Don't know about you, but I love Thursday night college football. It gets even better once the conference season starts to kick in. But even with not-so-epic games, it's still good. So what we're going to do each Thursday night is post our Big Ten Bloggers Pick'em entry (explanation below), but also make this into a fun Thursday Night Football Open Thread. Sound good? So let the chatter roll!

Some of the old-hat readers here will remember way back in the day when the Big Ten Bloggers were really cooking with gas. We used to have annual preview roundtables, weekly collaborations, and of course the Big Ten Bloggers Pick'em. Well, the only surviving one of those is the pick'em, graciously kept alive by The Daily Gopher.

And since I like doing it so much, you'll get to see us feebly pick each Big Ten football game this season. The standings will be posted at TDG each week, while we'll keep our own internal BSD standings for fun. I hope you enjoy, and definitely give us your own picks in the comments!

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The week that just barely was. Which will probably be the way we remember it.  The median Big Ten line this week is three touchdowns, the average is even a couple points higher than that.  Five schools are favored by over 30 points, and Iowa-Tennessee Tech hasn't been turned on yet.  YOU get a win, and YOU get a win, and YOU get a win...

A Few Good Teams.  The goal each week will be to get a proper Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon ranking, where we connect each team via their MAC web, then eventually though concurrent Big Ten results.

The beginning of this series is as good a time as any to make this flaming, state of the art, speed of sound traveling qualification: I do not in any way, shape or form represent that the results of this are predictive.  Teams, especially in college, evolve at wildly different rates, matchup expose different traits, and football has a built in insanity creator in turnovers, something that can mount on and destroy the very best of teams and also arrive with very little consistency.  So yes, I know the shortcoming.

Of course this isn't to say that the ranking we'll see here are any worse off than the wild speculation of pollsters or variable restricted BCS computers, but no silver bullet lives here either.

But let's get this first one out of the way.  The arbitrary rules here, with just one data point, is to resume rank in a sense: favored against a BCS opponent ranks highest, followed by favored by non-BCS, non-FBS.  Being a dog in the same order puts you fourth, and so on. You newly christened rankings:

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Hot on the heels of our now eerily prescient conversation with Colorado State University's Assistant Director of Compliance, John Infante, ESPN reports that the NCAA has informed Ohio State that the investigation into Buckeye athletic program misconduct isn't over.

In a letter sent several weeks ago, the NCAA told Ohio State that their investigators had not found any new violations and that the university would not be cited for failure to monitor.  Now, just a few days from Ohio State's appearance in front of the dreaded Committee on Infractions for the Tattoo Scandal that led to Jim Tressel's resignation, college athletics' governing body has made it clear that, much like the investigation into Cam Newton and Auburn University, the investigation is far from over.

Ohio State has understandably gone into spin mode over the issue, with a spokesman being sure to tell the media that last week's NCAA letter said "absolutely nothing about additional allegations."  But make no mistake - another Notice of Allegations and another meeting in front of the Committee on Infractions is still on the table for NCAA investigators, who evidently do not believe that their work in Columbus is complete.

What is the enforcement staff looking for?  Are they intrigued by the sham of a compliance department that self-reports more minor violations than any other university in order to enhance its credibility, then try to retain plausible deniability by feigning confusion?  Or maybe the NCAA is interested in how the Buckeyes have tried to place the blame directly on to Jim Tressel's shoulders while waiving his $250,000 fine, allowing him to retire, and paying him an extra $52,000?  This should be an interesting next few months.

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The Big Ten announced last Thursday that they would be moving to a nine-game conference schedule beginning in 2017. What does this mean for the conference, and Penn State in particular? We convened some of the Black Shoe Diaries brain trust to find out.

1) Does a move to a nine game conference schedule signify the end of marquee out of conference scheduling?

Jeff: Three months ago I covered this very question more in-depth, but the answer is yes, regular series against marquee out of conference opponents will become a thing of the past. Without getting too involved with the definition of "marquee" (Which of Alabama, UVA, Rutgers, and Pitt would you consider marquee?), home-and-home series just won't be able to sustain the athletic department's budget. They won't be completely dead, as the numbers will likely allow for one, maybe two, series every decade. But the yearly OOC slate will likely include MACrifices, I-AA bodybags, and other one-off opponents that allow the university to keep up the requisite 7.5 home games per season quota.

