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penn state football, 2000-04: 26-33, 16-24 conference record, 1 bowl appearance. 2005-09: 51-13, 29-11 conference record, 5 bowl appearances people were basically throwing dirt on the psu program and saying they'd never recover until paterno retired and they brought in mostly new staff. the last five years they and ohio st have been the class of the conference. it's hard to keep great college football programs down for long. Over the last 5 years, the have been on top (he isn't stating anything other than they have turned around what a bad situation previous to that). But that is not the point he is making, the point of the comment is that teams can rebound. I've read the post, I know what it says. That's why a page or two ago I told truffle that I thought adding that PSU was among the class of the big 10 took away from his larger point. did you see that post I made?

jesus truffle. cutting out the first half of your post where you discuss their record over the last 10 years and then bolding and underlining 4 words doesn't make me look stupid, it makes you look ridiculous. I'm fully capable of reading what you wrote. You used a 10-year period, divided it to make your school look better, and then made a statement that looks crazy since OSU has won outright or shared the big ten title each of the last 5 years. OSU has been the class of the conference for the last 5 years (and more). PSU hasn't distinguished itself apart from the 2nd tier as among the class of the conference during any period of time. But again, his point wasn't that PSU wasn't the class of anything. The point was that periods of crappiness can be followed by periods of success. That declaring Michigan as a goner was short sighted. Really? He said PSU was, with OSU, the class of the big ten for the last 5 years. So much was this his point that he went back to quote part of his post about it and highlight 4 words. I think that very much was his point. As an aside, no one is saying UM football is a goner, nor has anyone said or implied that it's dead. But it's not the program it was 15-25 years ago. Will it be again? Maybe. But it could just as easily settle in behind OSU with the rest of the good, sometimes great, teams in the conference. It's not a foregone conclusion that the UM/OSU game will continue to be the de facto conference title game as many think it has been (i.e., the winner will go on to beat whomever shows up from the west in the title game). it's certainly not necessarily true that the 3 best teams/programs in the conference (going forward) are OSU, UM, and PSU, which is really the larger point.

jesus truffle. cutting out the first half of your post where you discuss their record over the last 10 years and then bolding and underlining 4 words doesn't make me look stupid, it makes you look ridiculous. I'm fully capable of reading what you wrote. You used a 10-year period, divided it to make your school look better, and then made a statement that looks crazy since OSU has won outright or shared the big ten title each of the last 5 years. OSU has been the class of the conference for the last 5 years (and more). PSU hasn't distinguished itself apart from the 2nd tier as among the class of the conference during any period of time.

in the last 10 years? iowa. in the last 7 years or 5 years? penn st. in the last 20 years? penn st. in the last 30 years? penn st. 10 years was a good number for you to choose though. you chose 10 years. you just divided it in a way beneficial to PSU. i divided it in a logical way. they were mostly bad for a five year stretch; four of those years they finished below .500. then in the five-year stretch after that they were only good and had, at worst, a 9-4 record. there's no reason to be discussing this anyway. the point i was trying to make was that very good college football programs don't tend to stay bad for a long time. i don't know what point the iowa defender is trying to make. we all understood your original point, but the point about being the class of the big ten I think hurts your overall point b/c it makes you just look like a homer. I was pointing out that Iowa is just one of 5 teams that make up the 2nd tier of teams behind OSU, the existence of which makes division based on anything but geography even more pointless. while it might be true that good programs don't stay bad for a long time, this isn't the typical lull for UM. Michigan's going through 2 consecutive really bad seasons, including a brutal loss to a I-AA team and its first significant sanctions in my memory. And the cupboard wasn't empty when Rich Rod showed up, he just ran a bunch of players out of town. That might be the players fault (I don't think so), but it doesn't bode well for his ability to work with a diverse group of people. In any case, I don't know too many UM fans that think they're winning 10+ games this year (or next, most likely). But I think ultimately TT is right. Messing with logical divisions to gain "competitive balance" is probably not a good idea, given the way CFB tends to play out. Most likely, over the next 10 years, we're going to see OSU, PSU, or UM v. Nebraska, Iowa, or Wisconsin in the conference title game with 1-2 unforeseen contenders in there. That's pretty much in line with what you'd expect if it were still the Big 10 (of 11) with no title game, so I don't see any reason to mess with it.

why in the world must theriot lead off? why?

in the last 10 years? iowa. in the last 7 years or 5 years? penn st. in the last 20 years? penn st. in the last 30 years? penn st. 10 years was a good number for you to choose though. you chose 10 years. you just divided it in a way beneficial to PSU. Saying PSU and OSU (together) have been the class of the Big Ten looks a little ridiculous. PSU was supposed to dominate when they joined. They've been right with the rest of the 2nd tier behind the single dominant team.

it'd be a tough sell. Iowa from about I-35 east is significantly different than Nebraska (and by different, I mean better). Outside of the CWS and steak, Omaha has almost nothing going for it. It's a [expletive] hole. Iowa making fun of any other state for being hickish is a tough sell to me. I'm not saying it's more hickish than nebraska. But it just seems stupid for Iowa to get into that kind of name calling. Almost every midwest/plains state is basically a hick state. almost every state in the midwest makes fun of its neighbors for being hicks. doesn't matter if it's true or even hypocritical. Nebraska is one of the worst hick states in the midwest though. btw - fun fact, espn was going pretty hard after that sports reporter from WHO about a dozen years ago.

