Our Honor Defend

I’ve intimated about this on my Twitter account, but I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks in Ann Arbor — yes, that Ann Arbor — on business¹.  The next four weeks should be fairly hectic, likely including 10-12 hour work days, and thus I expect posting will slow even more than it already has under my workload.  Still, it’s a great project I’m working on and a certain resume-builder.  I’m not thrilled about the location, but away I go.

Meanwhile, here are some things going on around the college football universe.

Computers Select Ohio State Over Alabama in BCS Title Game

These always fall into the “take it for what it’s worth” category, but computer simulations using EA Sports’ NCAA Football 11 have Ohio State finishing the 2010 season the undefeated national champions of college football.

This would clearly be awesome.  Winning the national championship directly at Alabama’s expense would be the very zenith of awesomeness to which nothing could possibly be more awesome-r.  The sacred cow of the SEC, Alabama would bear the scar of “first SEC team to lose to Ohio State in a bowl game” for the rest of the program’s existence.  It’d be a doozy of a scar, and may take longer to heal than the sanctions the program endured as a result of the Dubose years at the turn of the century.  Further, I think such a result would catapult me to being the biggest menace to society in the state of Alabama, likely in the entire history of this wretched state.  My unrelenting gloating about this hypothetical result will eventually be my downfall.  After being chased to the outskirts of town by local shaking their fists and pitchforks to the tune of banjo getaway music, I will likely be captured and subsequently be given the ultimate penalty the state can muster: to be stuffed in a barrel and tossed down the river.  I will die in that barrel floating down the Black Warrior River, but it will be sooooo worth it.

EA Sports points to its track record with the Stanley Cup Finals and World Cup, successfully predicting Chicago Blackhawks and Spain victories respectively.  Of course, these are computer simulations that we as Buckeye fans desperately hope will be borne out in reality.  The 2010 season sees a talented Buckeye team trotting across a veritable minefield.  Bearing out those results requires the diligent preparation through these following weeks in the summer and faithful execution in the fall.  “Execution” is to be taken literally too.  I want the college football landscape to suffer.  It’s not that I want to rain on the parade of the rest of college football, I want to rain sulfur on the parade of the rest of college football.

Other interesting things worth noting:

• EA Sports has Ohio winning the MAC.  Ohio represent, I ‘spose.
• Boise State will apparently go undefeated, again, and not win a national championship, again.  I am fine with this.  I have nothing against the city of Boise, the largest enclave of my ethnic kin outside of Buenos Aires.  Rather, I do have an issue hearing that some former community college is the future of college football while I watch them play Hawaii and Idaho… in your standard nouveau-Nike mess… on a gimmicky blue turf… on a Thursday.
• By saying that Navy will win the “Independents” at 8-4, EA Sports is saying the Middies will finish with a better record than Notre Dame.
• Sanctioned USC will go 11-1 and win the Pac 10.  And (if it happens) it won’t do them a lick of good.
• The last Big 12 title game will not be between Nebraska and the Old Firm of Texas and Oklahoma, rather between Texas A&M and Missouri.  Texas A&M will win that game, says EA Sports.  This would be a welcome change; the last title game to not include the Old Firm was 1998 (Texas A&M over Kansas State).  Nevertheless, it is a result like this that affirms multiple simulations are more desirable.

Bob Stoops: Internet Troll?

On the Big 12 note, there was apparently this interesting exchange between ESPN Big Ten blogger Adam Rittenberg and Bob Stoops, the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners.

It starts in a Big Ten chat, where Rittenberg was broached by a fan about life after Tressel.  Perish the thought, but Rittenberg talked about the appeal of the Buckeye program and how it is, obviously, a destination job.  In the course of that answer, Rittenberg mentioned that the appeal of this job should be apparent to prospective hires outside the Buckeye state, including expatriates Bo Pelini (alumnus), Urban Meyer (alumnus (Masters)) and Bob Stoops (no connection, but from Youngstown).  The exact response is blockquoted below.

J-mac, while I think both Fickell and Hazell have great potential as head coaches, Ohio State is too good of a job not to open up to the outside. So many elite college coaches hail from Ohio, and you’d be surprised at some of the names that would be interested when Tressel moves on. Pelini is certainly one who might be talked about, along with Bob Stoops and maybe even Urban Meyer.

It seems a generic enough response, right?  Even if Rittenberg may be overselling the level of interest for people like Meyer² and Stoops³, the essential message that Ohio State is one of the destination jobs in college football remains in tact.

It doesn’t end there.  A “Bob Stoops” of Norman, Oklahoma chimes in later in the chat in response to Rittenberg’s comments.

Adam, simply stated, a move from OU to OSU is a lateral move at best.

Rittenberg responds with the internet chat equivalent of the double leg takedown.

Bob, I’d invite you to take a look at Ohio State’s athletic budget. Your opinion probably will change. Also, at Ohio State, unlike Oklahoma, you can actually make moves independent of what your archrival does. It was comical to me how Oklahoma was willing to follow Texas no matter what, as if it couldn’t survive without UT. Imagine Ohio State doing that.

Of course, anyone can go on the internet under a pseudonym.  See: yours truly.  Further, you can look across most college football blogs and come across comments that are submitted under the pseudonym of a college football head coach, done for comedic effect under appropriate circumstances.  What makes this all the better is that ESPN’s Big 12 blogger David Ubben is saying that was actually the real Bob Stoops who posted that comment.