Chris: Most obvious way around this? Play more games. Otherwise, it'll be near-impossible for Penn State to schedule a decent non-conference opponent unless they're willing to play seven home games per year instead of the 7.5 noted above. But who is to say that the NCAA wouldn't clear the way for a 13th regular season game? You think they wouldn't? Have you met the NCAA?

More after the jump...

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I've always had a strong affinity for futures odds, especially as they related to college football.  The Big Ten odds always come out mid-summer, usually during or just after the slew of preview magazines gets properly digested, but I've always thought the bookies bring a stronger game.  Sure, Steele & Co. put their money where their mouth is in terms of predictions -- no one likes an expert who proves every year they aren't very good at their job, but at the same time that risk is only indirect.  It's typically analysis and information first, and Steele is the first name you think of precisely because of the homework he puts in.  If he puts in the sweat and is at least somewhat right along the way, well that seems to make the magazine worthwhile.

Oddsmakers have no such luxury.  A bad line means a bad business, and so it's be right or get hammered.  Sure, they're dealing with most of the same info as the "experts", and sure popular teams are probably taking a little extra juice on average, but there's a pretty real risk/reward model here the magazines don't share.

It's for these reasons I find this worthwhile, or at least the best we can do in August.

An interesting note before we get started, as posted above the division championship odds:

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It's been a while since any of us got something like this together, but today the Big Ten Bloggers reunite to pick preseason conference favorites for 2011 season.

Thanks to the participating blogs:

• Nittany White Out
• Nittany Lions Den
• The Daily Gopher
  
• Black Heart Gold Pants
• Sparty MSU
• Bucky's 5th Quarter
• Corn Nation
• Eleven Warriors
• Lake the Posts
• Maize & Blue Nation
• Crimson Quarry

See the full 2011 Big Ten Bloggers Preseason Football Poll below the fold.

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Starting this year The Big Ten Media Days will be without one of their favorite crutches: the voted-on media picks to carry us from July into September.  Gone is the predicted order of finish, as well as the offensive and defensive "Preseason Player Of The Year Award," something that never made logical sense anyway.

Not exactly a civilization regressing, according to ESPN's count:

Given that the media poll was batting less than .500 on preseason picks since 1996, perhaps they have a point.

That's actually way worse than it sounds: The league crowned at least two champions -- two/three/four times the odds! -- eight times in 15 years. There's more math here: That's 1.7 champions per season. This is all on top of Ohio State's relatively easy-to-see run over the last four to five years.

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The Columbus Dispatch has obtained a copy of Ohio State's response to the NCAA. Punishment Ohio State did self-impose: vacated 2010 wins and placed the football team on a two-year probation. The article does not spell out exactly what either of those functionally mean, if anything. Punishment Ohio State did not self-impose: loss of scholarships and a post-season ban. Predictably, Ohio State continues to operate from behind their stellar web of plausible deniability and have fully scapegoated Jim Tressel as the lone outlier:

"The responsibility is upon Tressel. No other institutional personnel were aware" of the violations, and the former coach failed in his obligation to report them, the response says. "The institution is embarrassed by the actions of Tressel."

The Dispatch article doesn't provide a link to the full response, so only a few quotable tidbits are available, but here is another:

The university concedes it is a "repeat violator" of NCAA regulations but contends that its "corrective and punitive actions are appropriate" and asks that the football program be spared additional punishment. OSU also reported that it sought the resignation of Tressel, who departed on May 30. Until athletic director Gene Smith acknowledged that fact yesterday, Ohio State officials had repeatedly said that Tressel was not forced out.

A quick timeline review of the violations process:

• 4/25/11: NCAA delivers Notice of Allegations
• 7/8/11: Ohio State delivers its 'response' for the NCAA to consider
• 8/12/11: Ohio State to appear before the NCAA's Committee on Infractions

Up next for the rest of us in the popcorn.gif: watch to see if the NCAA agrees that these 'punishments' are sufficient.

*UPDATE: Doc Sat's Graham Watson on the curious case of Gene Smith vis a vis Tressel's support and resignation.