That’s the worst call I’ve seen this season. I don’t care about either team, and I’m still pissed about it.
Category Archives: Big Ten Football
Wednesday morning buffet
Sights and sounds from around the world of college football for your dining pleasure:
- Here’s another one of those pieces about how the pandemic has affected small businesses in college towns.
- Four games in, Southern Miss is on its third head coach of the season.
- It just means more, Big Ten edition: “A Michigan fan who made violent threats toward Ohio State and members of its football program was sentenced by a federal judge on Tuesday.”
- For some reason, the November 14 edition of College GameDay will be broadcast from Augusta National.
- Evidently after being the impetus behind the state of Mississippi changing the state flag, Kylin Hill’s work is done, as he’s reportedly skipping the rest of MSU’s season to prepare for the NFL draft.
- “Texas Tech is one of the few state universities that has allowed tailgating to continue with safety restrictions in place. Since the pandemic began, more Texas Tech students have been infected with the virus than at any other in-state university.”
“My gut tells me if they play games, they’ll get their full payment.”
If you want to tell yourself the POTUS saved Big Ten football this season, knock yourself out. Personally, I’m going with the Big Ten Network.
Restoring the football season also bolsters the other major arm of the conference’s television revenue package, the Big Ten Network, which it operates in partnership with Fox. Without football (or fall sports more generally), BTN would have struggled badly for programming, and advertising as well.
In the conference’s current media setup, it pulls in $440 million from external partners, but also more than $100 million from BTN-specific revenue. Restarting football strengthens that revenue stream once again.
And all this puts advertising dollars back on the table as well. Crakes estimated the conference might see 60-70% of that revenue restored to what it would have been under normal circumstances.
The article estimates that if the season can be played, that’s worth somewhere in the range of $40-60 million to Indiana. That ain’t chump change, especially now.
Yeah, I think the conference made the mistake of thinking it was leading the charge to close down the season. But once it saw that several of its peers weren’t following, the it wasn’t going to walk away from millions it badly needs. The Big Ten isn’t a suicide pact.
Filed under Big Ten Football
“I don’t want to come across as the champion complainer.”
Now why would anyone think that, Bill Moos?
Athletic Director Bill Moos received the Huskers’ eight-game Big Ten schedule Friday night and saw that all things he’d fought for with the slate hadn’t come to pass.
“I wasn’t toasting champagne,” Moos said.
Moos said Saturday the Big Ten staff — and not the scheduling committee put together by the league — made the scheduling decisions, and used the original nine-game conference model created by the league for the first iteration of the 2020 league schedule. That schedule included road games at Ohio State and Rutgers, and a home game against Penn State.
The Rutgers game was dropped. Ohio State and Penn State, arguably the Big Ten’s best teams, remained.
What’s more, the Huskers play the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions — plus Big Ten West favorite Wisconsin — in the opening month…
“For obvious reasons, I was hoping we could dissemble the schedule because of unique circumstances and rebuild it to be fair for each school in the conference,” Moos said. “I was outspoken on that, to the point where they heard it from me every day. The rationale was there, I didn’t think we needed to follow it. Nebraska is playing five AP preseason Top 25 teams. Ohio State’s playing two.
“I’m sure my friend (Ohio State Athletic Director) Gene Smith is smiling today. His friend Bill Moos is not. I’ve got a good football team with a great football coach that deserves a break here or there to start getting back on track to being a contender in the Big Ten West.”
Nebraska football, can’t live without it, can’t live with it.
Filed under Big Ten Football
More from the day the vaunted Big Ten became the SEC.
Two quick notes from the re-opening…
First, a chuckle.
Dude, I’m afraid your “no one wanted this to be political” horse done left the barn a while ago. But, sure, close that door now if it makes you feel better about yourself.
Two, a head shaker.
“Of all the questions in the world, that certainly is one” is a helluva way to say, “hey, look we need the money, man”. But it really is all they’ve got.