To be clear: I’m not at all interested in debating which program is more prestigious or what would be the better destination job.  They’re both fine choices for our purposes.  The real topic of interest here is not that question, but rather questions of what Bob Stoops was doing monitoring that chat and what was he hoping to accomplish (if that was indeed him)?  The answer is probably something pretty uncontroversial.  Aside from tracking his recruits, keeping tabs on current players during the summer and preparing for the upcoming season, Stoops is probably stuck in front of a computer with some regularity.  Just as you or I.  And, just like you or I, there is nary a way to better procrastinate than read and discuss college football during work hours.

Whatever the answer is, even throwing his name in that conversation makes him come off as just a bit of a troll.  I know he’s not leaving Norman anytime soon, but I don’t think he accomplished anything with that comment.  It just seems strange, and out of place for someone like Stoops.  I’d expect that from Pete Carroll; I’d expect a severed horse head in someone’s bed if Jim Harbaugh was involved.  I would never have thought to see Stoops’ name here.  Bob Stoops can make it better by getting in a flamewar with Adam Rittenberg.  There are funnier things out there, but an official state of beef being declared between a college football coach and a nondescript ESPN blogger from an entirely separate conference would qualify as one of the funnier things conceivable for me.

Elsewhere

• Michigan Stadium’s seating capacity is now over 109,000.  Meaning: now over 3,500 more people can go there and watch Michigan football suck out loud.
• Another One Bites The Dust… just months before the season begins.  Bobby Johnson resigns, or retires, or whatever, from Vanderbilt.  I wonder if Bradley Roby is feeling better about his decision now.
• The suspect in the Jamel Turner shooting and homicide of female friend turned himself in.  Unfortunately, a volatile situation in arraignment (where victim and plaintiff families are present) resulted in an altercation.
• Cardale Jones and Shane Wynn are saying they’re a combo deal now.  This would otherwise be unproblematic for Tarblooders and the Buckeye program, except that Jones does not have an offer while Wynn does.  I’m not quite sure how this one plays out.  Regardless, combined with the fallout from Latwan Anderson last year, I’ve been wondering for sometime that a clog in the Glenville-Columbus pipeline is coming sooner rather than later.

A Drive-Thru for the Road

I know a lot of you have been wondering why I haven’t been uploading games to the YouTube-o-vision with some more regularity.  Truth is, I’ve been busy, a few games I’ve wanted to upload have flaws in my copy (1990 Boston College, 2006 Fiesta Bowl, for example), and I’m trying to figure out how I can use my program (Cinelerra) to make the most of the footage I have.  So, you know, a variety of reasons.  Nevertheless, as I am en route to Ann Arbor over the weekend and will be away from my regular computer for those couple weeks, I’ll present one more for the road.

I decided to go with the 2001 Ohio State-Michigan game.  This is an important game in the history of the rivalry, certainly one that I hope becomes more important in the increasing years.  Simply put: Jim Tressel turned the rivalry on its ear when he got to Columbus in 2001 and we are forever grateful for it.  It started with this game.  The underdog Buckeyes enter Michigan Stadium, a place where they’ve only won twice since the 1975 victory, and deny Michigan not only a share of the Big Ten championship, but the BCS bid as well.

I don’t think I need to recite the circumstances entering the game.  Ohio State was playing for respect, animosity and, perhaps, a better bowl.  Michigan was playing for a conference championship and the Sugar Bowl.  Steve Bellisari, the starting quarterback, was suspended for the game following a DUI, throwing a very green redshirt sophomore Craig Krenzel (of Sterling Heights, Michigan) to the wolves (no pun intended), the best defense in the conference (national top 10) before an unsympathetic homestate crowd.  That was the story leading into the game, but Jonathan Wells and John Navarre emerged as the stories of the game.  The senior tailback from River Ridge, Louisiana gashed Michigan’s vaunted rush defense, led by fullback Jamar Martin who effectively neutralized first team All-American linebacker and conference defensive player of the year Larry Foote.  Meanwhile, John Navarre imploded in the first half of this game.  Unable to move the ball for the lionshare of the game, and unable to maintain possession of it (3 INTs, one fumble lost), Navarre handicapped his team even when Michigan’s defense shut down Ohio State’s Wells-less offense in the second half.

The rivalry has not been the same since.  Should this string of results hold for the next 5 years or longer, this game approaches results like 1968, 1969 (and, indeed, most results from the Ten Year War) in historical significance.  You can watch it below.

1. And, no, I’m likely going to behave and just stick to my work.  My bosses, aware that I’m likely insane and antisocial, just advised me to not get in trouble, having faith in my ability to elude suspicion and capture.  My mom gave me a simpler message, telling me that she wants me to behave.  Mom was here first and is more important, so she wins.  This will be disappointing to my bosses, and my colleague (coincidentally from Michigan), who told me they were going to set their Google RSS feeds to include the terms “Ann Arbor”, “University of Michigan”, “arson spree”, “children’s hospitals”, “retirement homes”, “daycare centers” and “Michigan Stadium” to see what came up. [↩]
2. …who may retire a few more times from the program in the talent rich tax haven state before Tressel eventually leaves. [↩]
3. …clearly has a good empire in Norman, and is approaching that age where starting over does no good [↩]