Holy Crap The B1G Is Horrible At Football

1hawkeye1 said:
I never understood why people get so wrapped up in this conference comparison thing. Who gives a shit? I'm an Iowa fan, not a B1G fan.
I think ESPN started it with the SEC to combat the B1G network. Or maybe isu began pounding their chests about b12 dominance because they had nothing else to brag about, Either way, it's pointless. Iowa is 3-0 and I don't care what other teams did or didn't do. /end rant/ :D
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Totally agree, screw Wisconsin, NW, Nebraska, I get no joy in them every winking. For all I care the rest of the big ten west can be 0-12

Besides have you watched the SEC lately? Why would I want to watch Minnesota vs Northwestern when games like the LSU vs Auburn game were on Saturday?
 
ssckelley said:
I think it's justified to ask how real Iowa is but our best win isn't UNI.
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not to mention that 3 of the 6 losses in the 1-6 are from Iowa. The other 3 are Oklahoma, Utah and Montana. Too early to even throw out that stat.

Iowa can prove it this weekend, but really, who gives a rats if the B1G is down from an Iowa prospective. It always seems like a fan thing to do to downgrade their own conference to rationalize things. Like, well, the B1G is down (i don't argue that and I don't think Fry was indicating or trying to make this point) - so if Iowa doesn't take advantage we must be really bad. This weekend - all the Nebraska media were making fun of the rest of the B1G - like - hey we suck, but look, so does everyone else. They refused to even mention Iowa. It's not a good look. I want the B1G to be perceived as strong, but ultimately, all that matters is how Iowa looks....and to be honest, you can't be better then 3-0 at this point.
 
cincyhawk said:
Because it effects strength of schedule and perceptions that are important for playoff rankings.
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It really doesn’t. If Iowa goes undefeated or has a really good conference loss on the road and wins a big ten championship game they’ll go to a playoff. If they lose a bad game they won’t. It’s not too complicated.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Dude, put your big boy pants on because it's only going to get worse. The Chicago suburbs that feed Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, Notre Dame and to a lesser extent MSU and Michigan are going to become a football desert because the parents won't let their kids play anymore. But guess what. Down in the South football is king. Every kid still plays.

Look, Vandy, the shittiest team in the SEC, waltzed into Notre Dame and just gave them a materially better game than Michigan did. Probably should have won it. Dude, it's bad and it's only gonna get worse. I think Ferentz is ahead of the curve getting into the South and getting kids like Smith. We got that Jayden McDonald kid from Georgia, too who only had mid major and shitty P5 offers. I mean, I honestly think we're at the point where if you're Ferentz you go out and get the kids from in state who can ball, poke around Illinois and Wisconsin for a minute, but then get your ass to Florida and Georgia and look at kids whose offer sheets are places like UCF, South Florida, Coastal Carolina, Troy, etc. and just hope you land a few of them. I mean, you have to kiss any of the 4-5 stars goodbye because they ain't leaving the region, but get a few 2 or 3 stars, redshirt them and get them lifting and hope they blossom. There's just slim pickings in the north and it's gonna get worse.
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Unfortunately he has a point to be made. The more highly educated school districts like in the Chicago suburbs are seeing a big drop off in football numbers. Several local football powers are having terrible years competing. The noticeable thing is how small the roster numbers are by player numbers.

My daughter is in a high level marching band. I'm rather shocked at how many athletic looking boys are in the band while the football team is struggling to get those kids. What I notice about youth football in town is the parental makeup I would guess is not very much made up of college educated parents. Local soccer power houses are also seemingly struggling with numbers and the premier programs have fallen to shells of their former programs. The marching band gets about 250 kids out of 1000. They don't get the soccer/football players. At football games, the stands are packed until the marching band show is over. The fan interest in football just isn't there either.
 
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Obviously, all of us are primarily focused on Iowa's success, and don't really care about the other teams in the B1G individually, but, like it or not, the perception of the conference directly affects the Hawkeyes.

