So are we getting staff predictions of us against the bye later?

Another tiresome unsupported arguement from Mr Wetzel and his love affair with USC and their apparantly unfair ranking.
Atleast I can trust the blog community to provide excellent links to support the statements.
Well done Kevin.

It’s all smoke and mirrors with these writers. They love USC. They hate the Big Ten. They say things like: “Penn State’s most impressive OOC game is Oregon State — but they’re 4-3 and aren’t a very good football team.”

Well what does that say about USC?! They lost to the same team?!@#

It’s all double standards.

Take the bottom half of the SEC and the Big 10:

Illinois
Wisky
Michigan
Indiana
Purdue -- combined record: 15 and 25

Mississippi
Auburn
Mississippi St.
Tennessee
Arkansas —combined record: 17 and 23

Am I supposed to believe that there’s this huge disparity between these lists? You can do the same thing for the B12, and the results are the same.

The Big XII and the SEC are not required by law to hold a championship game, it is their prerogative. $o why would they hold an extra champion$hip game that could po$$ibly ruin a contender’$ BC$ chance$? Your guess is as good as mine

We don’t deserve to be in the national championship. I would be happy if USC passed us, since they deserve a national title shot. Or maybe Florida. It doesn’t matter that they lost a random conference game! They’re USC and Florida! They always deserve a shot at the national title.

Clearly the Big 10 is in the same league as the MWC and the WAC, right? Undefeated teams are happy as BCS busters.

I hate the media,

Big Ten teams don’t deserve to play in the MNC because Ohio State choked, Minnesota is having a good year, Oregon State is a mediocre school, and the conference looks almost as bad as the Big East.

Using that logic:
Big 12 teams don’t deserve to play in the MNC because CHOKElahoma choked.
SEC teams don’t deserve to play in the MNC because Vandy is having a good year.
Pac-10 teams don’t deserve to to play in the MNC because Oregon State is a mediocre school.
ACC teams don’t deserve to play in the MNC because they’re almost as bad as the Big East.
Big East teams don’t deserve to play in the MNC because they’re almost as bad as the Big East.

Did I miss anything?

I actually just posted a similar argument about the strength of the teams non con schedules. Did you know that the conference with the BEST record against non con is the ACC and the worst record is the Big 12. The Big 12 has played 10 non con BCS opponents with a winning record and they are 2-8 against them. How does that make the conference so damn tough? Cause they all beat up on each other? Ohio State would have been undefeated and a top 1/2 team if they had played a non con schedule like Texas!

What makes Minnesota’s non con schedule worse than Okie State’s? Oklahoma State played 1 BCS team in non con……Washington State!!

read the whole post here

jumping offsides

…for writing this article. I have read more garbage stories like this on the Rivals Yahoo website this past week than I can count. Whatever respect I had for these sportswriters is long gone.

I am glad PSU trashed their little BCS party by beating tOSU, and I hope the Lions will go all the way…and prove to some SEC or B12 school just how relevant the B10 is, and what the power of PSU football means.

Clearly, the Wetzel article is silly for many of the reasons you state. This "Big Ten Problem" is complicated and not easily reduced to "the Big Ten sucks" making the internet a bad forum for discussing it. My personal belief is the power teams in the Big Ten held onto out dated offensive philosophies for too long. This caused Big Ten defenses to be coddled or molded by the offenses. When OSU went outside the conference against good teams that ran the spread the deficiencies were glaring. I do think that you, the PSU fan, would be well served by sticking to your good arguments and moving away from the weak ones.

The best argument you have is being undefeated. If Alabama, Texas Tech, and PSU remain undefeated things will get dicey but that seems unlikely. If one of them loses it is nearly impossible to leave PSU out of the party because you don’t like their OOC schedule or something stupid like that. Beating OSU on the road, at night, is an excellent marquee win. USC’s marquee win is beating that same OSU team at home. If PSU loses they will probably get left out and based on who they lose to, deservedly so.

Some arguments are better left at home. Stop trying to argue the OOC is good. It is accepted that power teams will play one home and home OOC power team. Oregon State and Syracuse do not qualify. Syracuse was good, once, 10 years ago. Leave them out of your argument. Yes, Oregon State beat USC (unless PSU loses USC is not your enemy) but last year Stanford did also. That didn’t mean ND, who beat Stanford, was any good. Plus, you argue that Oregon State is some big win but then later suggest the PAC-10 is weak. PSU’s OOC is weak. Maybe it’s not your fault or you tried but facts are facts.

Now, on to OSU. The problem was OSU 2007. They never belonged in the championship game. They had a completely ridiculous OOC schedule and got by Michigan because of injuries. If OSU had beaten a healthy Michigan team on the road that may have meant something. PSU beating OSU on the road this season represents a much greater achievement than anything OSU 2007 did. Last year was just weird with a 2 loss team winning and all. OSU 2006 was legit. They just got beat. They beat Texas in Texas and a pretty good Michigan team. Then they just got beat.