Buckeye Blogger Network
Next Stop, Ann Arbor
It’s Wednesday, halfway to what’s sure to be another glorious June weekend. Big thanks to “Darth Grant” for finding the inspiration for this week’s title and lead photo- Eric may have some more on this story a bit later in the summer, but for now, here’s one of the men behind that amazing flying machine.
Buckeye 411
So as we stare down the coming 2012 college football season, a billowing cloud of fury and excitement just now beginning to peak over the late-June horizon, it becomes apparent that no matter how bad things got in Columbus last year, that the Buckeyes were merely down on the mat for a short time. The cartoon birds flew in quick circles as Ohio State shook its head and looked up at the rest of the Big Ten standing over it grinning. But the birds have gone away and the Buckeyes are back on their feet.
In this week’s edition of news and notes, we take a look at the ever swirling world of college “playoffs”; helping you get to the bottom of the matter. You can probably guess where this is headed…
Never forget
Buckeye 411
(Gee) knows more about bow ties than he does about journalism.
Probably true, but since Gordo is a fifteenth level bow-tie ninja, what does that say about your point?
OT J.B. Shugarts (seventh or free agent): Good size, but had false start and some foot problems with the Buckeyes.
Weekly updates and miscellany from around the world of college sports…
Urban Meyer's Secret Identity?
Buckeye 411
“To be able to lead, you have to serve first,” Posey said. “I feel like being on scout team, helping the younger guys and being in the meeting room and telling them the little tips that I have allowed me to understand the game more and it humbled me as well. That’s what I needed going into this process and going to the next level. Through this process, everything you hear is what you can’t do and everyone’s tearing you down. Going through the draft, you’re going to hear a lot of negative things and then, when you get into camp as well, you have to be humble as well. You have to serve the team and show them you can play. I felt like I learned all those lessons this past year.”
“Every day at practice was a challenge, so I definitely think that will pay dividends,” Brewster said of Ohio State. “It really comes in the preparation the last couple weeks and really, four years of college. Now, it’s just show time and it’s time to go out there and do it. Anytime you get a chance to go against the best, you want to measure yourself.”
Books. Saving Lives For Years.
With the “off season” (or as Urban calls it- “Hunting Season”) upon us, SBP takes a bit of a different twist. Usually focused on news and updates from OSU press conferences and weekly preparation, during the off season, we’ll use this spot to affirm my ADD and help you stay on top of news from the national scene. In other words- things that you might have missed or will want to print to read during those boring meetings or your “consulting” trips to the washroom. I read it so you don’t have to.
Bowl championship Series
But because the agreement between cable network and bowl series has to make you wonder where the relationship between ESPN and the football it pretends to cover begins and ends. Are they partners? Is this a legitimate subject-reporter situation? Once ESPN buys access to an event don’t they then turn from journalist to promoter?
Don’t answer.
Everyone already knows.
When ESPN selectively covers stories, as it does during a college football season, and attempts to dictate what is news and what is not to the public, how can any of us not be left wondering if they’re really reporting the news or simply protecting their bowl-week product? After all, they’re in this thing together now. When they’re slow to break a story, can we be sure why?
Updating an earlier post…
Well, here we are, on the cusp of the “Hyperbole Bowl!!!1!1!!”. Alabama -vs- LSU; the game so great it had to be played twice.
Same Game, Different Shirt
Granted, both LSU and Alabama are amazing teams, and deserve their top rankings. Each program is led by a coach that has won a national championship; with Coach Saban doing it at both schools. Both come from the tradition and experience laden SEC, winners of the last five national titles.
So, in many ways the extreme coverage is warranted. Given that both teams have had a significant time to prepare, and that their conference has exclusive coverage from the network that creates news stories, I’m actually surprised at how understated the buildup to this game has been. But no, I won’t be watching.
It’s not simply because I’ve already seen this game and believe that another team should have been given a chance… others have covered that already. It’s also not due to the fact that this proves nothing new- an Alabama win only evens the series… when’s the rubber match?