Great point. And I don't understand why people would assume that the power he's shown in the limited sample size of his time in the bigs would just carry over to a full season. If that's the case, then is his appallingly high strikeout ratio going to stretch out as well? His relatively limited defense is going to carry out over the whole season? LH pitchers having their way with him completely and totally? Why are some people acting like the power is the only thing that'll stick around? Well, the power would have to stick around and he'd need to have to keep hitting at these ridiculous levels all season to offset the liabilities he displays as a player. That's why his success as a starter is such a long shot despite what he's shown this season. That's why in a sane world it makes much more sense for him to be starting in the minors since he's yet to show down there that he can be a viable option as a starting OF. Production in a limited role as a part time player up here for a couple months doesn't just suddenly prove he's a good option to be starting over the Cubs current starters, especially when they're trying to shop one of them for a trade. I don't think people are assuming his power is going to translate exactly. He's on a 40 home run pace over a full season and I haven't seen anybody expect numbers anywhere close to that. And I would be quite happy if his defense he's shown so far translates over a full season. He's been very solid so far. And of course he wouldn't have to hit nearly this well to be a fine option as a starter even if his defense was subpar (at least 100 points of OPS less and probably closer to 150 points would be fine). Of course, the strikeout rate is a huge concern. He seems to be a little lucky in the BABIP department. His HR per FB percentage is also really high but the fact that his home runs so far have been hit a long way balances that out. And the small sample size rules all. I agree that it's still too early to give him a spot. But he definitely is a good candidate at this point to be a full season 15-20 home run guy with potential up to 30 or so. His minor league numbers suggest he's a 15 home run player. The elbow injury affecting some of his power numbers in the minors, his 14 homers in 1/2 a season at Tenessee last year after rehabbing from that injury, his muscle gain, his 7 homers in 1/6 of a season this year, and the fact that he hits home runs that would be gone in most every park in the majors all suggest he could be more than that. seems to me he's been really lucky. .385 BABIP with a 21% LD? throw in the high HR/FB right, the high K rate and the low IsoD and I think his performance in unsustainable. Will that result in a 100 point drop in OPS or a 200+ drop? Given that his OBP is so artificially inflated, I'm concerned it's going to be much closer to the latter (and his .365 OBP can't stand a huge hit).

it doesn't have to be like that. you can put michigan and ohio st, illinois and northwestern, etc in different divisions and then make those guaranteed games against the other side. like michigan would play their divisional rivals every year (say, PSU, MSU, wisconsin, minnesota and northwestern) every year, then play ohio st on the other side every year, then rotate two of the other five (indiana, purdue, illinois, nebraska, iowa) on the schedule each year. lest anyone say this is unfair, purdue's "locked" games right now are indiana and northwestern, while ohio st has to play michigan and penn st every year. Exactly my point. They already guarantee a game being played without playing everybody else, so I don't see the big deal. b/c there's no reason to force a rivalry between a bunch of schools in the 2 divisions when you don't need to. and making UM fans drive from Ann Arbor (while fun for me) or OSU fans from Ohio drive to Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota every year makes no more sense than it does for PSU.

penn state football, 2000-04: 26-33, 16-24 conference record, 1 bowl appearance. 2005-09: 51-13, 29-11 conference record, 5 bowl appearances people were basically throwing dirt on the psu program and saying they'd never recover until paterno retired and they brought in mostly new staff. the last five years they and ohio st have been the class of the conference. it's hard to keep great college football programs down for long. if, instead of cutting it in half, you start from 2002, is their record significantly different than Iowa's? Iowa had a couple great seasons in the early part of the decade, a rough stretch (aided by injuries) and then a strong finish. Still won about 2/3 of their games since 2002. OSU stands alone in the Big Ten right now. There isn't a clear 2nd.

Wells Fargo is in San Fran. Wells Fargo Financial and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage are both HQ'd in Des Moines. I don't know a ton about the company outside of that. Doesn't change the ultimate conclusion.