It's fun watching NW, Nebraska, Illinois and Purdue struggle, but, if the national perception is that the B1G sucks, several aspects of the program, including recruiting and chances at national exposure get affected, which, in turn, affects revenue, which, in turn, affects recruiting and exposure. It's a downward spiral that we don't want to get into.

We need two things: a conference with a solid reputation, and consistent wins within said conference.
 
Jonrn said:
It really doesn’t. If Iowa goes undefeated or has a really good conference loss on the road and wins a big ten championship game they’ll go to a playoff. If they lose a bad game they won’t. It’s not too complicated.
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This is the reality of it. If you are a B1G West team, if you don't go undefeated you won't make the playoffs. Wisconsin could run the table now, and they would be outside looking in. If you are Penn St., OSU, Michigan or MSU you can lose 1 game to one of those 4 teams and you could still make the playoffs.
 
HawkGold said:
Unfortunately he has a point to be made. The more highly educated school districts like in the Chicago suburbs are seeing a big drop off in football numbers. Several local football powers are having terrible years competing. The noticeable thing is how small the roster numbers are by player numbers.

My daughter is in a high level marching band. I'm rather shocked at how many athletic looking boys are in the band while the football team is struggling to get those kids. What I notice about youth football in town is the parental makeup I would guess is not very much made up of college educated parents. Local soccer power houses are also seemingly struggling with numbers and the premier programs have fallen to shells of their former programs. The marching band gets about 250 kids out of 1000. They don't get the soccer/football players. At football games, the stands are packed until the marching band show is over. The fan interest in football just isn't their either.
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2011 was the first time I heard people withholding their kids from football up in the Chicago area. One of my coworkers had pictures of his kid in a football uniform and I was asking questions probably in 2011 or 2012 and they were like "nah, bruh, those are from middle school. We pulled him out of football in high school because it's just not worth the risk." Dave Duerson was a legend in Chicago and when he killed himself in 2011 and it was determined he had CTE a lot of people started pulling their kids out of football. The gulf between the southern skills and northern and west coast schools is going to grow dramatically in the next 10 years.
 
HawkGold said:
Unfortunately he has a point to be made. The more highly educated school districts like in the Chicago suburbs are seeing a big drop off in football numbers. Several local football powers are having terrible years competing. The noticeable thing is how small the roster numbers are by player numbers.

My daughter is in a high level marching band. I'm rather shocked at how many athletic looking boys are in the band while the football team is struggling to get those kids. What I notice about youth football in town is the parental makeup I would guess is not very much made up of college educated parents. Local soccer power houses are also seemingly struggling with numbers and the premier programs have fallen to shells of their former programs. The marching band gets about 250 kids out of 1000. They don't get the soccer/football players. At football games, the stands are packed until the marching band show is over. The fan interest in football just isn't their either.
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Sure, but programs will need to adapt and find recruits, sure less recruits may come from wealthy Chicagoland suburbs, but in small towns across the Midwest and across the whole south and in poorer less educated communities football is still king. I’ll take a few more recruits out of Gwinnett county Georgia like Goodson and McDonald and sacrifice Bolingbrook or Wheaton, IL
 
deanvogs said:
This is the reality of it. If you are a B1G West team, if you don't go undefeated you won't make the playoffs. Wisconsin could run the table now, and they would be outside looking in. If you are Penn St., OSU, Michigan or MSU you can lose 1 game to one of those 4 teams and you could still make the playoffs.
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Unless you get squished by Iowa.
 
Jonrn said:
Sure, but programs will need to adapt and find recruits, sure less recruits may come from wealthy Chicagoland suburbs, but in small towns across the Midwest and across the whole south and in poorer less educated communities football is still king. I’ll take a few more recruits out of Gwinnett county Georgia like Goodson and McDonald and sacrifice Bolingbrook or Wheaton, IL
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Many of those small towns in the Midwest are shrinking. I agree with you otherwise. Iowa might as well set up a recruiting office in north Georgia. Of course, getting the top recruits there will be impossible with Clemson and UGA right there, not to mention the pull of Auburn, Bama, LSU and Tennessee, but if Iowa can pull some decent 3 stars and redshirt them, it is a decent strategy for running a developmental program.
 
