The Drubbing

Just expand the damn Big 11 already.

A few weeks back, Joe Paterno got cranky, just like old men typically do, and challenged the Big 10 leadership to correct a perceived deficiency in his coaching ability. Paterno, sick of constantly being physically manhandled in the Rose Bowl, requested that his minor conference expand to include a twelfth member. Paterno’s excuse for consistent bowl loses is simply put, the additional two week lay off from the end of the Big XI season to bowl season leaves the B11 rusty and therefore unable to compete with the likes of any other BCS conference.

For those that don’t know, the NCAA requires any conference seeking to add a championship game to have at least 12 members. The purpose of the championship game has little to do with competing to find the best team in a conference and more to do with lucrative TV contracts and ticket sales (assuming you host the CG in your geographic base…ACC). Case in point, F$U won the ACC in 2005 after limping into the conference championship game after a winless November…Hardly a method of choosing the best team over a 15 week season.

JoePa has USC in his sights, but it's from a long-range sniper rifle

Paterno’s flawed concept is that the big 11 can’t compete without a CCG. Last I saw, the 38-24 drubbing (which was worse than the score indicates) was to a team that does not play a conference championship game either. Perhaps someone should inform JoePa that USC is just plain better than PSU year in year out. While State Penn has been much improved since Michael Robinson’s miracle season in 2005, they have still been an afterthought in the national conscious for much of the last decade while the Trojans have been hyped as a professional caliber team.

Furthermore, if the concern is that the little 10 needs to extend their season to keep their focus, they could just as easily look at the Big East’s scheduling practices. The Big East solves this “issue” by continuing to play their conference games into the championship week of the season. As a matter of fact, I would argue more national attention is on the Big East’s final week of competition as its games are often the only thing on TV. I would have never watched a matchup between Hawaii and the ‘Nati Bearcats had it not been the only game on after the other conference championships were decided. And who can forget the final week classic upset in the Backyard Brawl two seasons back as Patricia White’s Mountaineers fell to Pitt?

The true problem with State Penn football is the same as the rest of their conference, they just aren’t that good. Big 10 football is the antithesis of speed. Remember just how pathetic OSU looked against LSU and Florida the previous two Mythical National Championship Games? I won’t buy any argument that it’s just because the SEC is that good (although they are). I’m pretty confident any conference champion from the past two seasons could have defeated tOSU in the last two MNCs. For example, had the Mountaineers advanced over Pitt two years ago, imagine tOSU dealing with the best dual threat QB since Michael Vick along with a future rookie pro bowl pitchman? I haven’t even mentioned the 4′-10” Noel Devine. The speed in WVU’s backfield would have slaughtered tOSU.

Ignorance is bliss for JoePa

It appears that someone has taught JoePa arithmetic in the past few weeks because he has now reversed course. My main issue with CCGs is that it forces the best teams in the SEC, ACC, and Big XII to beat one additional top 10 opponent to reach the MNCG than the other three conferences. With the BCS’s system of dropping teams that lose regardless of actual ability, this creates a major disadvantage for those conferences. All of the sudden, either your best team has to defeat an extra top 10 team compared to the other three conferences or your supposed 2nd best team has a loss in the final week of the season, vacating an at-large bid to an idle PSU (who would likely lose to tOSU in a CCG).

Joe Paterno looking spryer than ever

That being said, I believe if we are going to allow CCGs to decide conference champions, all BCS conferences should expand and include a CCG to level the playing field. The B11 should add a 12th member and become the B12 #2. Some universities that have been named as possibilities for expansion include: wvu (not classy or intelligent enough), Pitt/Syracuse (too good in basketball to leave the Big East), and Nebraska (yea right!). Alternately, Rutgers, Missouri or Iowa State would make sense. My dream scenario would involve Notre Dame joining and being forced to actually win a conference to make a BCS game as opposed to beating 8 service academies prior to losing to 4 teams with a pulse. Neuter Lame’s location, rivalries and tradition make it the perfect match for McChicken and tOSU.

So I repeat again, just expand the damn Big 11 already.