Congrats? Except that Omaha doesn't really have a comp in western Iowa. Another advantage for Iowa. Omaha isn't a nice place outside of the CWS. okay Eastern Nebraska has Warren Buffet. Western Iowa has... Principal, Wells Fargo, etc. And Warren Buffet dumped a bunch of time/money into Grinnell, small school in Iowa, to help build its endowment. Even he knows that Nebraska sucks.

it'd be a tough sell. Iowa from about I-35 east is significantly different than Nebraska (and by different, I mean better). Outside of the CWS and steak, Omaha has almost nothing going for it. It's a [expletive] hole.

b/c it doesn't change the disastrous travel schedule for PSU and it makes no sense to split OSU/UM, which both schools won't agree to. In a 6-6 conference, you can't really have 2 schools in each division that play every year - it mucks up everyone else's schedule.

I don't get it...are we not supposed to be watching those? They're typically one of the few watchable programs ESPN has these days. watching anything but an actual sporting event on espn certainly carries a stigma these days. 30 for 30 seems to be fine, but i can understand being hesitant to admit watching it.

i really think the whining about power balance is just UM and PSU wanting to convince themselves that it's the early 90s again.

It doesn't make sense to have either of them go west, but Michigan would be a more logical choice. The 6 most western teams are in the central time zone, and the others are in the east with Indiana making things confusing for me since I don't know what time it is there. I think Indiana stopped being difficult in that regard. The zone still cuts through the very NW corner of the state, but I thought they got on board with DLS finally (right after I left).

that's true. nothing ever changes in cfb and michigan's program sure seems to be back on the upswing now. i'll take 100 years of history over how michigan has played the last 2-3 years. i guess we can bet a nickel now and stop back in 25 years to settle our bet. are you intentionally being dense about the state of michigan football or do you have no sense of what it's like? this isn't a team that stumbled, had a run of injuries, or just isn't playing up to potential. Rich Rod might turn things around quickly, but all signs aren't pointing that way.

that's true. nothing ever changes in cfb and michigan's program sure seems to be back on the upswing now.

you're only thinking about this in terms of the last few years. going back 25 years, the top teams in the conference are michigan, OSU, PSU and nebraska. two should be in one division and two should be in the other. divisioning really shouldn't matter in basketball. Going back 25 years isn't important. Too many things have changed. over the next 25 years, michigan is a lot more likely to be very good than iowa or wisconsin what are you basing that on?

you're only thinking about this in terms of the last few years. going back 25 years, the top teams in the conference are michigan, OSU, PSU and nebraska. two should be in one division and two should be in the other. divisioning really shouldn't matter in basketball. but why are the mid-80s relevant to this discussion? CFB has changed greatly in that time. I think the last 10-15 years are more relevant to trying to determine who has the power programs going forward. you also have to look at the current coaches/programs and try to guess which are headed up, down, or flat. I just don't see a significant separation between any of the give 2nd tier teams that requires making PSU be the odd team out. You'd essentially kill student/local fan travel to half of their conference games by making them travel to 2-3 of Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin every year.

i don't remember high pitch counts being an issue. but I do think Tim and others are right that sometimes Lou leaves a guy in when it would seem to make sense to pull him (esp b/c we have so many damn RPs). I'm not worried about arm injuries. It's just an inefficient use of the roster and risks losing games (though how big of a risk I'm not smart enough to determine).

this has been discussed in the thread. you don't have to separate UM, OSU, and PSU to get balance of quality teams. OSU is going to sway whatever side of the ledger they're on. But UM, UW, PSU, Iowa, and NU are all close enough that you can split them geographically without making the East dominant. I don't think any single Big Ten school carries the weight that Texas does relative to the Big 12, so that shouldn't be a major concern either.

Is hitting 20 HRs in a season the only barometer for whether Colvin is a quality starting RF in the bigs? Seems to me he could hit 20 HRs every year in RF and still not be a net positive. Or are we assuming that if he develops the ability to hit 20 HRs, the other aspects (like not striking out every third AB or getting on base more than 30% of the time) will have also been fixed? I'll be honest, I'm surprised at the power he's shown. I'm not sure he'll be able to match it going forward, but I'm less concerned about his ability to have sufficient power to play in the majors than I was before the season (not that I'm convinced). I'm more concerned about his ability to not strike out all the time and play passable defense for a guy that only his 20 HRs.

Well I meant now, but yes both. you think the Big Ten would prefer Nebraska to Oklahoma as a 12th team? other than geography, what's the advantage? Well, geography is a pretty big part of the consideration, so I'm not sure why it should be dismissed. But Nebraska is a better fit academically, too. I think the only non-AAU team the Big 10 would consider is Notre Dame. I don't think geography should be dismissed, but how much longer is the flight to OKC than to Lincoln for everyone but 2-3 schools? I guess I didn't realize how poor academics were at OU. My experience with Nebraska grads is significant and I wouldn't say favorable. My experience with OU grads is pretty much limited to imb...so, I guess I should have known.