Purdue (6-6, 3-5 Big Ten) vs. Oklahoma St (7-5, 5-4 Big 12)

Tuesday, January 1st, 12:00 EST, ESPNU Television

Wide receivers coach Pat Higgins will lead the Purdue Boilermakers into the Heart of Dallas Bowl to take on the Oklahoma State Cowboys on January 1st. How in the world Purdue wound up in a New Years Day bowl game is beyond anyone’s comprehension, but I guess stranger things have happened.

We all know the Boilermaker story: Head Coach Danny Hope and his mustache were sent packing back on November 25th and former Buckeye assistant and Kent State head coach Darrell Hazell has assumed the post and will take control of the program on January 2nd. They come into the game with Robert Marve calling the signals of an offense that is inept at best yet somehow … [Read More]

Buckeye 411

• Major Awards- It’s the silly season for College Football, and sure enough America’s favorite collegiate popularity contest machine has decided to include some Buckeyes as a reward for the undefeated season. ESPN put Bradley Roby on it’s All American First Team. (FWIW, ESPN also tabbed TTUN’s Tyler Lewan to it’s All American list; you may remember Lewan from his impression of a turnstile against Ohio State’s freshmen defensive linemen.) The Associate Press had a little less love for Ohio State’s defense- Roby and Johnathan Hankins were on the second team, while John Simon was a third team award winner.
• More Love For Simon- He told a Youngstown paper earlier this week that he was planning on playing in the Senior Bowl; certainly
… [Read More]

We continue the journey across the nation to get you ready for kickoff in less than two weeks. Today, Gary weighs in on the newest incarnation of the Big 12 conference.

With all the Conference re-aligning going on it has been tough to keep track of what team is going where. Many conferences are taking on small changes while many are undergoing complete makeovers. Today, we take a look at the Big 12 conference, which has changed drastically over the last couple of years.

Baylor Bears
2011 Record 10-3
Pre-Season Rank: NR
Head coach Art Briles has his work cut out for him after losing all three of his stars from last year’s offense. QB Robert Griffin III, WR Kendall Wright, and RB Terrance Ganaway all lead the Bears at their respective positions and have all left for the NFL. The Baylor offense still returns three talented wide receivers in … [Read More]

The rest of the week will be dedicated to hoops, particularly the matchup with folks from Cincy, but I thought I’d drop a little mascot knowledge on you. While that thing above may technically be a “bearcat”, I’m still convinced that the official team name should be “UChickFilAs.” According to some, it’s a version of a wolverine found in Asia, so strike two. And finally, the pajamas… with stripes… like the Bengals, but not like a bearcat. Ah well- if you want good UC coverage, you’ll need to go to the source.

The Scoops In Hoops

• Closure- We haven’t heard much from our friend Robby since he moved down south (guess he’s got all SEC- uppity), but he did give the world a great article about one of our favorite non-Buckeye basketball players, looking
… [Read More]

Steve, our regular season picks champion, just happens to also be a Stanford season ticket holder, and gives us his rationale for the Cardinal’s sure victory. Be sure to check out the counterpoint!

At the beginning of the season I posted the following to poke a little fun at my Ohio State family:

To my Buckeye friends, Last year I wished I could afford tickets to see a BCS bowl champion, with a returning Heisman candidate QB, playing for a highly successful coach with experience in 2 levels of college football, playing in a recently renovated state of the art stadium. Sadly that coach is no longer with the team, but today my dream came true. I bought season tickets to watch Andrew Luck play for

… [Read More]

Well, our Midwestern correspondent checks in with one side of the debate… yeah, he’s biased. Be sure to check out the counterpoint a bit later this evening.

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 … [Read More]

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 … [Read More]