Grizalltheway wrote:Big 10.
Yeah, the Big Ten is paying the price of keeping Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and the remains of what were once-great programs (Michigan and Nebraska around). Rutgers and Maryland might be IMPROVEMENTS when they join the conference. Who saw that coming.
I don't know what happened to Iowa, I thought Ference could have kept them going, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. Indiana appears to be well on its way to being at least decent. Illinois and Minnesota are embarrassments to BCS-level football. Illinois should NEVER have fired Ron Zook. The guy could recruit. Sure, he couldn't coach a lick but when your team is at least getting top 25 recruiting classes annually, your team will at least be interesting and generate some fan and national interest...and you might pull off a few upsets.
Ohio State and Northwestern and Wisconsin are the ONLY things going for this conference. Penn State and Michigan State are wild cards. If O'Brien stays (he won't), the Lions could become a quality team again. Michigan State hasn't been the same since Jim Tressel left Ohio State. A (mine) theory: Tressel and Dantonio are good friends. Both recruited Ohio hard. Any guys that Tressel couldn't fit into a given recruiting class, he would nudge to Michigan State (guys like William Gholston and Le'Veon Bell in recent years) so that they wouldn't go to Michigan. Well, Tressel is gone and Urban Meyer doesn't play nice with his rivals. So Dantonio has had his training wheels taken off, so to speak. And he's lost a lot of upperclassmen who were NFL-worthy talents.
Nebraska just isn't the name it once was. That program died the night Miami annihilated them in the Rose Bowl. Their ceiling is now 9-10 wins per year. Which is good for most, but not Nebraska's delusional fanbase, who think they should be as good as Oklahoma or Texas (their old rivals) or Ohio State and Wisconsin. I have a lot of faith in NW as long as Fitzgerald stays around. They could forge a Stanford/Vandy/Notre Dame-esque identity behind recruiting strong students who are also good athletes. Stanford has proven it can be done and Vandy has improved despite their academic rigor.
