after the game. The game, though, left a lot to be desired.
Of course you’re not. That was simply one of the worst experiences imaginable. Lets get this over with.
Fickell wasn't particularly entertained himself.
Continue to pound the ball. Desperately trying to pound the ball is half of what got us in trouble in the first place. Purdue stacked the box on every down that they strongly suspected we would run, and given our tendencies they were right nearly every time. The few times they weren’t, they were able to get to Miller pretty quickly with their pass rush.
Three and outs. The Buckeyes only managed three 3 and outs. The Boilermakers converted fully half of their third down attempts, 9/18 for the game. Simply not good enough.
A win. Yea, no.
A Penn State loss to Nebraska. We got this at least. To bad it means a lot less now. Right now, we need to beat Penn State, and Penn State to beat Wisconsin in Madison. That’s pretty unlikely this season.
The Buckeyes visited West Lafayette today to do battle with the Purdue Boilermakers with the Big Ten Championship game still on the line. The Boilers, however, had something to say about OSU’s championship aspirations as they took the Buckeyes to overtime to secure the 26-23 victory. Braxton Miller threw 8-18 for 132 yards and two touchdowns on a day when the OSU running game simply struggled to get going. Boom Herron accounted for 62 yards on the ground compared to Ralph Bolden’s 80 yards and a touchdown.
Ohio State started the game with the football but struggled a bit. After whiffing on the kick catch in the endzone, the Bucks went to Dan Herron twice for a modest gain. On third down, Braxton Miller tried to hit an open receiver over the middle. The ball was tipped down field into the arms of Jake Stoneburner who wasn’t able to haul it in despite several chances due to some great defensive work by the Purdue coverage.
The Boilermakers were quite the opposite of the Buckeyes. Using a series of screens and runs, Purdue smartly moved the ball down the field. They managed to get the ball inside the five with a first down, but were unable to punch the ball into the endzone. The Buckeye defense had managed to stiffen, and a nice play from Bradley Roby at the goal line to bat a pass away forced Purdue to take three on the short field goal. Read More
The Buckeyes are traveling to West Lafayette this weekend, and you can bet that all of us here are fervently wishing to not see a repeat of two years ago. What other things are we looking for?
Boom Herron's quickly becoming a fan favorite.
Continue to pound the ball. We have been very successful in the run game especially with Boom Herron and Braxton Miller. Like to see us continue that. I continue to worry what would happen if a team were able to stop the run and we had to pass to win.
Three and outs. The defense couldn’t get off the field against Indiana. They did a great job, taking the 4 or 5 yds that our defense was giving them each time and moving the ball slowly down the field. I want to see the defense get off the field this weekend and get the ball back to our offense in positive field position.
A win. They haven’t been pretty but it is much better after a win to discuss the team than after a loss.
A Penn State loss to Nebraska. Ed. – Because we need one anyway.
Bringing us down the homestretch.
Don’t turn the ball over.
I think we can all remember what happened the last time we traveled to West Lafayette with a young QB under center and struggled holding onto the ball.
Unfortunately, in order to facilitate no turnovers, it is a strong possibility that we are going to see an offensive game plan straight out of the 1950s.
Fans hoping to see Braxton Miller light it up through the air are going to be largely disappointed once again.
Establish the run.
With Jim Bollman as the offensive coordinator and his well established failures to form a simplified and coherent passing attack based off the strengths of the run game, running the ball is the key to every game until he is fired.
There is nothing wrong with running the ball to win, but being so mind-numbingly one dimensional about it is still frustrating as hell and I can’t help griping about it one more time.
The good news is that Purdue has given up 364 and 339 yards rushing the past two weeks, so there is hope that even without a passing game, the Buckeyes can still find some success on the ground. Read More
