T1B

http://bigten.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/ ... 07aaa.html

Jim "our conference is still better" Delany, Commisioner of the Big 10, wrote:

Feb. 9, 2007


Greetings from the Big Ten Conference,


With the conclusion of another tremendous college football season and the recent national signing day, there has been a lot written and said about the Big Ten's recruiting efforts across the country, including a recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times entitled "Big Ten needs to find new talent pool - fast" (see full article here). In response to these commentaries, it seems premature for us to lower our admission standards or give up on the tremendous talent pool in the Midwest. No doubt national programs must recruit nationally wherever the talented students and athletes live. Hats off to Florida and the SEC -- they had a great year. We believe that both the Big Ten and the SEC have been and remain two of the greatest college football conferences in the country. But you may want to keep in mind the following as you review the various recruiting services, listen to talking heads and reflect the blogosphere out there as they compare these two fine conferences. I think most people would agree that head-to-head competition is an effective method to compare relative strengths between competitive entities:

The Big Ten was 2-1 vs. the SEC in this past season's bowl games.
The Big Ten is 8-6 vs. the SEC in bowl games over the last five years
The Big Ten is 13-13 vs. the SEC in bowl games over the last decade.
Over the last nine years of Bowl Championship Series games, the Big Ten leads all conferences with 15 berths while ranking second with eight victories. The SEC tops all leagues with nine wins and ranks second to the Big Ten with 13 appearances.
In the last 10 years the Big Ten has produced two national champions compared to three for the SEC.
In the last 15 years the Big Ten has produced five Heisman Trophy winners, more than any other conference. Over that same time span, the SEC has claimed one Heisman.
While the SEC ranked first among various recruiting rankings, the Big Ten ranked second or third nationally with four to five programs rated among the top 25 recruiting classes.
The Big Ten has a history of developing players - the most recent Heisman Trophy winner, Troy Smith, was one of the last players to receive a scholarship from Ohio State.
The Big Ten has slightly less than 300 players in the NFL while the SEC has slightly more than 300; Sixteen former Big Ten players earned Super Bowl rings with the Indianapolis Colts earlier this month.

I love speed and the SEC has great speed, especially on the defensive line, but there are appropriate balances when mixing academics and athletics. Each school, as well as each conference, simply must do what fits their mission regardless of what a recruiting service recommends. I wish we had six teams among the top 10 recruiting classes every year, but winning our way requires some discipline and restraint with the recruitment process. Not every athlete fits athletically, academically or socially at every university. Fortunately, we have been able to balance our athletic and academic mission so that we can compete successfully and keep faith with our academic standards.

Let's see if the five- and 10-year trend lines hold or whether the recruiting services and talking heads are seeing a new day. We are quite proud of our history and tradition and remain optimistic about the future of Big Ten football.

Thanks,

Jim Delany

Is this some response to the ass-kicking of OSU?

Weird.

Sounds like a response to people saying the Big 10 can't recruit with the SEC. While he made some good points, he definitely took the chum of whoever trolled him. As a commish, it should be below him to resort to this kind of retort.

One thing he hit one was absolutely right. It has to do with the whole "speed" issue. SEC teams aren't faster at the skill positions, they are quicker up front which then makes the rest of their team look that much faster.

He does make some valid points...I mean I live in an area with about a 70/20/5/5 mix between ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big East in that order and the SEC fans do not back shit up when they talk...one of the local radio hacks just continues to proclaim the SEC is god no matter what stats people bring to the table...

Granted Delaney got trolled but he does bring up valid points...to say that FLA, LSU, etc are any faster than say tOSU, Umich, etc...is a tough sell if you ask me...sure tOSU got it's ass kicked by FLA but to say tOSU was tons slower...I don't buy it...

good points good discussion...and I will stand by this until we have a playoff all this conference shit is meaningless...

just sayin

I saw Florida in person in the Outback Bowl last year and Ohio State at Iowa this year. Most of the players that played this year for Florida at least saw quality minutes last year in the Outback Bowl. And I can tell you from my viewpoint, that if one team was faster than the other it would probably be tOSU, althought both showed similar speed so if there was an edge to the Buckeyes it was a slight edge. Gonzalez, Ginn, Wells, Pittman, Smith, Laurinitis, Jenkins, etc.....I'm not sure how anyone could say that their speed doesn't match up to Florida or any other SEC team. It's ridiculous to look at that championship game as an indicator because Ohio State hadn't played in nearly 2 months. It was obvious they couldn't match the Gators intensity and they were much more rusty, so yeah, they're gonna look a step slower.

The problem with college football is the discussion between who the best conferences and teams are is only subjective. We don't have a true champion because we don't have a playoff system (no, CFB honks, the regular season is NOT a playoff), and we don't have many head-to-head matchups outside the bowl games involving 2 teams in the upper half of a major conference. The bowl games don't prove much in terms of conference superiority because they are basically meaningless. You never know which team makes the trip for a vacation and who makes the trip to win a football game. Until teams start being big fucking pussies and actually play a real non-conference schedule we'll never really know who the best conference and best teams are. In the NFL, we KNOW the AFC was vastly superior to the NFC because they proved it on the field and not on a message board. In college, everything is won on a message board.

I just thought it was lame for the big ten commish to go penis envy. Somebody bruised him up pretty good.

Someone send Delany a link to this board. I'd like to see him go head-to-head with SEC Ballsucking Homer.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:Someone send Delany a link to this board. I'd like to see him go head-to-head with SEC Ballsucking Homer.

Game over man...game over.

Ya I just don't think a guy like the Big10 Commish should be doing this sort of thing. Whether his points are valid or not he comes-off and defensive and whiny. Celebrate your conference, don't get sucked-into a "fuck you, we're as good as they are" argument.

Danimal wrote:Ya I just don't think a guy like the Big10 Commish should be doing this sort of thing. Whether his points are valid or not he comes-off and defensive and whiny. Celebrate your conference, don't get sucked-into a "fuck you, we're as good as they are" argument.

You should read Mike Silve's response....its fucking fabulous.

^^^^^^^^

Care to point me in that direction? I would love to see it...