I apologize it has been so long; even if I am only apologizing to the 3 of you who visit the page 10 times daily. A lot has happened since my last post but I am happy to announce that the Michigan State campus has failed to burn to the ground at this moment in time and seeing as how school is letting out it may survive until football season. Yes, Mark Dantonio that is good news.

There is this recent hubbubaloo about the plus one model that was floated around for the BCS. A lot of people, like Matt Hayes from The Sporting News,  want to quickly blame the Big Ten and the Pac 10 because they have for the longest time been the loudest opponents to any ‘playoff’ idea. Never mind that 1) the vote to continue discussions was shelved by a 4-2 vote with only the SEC and ACC voting to continue discussions and 2) the actual proposal would not actually solve anything. If anyone remembers last season’s final BCS standings were: 1) Ohio State 2) LSU 3) Virginia Tech 4) Oklahoma. Can someone explain to me how that alleviates those who feel that Georgia, USC, and Hawaii were somehow cheated out of their chance to win a National Championship? Really all a plus one model would accomplish is to open up the level of complaining by more and more teams.

I suppose I can be crucified publicly for being on the side of the argument that is against a playoff in college football at it’s highest level. The game, commerically, is slowly becoming more and more and more like the NFL every season; even the rules are progressively becoming more ‘professional’. I like that fact that essntially one, sometimes two, slip ups and you’re out of the discussion.  Sure, it is sometimes fun to get behind a team like Davidson and their run through the most recent NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, or, be proud when Pittsburgh with an 11-5 regular season record (and wild card winner) stormed to vctory in Super Bowl 40. But these instances are few and far between because let us face the music — for the most part the BCS formula generally gets it right.

The other topic I wanted to hit on is Big Ten football coming out of Spring practice. I had previously put out my pre-Spring Big Ten rankings and there has been a slight change. The new order, with estimated records will follow.

1. Ohio State 12-0 (8-0)
2. Wisconsin 10-2 (7-1)
3. Penn State 10-2 (6-2)
4. Illinois       10-2 (6-2)
5. Mich State   9-3  (5-3)
6. Purdue        7-5  (6-2)
7. Michigan    6-6   (4-4)
8. Iowa           6-6   (4-4)
9. N’Western   5-7  (3-5)
10. Minnesota  3-9   (1-7)
11. Indiana       2-10 (1-7)

Now Michigan fan before you get all over me understand this … I think Michigan will be competitive but even the best coaches, including yours, have struggled in their first years at a new school - Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll, they both did. There are just too many questions offensively right now and maybe after Fall ball I’ll have a better grasp on things and how Michigan is going to stack up but with how thin they are offensively …. yikes. Of course, keep in mind, Ohio State was going to have to rely on their defense to get by and turned out to be quite good offensively. So maybe there is a surprise in the works.

My guesses for Big Ten Awards:

Offensive POY: Chris ‘Beanie’ Wells, Ohio State

Defensive POY: James Laurinaitis, Ohio State

Freshmen of the Year: Sam McGuffie, Michigan

So, I believe I am somewhat caught up. Time will tell what is in store for this upcoming season and I tell ya, I cannot wait!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Big Ten, NCAA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.