Ree4 said:
OSU lost to Oklahoma too which is why they didn't get in. If they had beaten the Sooners and lost to Iowa they would have been in
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Fine, then, bud, modify it to say "unless you lost to a team from Iowa" because if the Sooners had lost to OSU and ISU, no way in hell they would have gotten in.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Fine, then, bud, modify it to say "unless you lost to a team from Iowa" because if the Sooners had lost to OSU and ISU, no way in hell they would have gotten in.
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I'd modify it to say:
Alabama is the only team that can get in the playoff with 2 losses. Oklahoma wouldn't have got in because they had two losses in that scenario, not because one of them was to ISU
 
cincyhawk said:
Our best win is against UNI and I think our opponents are 1 - 6.
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Our best win is UNI is laughable.

It’s laughable because...

You “prove” ho bad our opponents are at 1-6

But three of those sixes coming against Iowa.

LLLOL
 
Jonrn said:
Sure, but programs will need to adapt and find recruits, sure less recruits may come from wealthy Chicagoland suburbs, but in small towns across the Midwest and across the whole south and in poorer less educated communities football is still king. I’ll take a few more recruits out of Gwinnett county Georgia like Goodson and McDonald and sacrifice Bolingbrook or Wheaton, IL
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My small Iowa town, football proud, the old Iowa Sporting News or what ever it was called did an article when they actually lost a game... went from 70 per class to graduating about 28 year in and year out and now has an 8 man football team.

The other issue is that recruiting Iowa kids from non higher educated parents though not an issue with everyone (my parents didn't get 4 year degrees) will result in more academic issues

The bottom line is that Big Football is going to change.
 
okeefe4prez said:
Many of those small towns in the Midwest are shrinking. I agree with you otherwise. Iowa might as well set up a recruiting office in north Georgia. Of course, getting the top recruits there will be impossible with Clemson and UGA right there, not to mention the pull of Auburn, Bama, LSU and Tennessee, but if Iowa can pull some decent 3 stars and redshirt them, it is a decent strategy for running a developmental program.
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True, but Iowa rarely pulled the 4 and 5 stars out of Chicago, St Louis or Indianapolis anyways. They all went to Notre dame, Ohio state or the SEC anyways. Major northern programs may see a change, but I just see Iowa remaining stagnant and the SEC continue being dominant, but I love watching the SEC, so I’m okay with it.
 
I'm completely against cheering for conference teams during OOC play. If I'm not going to cheer for them in conference play, then I have absolutely no problem with anyone losing every game on their schedule. Sure eventually a weak conference performance may eventually catch up with us and ruin a shot at the playoffs, but until that day comes (and after that day comes) I'm going to thoroughly enjoy watching any of our rivals get beat.

My only disappointment this week was that there were only 7 conference teams that lost this week. I'm a happy man as long as we aren't one of them.
 
HawkGold said:
Unfortunately he has a point to be made. The more highly educated school districts like in the Chicago suburbs are seeing a big drop off in football numbers. Several local football powers are having terrible years competing. The noticeable thing is how small the roster numbers are by player numbers.

My daughter is in a high level marching band. I'm rather shocked at how many athletic looking boys are in the band while the football team is struggling to get those kids. What I notice about youth football in town is the parental makeup I would guess is not very much made up of college educated parents. Local soccer power houses are also seemingly struggling with numbers and the premier programs have fallen to shells of their former programs. The marching band gets about 250 kids out of 1000. They don't get the soccer/football players. At football games, the stands are packed until the marching band show is over. The fan interest in football just isn't their either.
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Yep, my son was the best WR on his youth team and after the first concussion he got in his 2nd junior high game we made the decision he would focus on other sports.

More and more people are going to wise up that the risks are not worth the rewards when it comes to playing football.
 
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