2010 Big Ten Predictions

I haven't put a ton of time into this but before the Big Ten meetings I thought I'd put something out.

Big Ten 2010	10/2	10/9	10/16	10/23	10/30	11/6	11/13	11/20	11/27
Illinois	L	L	L	W	L	L	W	L	-
Indiana	L	L	-	L	L	L	L	L	L
Iowa	W	-	W	W	W	W	W	L	W
Michigan	W	W	L	-	L	W	L	W	L
Mich State	L	W	W	L	L	W	-	W	L
Minnesota	L	L	L	L	L	L	L	-	L
Northwestern	W	L	-	W	W	L	L	W	L
Ohio State	W	W	W	W	W	-	W	W	W
Penn State	L	W	-	W	W	W	L	W	W
Purdue		L	W	L	W	L	W	L	W
Wisconsin	W	W	L	L	-	W	W	L	W

2010 Prediction:
=================
Ohio State (8-0)
Iowa (7-1)
Penn State (6-2)
Wisconsin (5-3)
Northwestern (4-4)
Michigan (4-4)
Purdue (4-4)
Mich State (4-4)
Illinois (2-6)
Indiana (0-8)
Minnesota (0-8)

How will USC fare under sanctions?

As everyone knows, USC was recently given sanctions by the NCAA and someone made the following comment about them on the O-Zone forums:

USC will not recover from these sanctions for a decade. What has not been discussed with respect to the recovery from the early eighties is the scholarship limits which were not this tight at that time. With and 85 limit and a max limit annually of 15 for them, they are going to be majorly depleted.

There is no doubt that the reduction of annual scholarships from 25 to 15 will have the biggest impact on the Trojans.  The question is - will it set the program back a decade?

The Tide's National Champ hopes

I remember a coach saying something on a radio show a long time ago that has stuck with me.  The interviewer asked him who he thought would win the Big Ten that year and he said something like (not word for word ... it has been a while):

"You can never be sure that some one is going to win but if you want to know the contenders look at a team's quarterback, then the offensive and defensive lines.  If you have veteran leadership in those three areas you will always be a contender.  Most teams have playmakers but they can't do anything without the guys up front.  It is always the teams that get good decisions from the quarterback and control the line of scrimmage that win games and win the league."

The national magazines get hung up on the skill positions but without the guys up front they'd never get the chance.  You can't overcome the losses that Alabama did and not feel the effect the next year.  The idea of "we don't rebuild, we reload" means that your talent level is so far ahead of your competition that you don't need to worry about experienced players.  Ohio State can get away with that using Tresselball in the Big Ten but in the SEC the talent is spread over more teams and one of them will beat the Tide this year.  I wouldn't be surprised if they lost 3 games.

Best 5 minutes in Ohio State History

The Editor of the O-Zone asked a question of the best 5 minutes in Ohio State's history.  This was in response to Jack Park's assertion that Vic Janowicz's first five minutes vs Iowa in 1950 was the greatest in history.  His performance that day can never be equaled since players no longer go both ways and the rise of specialty kicking has all but eliminated player kickers (coaches won't risk a kicker getting injured).  His question got me thinking about the best games I've seen and the best 5 minute span.  Certainly the last drive against Arizona State was amazing as was about 4 of the games during the 2002 championship run.  The comeback vs Illinois in 1984 was amazing as was the comeback vs Minnesota in 1989 and the one vs 1990 vs Iowa.   These were all amazing wins but none of them had the concentrated goodness that occurred against Notre Dame in 1995.

Bold Big Ten Prediction

I am a stat geek.  I love looking at statistics to try to find hidden trends or anomolies that don't make sense.  I was playing with an Excel spreadsheet the other day regarding the Big Ten and found a few interesting things.  Here is some facts pulls from the Rivals.com recruiting website when compared with current rosters:

		Total	*	Grad	Gone	Off	*	Def	*	Ath	*	Gone%	RS%
Ohio State	06-07	35	3.6	7	7	9	3.4	11	3.6	1	4.0	25%	40%
	08-09	44	3.8		5	19	3.9	16	3.9	4	3.3	11%	49%
	Total					28	3.8	27	3.8	5	3.4

		Total	*	Grad	Gone	Off	*	Def	*	Ath	*	Gone%	RS%
Penn State	06-07	44	3.3	7	13	10	2.9	13	3.5	1	2.0	35%	51%
	08-09	40	3.0		2	17	2.8	19	3.1	2	2.5	5%	63%
	Total					27	2.9	32	3.3	3	2.3

		Total	*	Grad	Gone	Off	*	Def	*	Ath	*	Gone%	RS%
Wisconsin	06-07	39	2.8	1	19	13	3.2	5	2.8	1	2.0	50%	40%
	08-09	46	2.8		12	16	2.9	16	2.8	2	3.0	26%	49%
	Total					29	3.1	21	2.8	3	2.7

		Total	*	Grad	Gone	Off	*	Def	*	Ath	*	Gone%	RS%
Iowa	06-07	41	2.8	3	12	9	2.8	15	2.8	2	3.0	32%	55%
	08-09	44	2.5		16	15	2.8	10	2.2	3	2.3	36%	51%
	Total					24	2.8	25	2.6	5	2.6

The Economics of a 12 team Big Ten - Part 1 (Conference games)

Now that the Big Ten will have 12 teams it was a foregone conclusion nationally that they will add conference championship game starting in 2011.  Jim Delany has been hesitant to commit to anything as it will be decided at the league meetings in August.  In the meantime they are reviewing all the facts and looking at alternatives as this decision has the potential to cost the league a lot of money.

Competition in the Big Ten

I've been working on a project to see how effective is a college is in getting their recruits to play for all 4 years (5 for a redshirt).  In theory a player should enter college and 4-5 years later exit with a degree.  Many things stop that from occurring such as injuries, academic casualties, and turning pro.  Some of this is outside the ability of a coach to control but some programs are worse at retaining their talent than others.  As Oversigning.com has stated, some programs make it a habit to "cut" players that aren't performing on the field.  My thought was to get a baseline of talent in college football and then look at the worst "oversigning" offenders.