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UPDATE: Gosh, you can just feel the moral struggle these great leaders are faced with.
Filed under Big Ten Football
Tripping on the victory lap
Leave it to the White House not to be able to pat itself on the back and know its college football geography at the same time.
Unless it turns out raiding the SEC for new members is part of the deal to re-open the Big Ten…
Filed under Big Ten Football, Political Wankery
Overwrought
Hyperbole, anyone?
The idea that any P5 conference just now in the year 2020 “sold its soul for football” is delusional to start with, but to pretend today is a bigger black eye for the Big Ten than Jerry Sandusky and the institutional coverup that enabled a serial child molester borders on the truly offensive.
Oh, and fuck you with the “became the SEC’ holier than thou crap.
Filed under Big Ten Football, Media Punditry/Foibles
The Big Ten returns.
Minds changed.
That works out to an eight-game schedule, if I’ve counted on my fingers correctly. Which begs a couple of interesting questions…
First, will a conference playing fewer games get an equal shake with the selection committee? Second, with almost no margin for error on the calendar, how soon does the Big Ten start lobbying the playoff folks to modify the 12/20 (the day after the B1G championship game) announcement of the CFP field?
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UPDATE: One bright spot I don’t want to neglect…
Filed under Big Ten Football
“It’s light-years different than it was five weeks ago.”
Apparently, this is a thing now.
The Big Ten’s council of presidents and chancellors will meet Sunday to review the latest medical information and possibly vote again on when the fall football season can begin, sources told ESPN.
The medical subcommittee of the Big Ten’s return to competition task force met Saturday with a smaller group of eight presidents and chancellors, who pushed the process forward for a possible revote as early as Sunday.
Saturday’s presentation focused on the medical information, but Sunday’s meeting will broaden the focus to include how to start, when to start, and the medical thresholds that must be met in order to return. Specific return dates are expected to be discussed, according to a source.
Six votes need to change from the initial 11-3 vote in order for the conference to proceed with plans to start a 2020 season. I doubt they’d be planning something like this without a decent indication that minds have been changed. But the logistics still sound like a bitch ($$).
… But multiple programs face obstacles, including Wisconsin, which announced on Thursday that its football program would pause athletic activities for two weeks due to its positive tests. That means the Badgers won’t be able to practice until Sept. 24 at the earliest. All of Maryland’s athletics activities are currently suspended as well. Penn State this week paused workouts for several unspecified teams.
All of which leads to a distinct possibility of half a loaf.
If the presidents vote to start the fall football season, the earliest time frame for kickoff would be mid-to-late October. A key factor is how quickly the conference determines a testing agreement and when supplies can be in place. Sources said it’s also possible not all Big Ten schools choose to play a fall season.
I’m not sure any of that matters, because the whole thing sounds like a delivery system to get Ohio State into the CFP picture. How that’s gonna work when the Big Ten plays fewer games than the ACC, Big 12 and SEC is a problem to be whined about down the road, I guess.
Oh, yeah — speaking of matters that are light-years different than before, here’s one that’s not.
One source added that the league’s television partners are supportive of an October start.
When they say it’s about the money…
Filed under Big Ten Football, The Body Is A Temple
Too much time on their hands
Apparently after all these years, it’s just now come to the attention of the Attorney General of the State of Nebraska that the Big Ten “is operating and conducting business within the State of Nebraska without being registered and/or failing to maintain registration to conduct business within the State of Nebraska.” Obviously, the man has had a lot on his plate.
What follows in the letter is a long list of requested documents to be furnished by the 21st and a threat of civil penalties for failure to comply. Shit, it’s none of my business, but if I were Kevin Warren, I would be awfully tempted to channel my inner Delany and threaten to terminate Nebraska’s Big Ten membership by the same date. That would sure solve the problem.
It’s amazing they think this is going to work. What a clusterfuck.
Filed under Big Ten Football, Political Wankery
