Friday, December 24, 2010

Has Pryor entered the Clarett zone at THE ohio sTATe university?

Yesterday, Terrell Pryor along with 4 other players were suspended for 5 games in the 2011 season.  The reason for this has been well documented on the ESPN site and you can read more about it here.  I'm angry about the suspension for a few reasons.
  • I'm angry at players for selling memorabilia to for money.  I don't care if the NCAA says the players weren't properly advised as that seems like a poor excuse.  Every player is told you can't profit from your participation in NCAA sports and selling a trophy is profit - plain and simple - end of story.  The money aspect doesn't bother me as much as the fact that these players don't care enough about the team to at least keep the items until their playing days at the school is over.  
  • Dear NCAA - 5 games?  Seriously?  This is worth 5 games after Cam Newton's dad was shopping him around and you worked with the SEC to make sure he didn't miss a single game?  I think the players should be punished but this seems to be a bit much and 2-3 games seems more fair.
  • Dear NCAA part 2 - You are allowing these TAT5 to play in the Sugar Bowl?  Hypocrisy much?  Seriously?  How can anyone take this organization seriously as I'm guessing that at least 3 of the 5 will now go pro and the Buckeyes will appear to have gotten off scott free.  If you are going to penalize the players you do it immediately starting with the next game.  What's that?  It might hurt a BCS games ratings?  Too f'n bad. 
  Tress should do their job for them and suspend the players anyway.  Then the team might get earn back a bit of respect that these players lost.  In my mind, Pryor has now entered the rarified world of Maurice Clarett.  There is no doubt that both players have talent but both showed an increasing immaturity off the field that ended up costing them playing time.  Buckeye fans overlook a lot of things and they've had blinders for Pryor in the past.  While other fans belittled his accomplishments, the fans were in his corner.  That free ride has ended and if Pryor comes back he better play perfect football or he will get crucified.  Anyone else remember how the fans turned on Steve Bellisari?  It's going to be that bad.

My preference is that he goes pro so the Buckeye fans can move on the the Guiton/Miller era.  No matter what happens we will look back 20 years from now and think ... it's too bad Pryor didn't have more than a 5 cent brain to go with his million dollar athletic ability?

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Who was the best Buckeye team?

I posted the following in response to someone that pointed out that John Cooper lost to both Michigan and the Bowl game 7 times in 13 years.
Excluding Michigan and bowl games, Coop's 1993-98 teams were an amazing 57-5-1. 5-7 vs Michigan/Bowl.

Those teams were among the most talented in Ohio State history and it is too bad they faltered down the stretch. Tresselball is no doubt a conservative gameplan but Cooper combined conservative play with panic and it showed on the field.

The worst for me was the 1996 Michigan game. I was sure they were going to win as they dominated play in the first half. Then a few breaks go Michigan's way and the team just seemed to accept they weren't going to win. At the end it was the quietest I've ever heard the stadium.
Here's the 13 games we didn't win.

11/6/1993 @ Wisconsin (10-1-1) 14-14
11/20/1993 @ Michigan (8-4) 0-28
9/10/1994 @ Washington (7-4)16-25
10/8/1994 vs. Illinois (7-5) 10-24
10/29/1994 @ Penn State (12-0)14-63
1/2/1995 vs. Alabama (12-1) 17-24
11/25/1995 @ Michigan (9-4) 23-31
1/1/1996 vs. Tennessee (11-1) 14-20
11/23/1996 vs. Michigan (8-4) 9-13
10/11/1997 @ Penn State (9-3) 27-31
11/22/1997 @ Michigan (12-0) 14-20
1/1/1998 vs. Florida State (11-1) 14-31
11/7/1998 vs. Michigan State (6-6) 24-28
To that someone responded with:
1969 osu team was THE most talented in osu history - and lost by 2 TDs to um 
I'm really not sure what he was trying to say and thought about remarking with a sarcastic -- Your point? But the more I thought about it it got me to thinking. Is the 1969 team the most talent in OSU history?

So I got out my trusty Excel program and downloaded a bit of information to make the following response.
Not sure you can definitively say the 1968 team was the most talented ever

There's really no good way to judge college talent but a good guide would be how the NFL rated by using the draft.  Keeping in mind that the NFL had 17 rounds back then, the 1968-1970 Buckeyes had 20 players drafted in the NFL (6.7 per year) with 8 (2.7) going in the first 100 picks.

The 1993-1998 Buckeyes had 38 players drafted (6.3 per year) with 22 (3.7) going in the first 100 picks.
The 2002-2006 Buckeyes had 39 players drafted (7.8 per year) with 23 (4.6) going in the first 100 picks.

These were all great Buckeye teams. All had great wins intermixed with a few heartbreaking defeats though I think it is safe to say that Cooper's teams underperformed the most.
I'm not sure if this proves anything but it was something I've been meaning to do for a while. I have all the NFL draft classes in Excel from 1990-2010 and now have added the 1968-1972 classes. Someday I'd like to fill in the gap.

On a totally unrelated note, USC had 27 players drafted from 1968-1970 while Grambling had 25 and Alabama had 3. It would have been interesting to see Grambling play back then. If a BCS system existed at that time they might have gotten an invite.