No, the main reason I’m not interested in tuning in to the four letter network is that their coverage of this game has been woefully incomplete (go figure). In addition to the fact that both teams are on NCAA probation (who knew?), there’s another shadow over this “epic clash”. For all the talk about strategies and “SEC Speed” and Heisman Finalists, one key reason that these two teams are so successful is being completely overlooked and under-reported in the build up; again, surprising given all the time dedicated to previewing this match.
Look, I’m on record as being very “anti-human interest angle” pre Super Bowl, and my perspective here is why I refuse to watch the Olympics. However, there are student athletes who have been forgotten and cast aside here, not just by the media coverage, but by the programs themselves.
I’m referring, of course, to those players who have ‘left’ the active rosters of each team for what might be considered questionable reasons.
Today marks the sacred celebration of Festivus, so we here at tBBC have been prepping for the Feats of Strength- JoeD used to wrestle, Rob and Jason have Buckeye football backgrounds, but my money’s on Jim… I think he brings a ton of tenacity to the table.
Anyway, another important Festivus tradition is the “Airing Of Grievances”… and we turn the mike over to our friend and investigative reporter Westy, who weighs in on the state of the sport in Columbus and beyond.
So what do you say now that the news has been handed down? The Ohio State University will be punished with additional scholarship losses, and most notably no Bowl game in 2012. If you’re anything like me you spewed a line of almost incomprehensible obscenities and threats at your radio while driving back to work from your lunch break. But pause for a moment and take a look at the bigger picture with me, if you will. College football is broken. No not in this “everyone is cheating, oh heavens to betsy!… quick get Grandma off the roof!” sense of the word broken. It’s broken in the sense that it’s dominated by greed and money, and the game quite frankly doesn’t matter anymore. Let me list for you a few of the plethora of reasons college football is broken…
Locked And Loaded
The biggest source of sports news in the world is ESPN. This goes for college football as well. There are other sources out there (you’re reading one right now), but if you want to talk the head honcho — you talk ESPN. ESPN has a financial contract with the SEC; a FIFTEEN year contract worth several billion dollars, to show SEC games on their family of networks. They are in every sense of the phrase, “in bed” with the SEC. Pause and think about that for a moment. The number one source of college football commentary, reporting, news, etc … has a vested interest in seeing only ONE of the eleven major college football conferences succeed. Am I the only one who noticed the conflict of interest there? Am I the only one who doesn’t wonder aloud if all of their hardcore investigating into Ohio State, Penn State, Oregon, UNC, USC, etc, etc… is just a bit curious since they by in large ignored situations at Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina, LSU… How many of you can tell me what the cases even WERE at all four of those SEC schools?
Think for a moment if the President of the United States, (be it Barrack Obama, George W Bush, Harrison Ford, whoever…) had all of the major new networks on his side. Let’s say that maybe those networks have a contract with the President, where they get to show his public addresses on their networks, in return for a huge chunk of money. No switching to Fox or to MSNBC for the opposite prospective, they both like the guy and dislike his rivals…. Does that make your stomach turn a bit? Does that make you wonder about the “slant” they’re giving their information? ESPN is to sports, what MTV is to music, only ESPN doesn’t air Jackass (although you’d never know the difference if you looked at their commentary line up, ahem, May/Holtz/Corso/Herbstriet/etc). Read More
Obligatory Rose Bowl Photo
Ah, the most wonderful time of the year. As if you needed an excuse to sit around and watch football, having it on eleventy days of the week means that you’ve got a built in excuse to avoid certain members of your family and drown out your kids’ “holiday pageant rehearsal” noise.
‘Cause, really… how many times can a person botch “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” on the recorder before some sort of homicide happens?
And, since you’re going to watch the games anyway (or at least tell people that you are- what you do with the LSU/Alabama matchup is your business) you might as well win something, right?
So- it’s time for The Buckeye Battlecry Bowl Spectacular!!!
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.
