Thursday Morning Hive Shuns any Attempt to Raise the Bar
In the Hive
Welcome Hivers! I hope that you’re all having an excellent morning. Myself, I’m doing fantastic. As I type this, the Basketball Buckeyes are leading Penn State by a score that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 56-12 despite the fact that some young lion just managed to elbow Aaron Craft in the face twice on the same play. The horror! You just don’t do that to the dreamy one. Alas, with the game now comfortably in hand, I can focus all of my efforts on once again bringing you the best regular Thursday morning column on this site—the Thursday Morning Hive!
Bowl Eligibility Threshold to be Raised?
I’m a fan of bowl games. Scratch that, I’m a huge fan of bowl games. Be it Beef O’ Brady’s, Kraft Fight Hunger, Taxslayer.com or any other ridiculously named contest, I’m in. But even a staunch bowl game devotee such as me has to admit that the bar to qualify for a bowl game is pretty low. For instance, this year a team with a losing record made a bowl game (UCLA). Why? It was because despite their seven losses, the Bruins still managed to rack up six wins. Furthermore, there were a whole host of teams that, due to losses in bowl games, finished the season with a losing record. As we all know, our beloved Buckeyes were one of them.
Well, it looks like the NCAA is poised to do something about it. According to Brent McMurphy of CBSSports.com, the bowl-eligibility threshold is likely to be increased to seven wins.
“There is “growing support” among conference commissioners, athletic directors and bowl officials to increase the difficulty of becoming bowl eligible by requiring teams to have seven victories, or a winning record, when the new BCS cycle begins in 2014, multiple sources have told CBSSports.com. The seven-win requirement would also mean a handful of bowls likely would be discontinued because there would not be enough eligible teams to fill all of the current 70 berths. In the past two years alone, 27 teams with 6-6 records were needed to fill all the bowl slots, meaning nearly 20 percent of the bowl field didn’t have a winning record.”
Source cbssports.com/McMurphy Read the entire article here.
When I sat down to write this up, I wanted to take the position of being for the seven game threshold. It makes sense, right? Why should a team be rewarded if it can’t win seven games? The more I thought about it, though, the more my position started to switch. As I mentioned earlier, I’m a bowl game nut. Some people think we have too many, but In my opinion, there can never be too much football. Why make a switch that would cut down the amount of games we have to watch (unless, of course, it was in the name of a playoff)?
It’s about more than being a greedy football fan, though. Let’s look at who benefits from these extra bowl games. The cynical answer is simple: the establishment. And they do benefit. Bowl execs, TV networks, universities all reap financial benefits from these games. It’s not just them, though. The players benefit. They gain an extra month of practice that helps them improve. They get to have the bowl experience; traveling to a new place, being a part of bowl festivities, etc. The fans also benefit. Even after an all-around cruddy season that fed us disappointment after disappointment, Buckeye fans had something to look forward to during the month of December. Sure, the end-result wasn’t perfect, but it sure beat having the season end with the loss to Michigan.
So you can have your arguments about “rewarding undeserving teams.” I’ll take watch Western Michigan play Purdue in the Little Ceasar’s Bowl and like it. I rarely solicit comments in my posts, but I truly would like to hear what the rest of you think about the potential switch.
Reeves Narrows the Field to Two
Ohio State doesn’t have much room left in this year’s recruiting class, but should Armani Reeves decide to come aboard, Urban Meyer would likely find him a spot. A native of West Roxbury, Massachusetts, Reeves is a 4* (rivals) prospect who ranks 17th nationally among defensive backs. Reeves is the high school teammate of Buckeye commit Camren Williams, and it was once thought that the two former Penn-State verbals were a package deal. Now it’s looking like that might not necessarily be the case.
Reeves has narrowed his college choice down to two schools—Ohio State and Michigan, and according to Reeves, the chase is still neck and neck. He broke it down quite specifically yesterday, saying Michigan had a 52%-48% lead over Ohio State in his head. With just over a week to go until signing day, I’m confident that, if he truly wants to, Meyer can gain that extra three percent.
Stieber Earns Wrestler of the Week Honors…Again….Kind of
Those select few of you whose weeks revolve around the Thursday Morning Hive already know this, but for the benefit of the disloyal masses, I will restate it: Last week Redshirt Freshman Logan Stieber was named wrestler of the week in the Big 10. This week, Big 10 wrestler of the week honors once again went to Stieber. This time, however, it wasn’t Logan. It was true Freshman Hunter Stieber who took the honors. Hunter’s upset of Iowa’s Montell Marion (3rd ranked nationally) was a key part of the Buckeye’s first win over the Hawkeyes in more than 40 years. With the victory, Hunter rose from #7 to #6 nationally in his weight class. The award was his first and the Buckeyes fourth of the season.
This weekend the Buckeyes are in action again. This time it’s a trip to University Park to face a tough Penn State team. Penn State is ranked third nationally and will provide another stiff test for the young Buckeye squad. A win here would go a long way toward vanquishing the memory of the two-match losing streak that the Buckeyes suffered earlier this month and solidify the team as legitimate contenders to the Big 10 crown. The match will be held Sunday at 2:00 PM and can be streamed live on BTN.com.
Written by: Dan Vest |
Not only should the games be cut, they should be moved to their regular dates. No college football after Jan 2. I love bowl games. They are a staple of college football. Tradition. A tradition I grew up with. And it is being twisted and turned for the worse. A New Years Day bowl game used to mean something. Not anymore. And Christmas week leading up to Jan 1 was the lower end games that easily beat staying at the house all winter. Like a Holiday Bowl on December 31 in San Diego.
the rule is that you need at least a .500 record. The only reason why UCLA went to a bowl game is because they travel very well and that bowl comittee that UCLA would make them the most money..and they did. It isn’t about qualifying anymore, it is about money.