Michael Weintrab on the
bleak future of the Big Ten (now with Maryland! WTF?):
Those of us who still bother to pay attention to Big Ten football
have seen it coming for quite some time. The demographics are working
against us. The population is shifting south, where high schools
practice in the spring and construct $60 million stadiums;
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan have all shed electoral votes since
1980, while Florida and Texas have gained them. Only Ohio State (and
perhaps Michigan, to a lesser extent) seem positioned to be nationally
competitive by recruiting locally.
Meanwhile, maybe you've noticed that Big Ten games have gotten slower
and slower, and less and less compelling. Do you know the last Big Ten
quarterback to be chosen in the first round of the NFL draft? It was
Kerry Collins, in 1995. The two best pros the Big Ten has produced in
recent years, Drew Brees and Tom Brady, came from Texas and California,
respectively. Russell Wilson, who transferred to Wisconsin for his
senior season, went to high school in Virginia. And in case you missed
it, all of this was hammered home by the high-profile oopsy-daisies of
standard-bearing Ohio State in BCS bowl games throughout the '00s.
" … I'm not a demographer, nor am I a football coach," said Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, when Rittenberg questioned him
about these issues a few months back. No, like most conference czars,
Jim Delany is a lawyer, a Type A master of the universe who recently
climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro at age 64,
and he has often presided over his fiefdom by limiting public
information and defending the indefensible (i.e., the BCS) because he
can get away with it.
The numbers don't lie. By the way, I wanted to see the Big Ten add the Midwestern members of the Big 12 and create a 16 team conference. With Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Missouri, they would cover all the worthwhile agricultural states. They could also put those schools in with Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin and have a nice Eastern conference and Western conference, and they could get rid of that Leaders and Legends bullshit and maintain most regional rivalries. Oh well, instead they added the worthless Maryland Terrapins. Screw you, Big Ten.
As someone who has watched the Big Ten become ever more sucky by the year, I keep hoping my alma mater (Univ of Minnesota) just drops big-college sports. We will NEVER be good at anything—and that includes hockey where we once had the best program in North America (and yes, that includes Canada).
ReplyDeleteYeah, it hasn't been pretty, but, then again, I kind of felt the same way about Notre Dame a few years ago. Now they might be cashing in by getting their asses kicked in the BCS Championship this year. That is if they can manage to not lose to USC on Saturday.
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