A Little Tired of the Big 10

So I was checking out SI's college football page when I came across this article by Stuart Mandel, in which he talks about the rough spring the Michigan Wolverines have had in terms of injury and the loss of four defensive stars to the NFL draft. The initial outlook in Ann Arbor was a rosy one, and why wouldn't it be? They return a trio of talented playmakers at the key offensive positions: efficient Chad Henne at QB, the diminutive but powerful Mike Hart at I-back, and the versatile Mario Manningham holding down the #1 wideout spot.

Mandel also points out the loss of several key players off their "dominant" (for the first 11 games) defense. Which made me wonder, why is it that they were an amazing unit for those games but not their last two? Did they get tired? Were they worn out? Or is it really because they play in a weak conference with only two or three good teams? I tend to agree with the latter. The reason Michigan (and Ohio State and Wisconsin) dominated the majority of their respective schedules last year was because they were playing against the intramural teams that comprise the Big 10.

The big 3 from the conference last year (Wolverines, Buckeyes, Badgers) went an extremely impressive 35-4 last year. Or at least it looks impressive, until you look at the rest of the conference standings. The next-most-successful team was Joe Pa's Nittany Lions, who went 9-4. Not bad, right? I mean, that's better than the Husker's 9-5 record, isn't it? But take a closer look at PSU's schedule. Three of their wins came against non-conference foes 5-7 Akron, 1-12 Temple, and the tough but still I-AA Youngstown State. And that's not taking into account their wins against 4-8 Michigan State and 2-10 Illinois. This is the fourth-most successful team I'm talking about here people.

Hell, look at the next team down the list, 8-6 Purdue. They barely beat Ball State and Miami of Ohio. They lost to Hawaii and Maryland, which are decent programs, but by no means powerhouses of their respective conferences. Well what about Iowa? They're a pretty good team, right? Wrong. Granted, everyone has an off season now and then, but even with Drew Tate running the show, they went 6-7, losing to the likes of 4-8 Northwestern and Indiana before falling to Texas team that was using 7th-string players by then.

What I'm getting at is that maybe the reason that Michigan and Ohio State stormed their way through the 2006 schedule is because they were playing against horrible teams. I'm not trying to take away from their accomplishments, winning 11 or 12 games is tough no matter what conference your in, but at what point do you end the charade that this is the second-best conference in the country? Look at the bowl results. Both Michigan and Ohio State, with the media singing their praises going into their season-ending games, got unmasked (to put it lightly) by far superior teams. The other Big 10 teams that were bowl eligible went 2-2, with one of the wins coming against an Arkansas team that was imploding at that point. This conference barely was able to fulfill their bowl allotment.

I live in Minnesota. I'm ten minutes from the Minnesota campus. So I hear all about how "tough" the Big 10 is, how they beat up on each other so there's no way to have a lot of dominant teams. And to an extent, they are right. There are going to be some losses between the teams when they get in their conference schedule. But there is a big difference between mediocrity and parity, and I get sick of the eastern media suggesting it's the latter when it is clearly the former.


Couple of notes:

-I think it's hilarious that Wake Forest is trying to prevent being taken over by Big Red fans like Notre Dame a few years ago.

-The NFL Network has decided to re-broadcast the Husker spring game, so I have finished my spring game diary........you can find it by scrolling down, so if you haven't already, check it out.
Have a good weekend everybody.