Think the Big Ten isn’t having a difficult time in football? The BCS standings have Boise State and Cincinnati, Western Athletic Conference and Big East Conference schools, ranked ahead of Iowa, the top rated Big Ten team.
The first six schools in the standings are: Florida, Alabama, Texas, Boise State, Cincinnati and Iowa. A WAC school ahead of everybody from the Big Ten? Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler must be fuming in their graves.
Opinion by some who follow college football is that the following conferences are better than the Big Ten: Southeastern, Pac-10, Big 12 and Big East. The SEC is in a class by itself with Florida and Alabama both in the league’s East Division. LSU at No. 9 and South Carolina at No. 23 give the 12 member league four teams in the BCS top 25 rankings.
The Big Ten has four teams also, with No. 13 Penn State, No. 19 Ohio State and No. 21 Wisconsin joining Iowa in the rankings. But based on this season and past performance the Big Ten isn’t impressive. Watching conference teams leads an observer to see fewer extraordinary players and sometimes less team speed on defense than the elite teams in other parts of the country.
Ohio State, the conference’s poster program for success, couldn’t win signature games against Southern California this season and last. The Buckeyes were one of six Big Ten schools to lose bowl games after last season. Iowa was the only winner. And in the last three years the Big Ten has lost all six of its BCS bowl games.
Forty or more years ago it was a good argument as to whether the Big Ten or SEC played the better football. In that era Big Ten teams played black athletes when many other schools didn’t. In the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s the Big Ten was more active than any other conference in its recruiting and playing of African-Americans. Other conferences were segregated or much more restrictive about opportunities. That edge is long gone.
The Big Ten has been in decline since the 1970s when for the first time it started losing Rose Bowl games with surprising frequency, coming up short in nine of 10 games. More recently Ohio State, for example, has lost three of its last four bowl games, including two games for the national championship.
This season the Big Ten may deserve better than to be ranked behind four other conferences. It’s questionable that the Big East is superior, that’s for sure. And those who are anti-Big Ten shouldn’t go too far in their excitement over conferences like the WAC, Big East and Mountain West (TCU is No. 8 in the BCS standings). Teams like Boise State and TCU play schedules that aren’t all that challenging. Boise’s weak schedule will keep the Broncos from a place in the national championship game.
But give a lot of other schools and conferences across the country credit for improvement and achievement. College football’s limitation on the number of scholarships that schools can provide has created more parity across conferences and the country. The marquee schools can’t hoard players like they once did.
More and better athletes in the south, southwest and west are stocking team rosters with greater talent than in the past. Schools with geographic proximity to that talent often have an advantage in recruiting. There’s an edge some places, too, in academic admissions regarding who gets into one school versus another.
Coaching makes a difference and few would argue that the Big Ten is a league of great coaches. Certainly Kirk Ferentz at Iowa deserves the label. Based on longevity and reputation, Penn State’s Joe Paterno does, too. Ohio State’s Jim Tressel, who has won one national championship and lost in two other title games, is a good coach. Michigan’s Rich Rodriquez must prove he can have the same success in Ann Arbor that he created coaching West Virginia.
The commitment of Big Ten schools to producing winners may not be as all consuming as it once was. At places like Florida and Alabama they have no problem justifying a 24-7, 365 day commitment to football.
In college football, as in life, you get what you ask for. Looks like the Big Ten needs to ask for more.