Buckeye Blogger Network
In Process
Spring has finally arrived in Columbus, it seems- time to enjoy Oval Beach and discover all of the kids’ toys that were buried under the snow. Being Ohio, though, it only means that there’s another storm on the horizon… so, there’s but one choice for today’s soundtrack.
Buckeye 411
The previews continue here at the BBC with the rush of games scheduled for tomorrow. While the Air Force history may make you want to curl into a ball and cry, it’s worth it for the Rice history. Enjoy!
History: The bowl game first appeared in 2003 as the PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl. That sponsorship lasted all of two seasons and led to a rather unique situation in 2005 – a bowl game without a sponsor. Bell Helicopter came to the rescue in 2006, and has remained the sponsor ever since. The game is traditionally a match-up of the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA, played in Amon G. Carter Stadium at TCU. That pairing has survived this year, and allowed Air Force to play their fourth game in 6 years at the Armed Forces Bowl.
I finally get to add my two bits into the bowl preview discussion. I couldn’t pick a better game to start it off with.
The Basics: Wednesday, December 28th, 2011, 4:30 PM EST on ESPN, from Washington D.C. Toledo (8-4, 7-1 MAC) and Air Force (7-5, 3-4 MWC).
History: This is the second year that Northrop Grumman, a big military contractor, has sponsored this game. Not surprisingly we’ve already covered the history of this game in detail.
Toledo: The Rockets are a strong running team this year, ranking 14th in rushing behind Adonis Thomas’ 963 yards. They’re also a scoring machine, picking up 11 touchdowns from each of their top rushers, and 15 from each of their quarterbacks. This could have been an even better year for the Rockets if their defense had been a little more stiff.
Air Force: While Toledo is a strong running team, Air Force is a spectacular one. The Falcons are ranked 2nd in rushing with a 320 yards per game average. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to anyone who has actually watched an Air Force game in the last several years. Adding a dimension to their attack, however, is QB Tim Jefferson Jr. who has picked up 12 touchdowns and 1478 yards on a 60.9% completion rate. While they won’t go call his number often, he’s successful enough to give defenses something to think about.
Fun Fact: While Northrop Grumman is most famous for their aircraft, such as the B-2 and BQ-4, and spacecraft, like the LEM (as Grumman), they are also big ship-builders. In fact, every US Aircraft Carrier, including the Supercarriers, has been constructed at the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard. There’s a reason why they’re a major military contractor.
Who we got?
Welcome to our continuing preview coverage of the 2010 Bowl Season! The matchup of the day is…
Independence Stadium
The Independence Bowl is one of the older bowl games still in existence. It was given its name because the first game was played during the bicentennial year – 1976. The game is played in Independence Stadium, though why that facility is in Shreveport, Louisiana as opposed to, say, Philidelphia is beyond me.
The Independence Bowl started out as a matchup between teams from the Southland Conference playing against any at-large team of the Bowl’s choice. Big Ten teams that have played the game include Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan State. The Buckeyes have never accepted an offer to visit Shreveport.
In 1995, the Independence Bowl switched it’s affiliation to the Southeastern Conference which it would match against at-large teams. In 1998, the Bowl began to take Big 12 teams as its at-large choice, making the Independence Bowl an ad-hoc Big 12 tie-in. In the case that there were no available teams from those conferences to fill its tie-ins, the Independence Bowl would take at-large teams from any conference. In 2008, there were no teams from either conference available, resulting in a game between Louisiana Tech and Northern Illinois – a game that Lousiana Tech won 17-10.
Once again, it’s time for a quick tour de farce around the week in college football. You know, in case you don’t have ESPN and this is the only website you read (as it should be). Today’s musical accompaniment: This amazing cover. Good luck getting it out of your head during the TPS meeting.
So much for strength of schedule
James Madison, welcome to the BCS championship game! Wait, you have to do something more than beat Virginia Tech? Since when?
Quick comment on the Miami game- I like Randy Shannon, and gained a lot of respect for Jacory Harris as a person during the game (as a QB? Nope). Just thought I’d put that out there, since there seems to be a conspicuous absence of the Miami fans that were so prevalent last week in our little corner of the interwebs.
So, the ACC is back to being a basketball conference, right? This week, all of their ranked squadrons went down, including the JMU upset mentioned earlier and The “Rambling Wreck” falling to a team that only scored three points in their loss to North Dakota State. You want to fix the BCS? One could argue for taking away the ACC’s automatic bid and making them split it with the Big lEast, and then make the MWC and WAC fight over the other one. Problem solved.
That running back that Michigan lets throw the ball is pretty good. Of course, their opponent wasn’t called Notre Ame for nothing… It would be interesting to see how the game would be different with Irish starting QB Crist in for the entire game, especially given what we’ve seen from the Wolverine defense.
Late Sunday/early Monday during the season (what can I say- west coast timezone), tBBC will be bringing you reflections on that week’s game. And, since it’s always great to have mood music to read to, let’s start with this clip from Pitchfork’s top ten videos from the ’90′s
All is right with the world- football is back, baby! And what a slate of games we had… although, for Buckeye fans, it all seems anticlimactic after Thursday night, amiright?
Ignore Akbar at your peril
In case you’ve forgotten, Houston Nutt has a penchant for overtime games, being on the sidelines for several of the longest contests in history while at Arkansas. The one thing, though- he needs to remember how to “win” in OT and not just “play for OT”, as the Rebels were upset Saturday by the Gamecocks of Jacksonville State. As a public service announcement, tBBC would like to remind you that Jeremiah Masoli is now 0-2 in his last two games. Best part? Ole’ Miss paid $300,000 for the pleasure of the upset. Almost as much fun as my favorite season opener ever.
We talked about Mich1gAAn during the livechat, and will do so again later on Monday. I will say this; their version of the wildcat offense looked pretty good. And UConn’s defense and offense looked pretty terrible. In my opinion, the highlight wasn’t the running game but something far more significant.
Kentucky’s new coach beat Louisville’s new coach, in the first match up of these two teams while each had an African American at the helm. Interestingly enough, Kentucky’s three major programs (UK, UofL, WKU) are all led by African American head coaches- there are only nine others in Division 1A (FBS, whatever). For the Kats and Cards, it’s probably exciting to talk about coaches and not use the word “investigation” or “payoff“.
Late Saturday night “Ohio’s BCS Team” gave up a late comeback to lose to Fresno State… Are we sure they didn’t import the entire Western Michigan team along with their coach? In addition on Thursday, The Utes upset the Pitt Stachers, in overtime. Let’s see- UofL, UC, UConn, Pitt all blow opening weekend games… Yup, Big lEast it is. I hope Jim Delaney was watching as he ponders even more expansion options… each of these teams has a chance to win that conference. Read More
