The B1G really is slower

What about cornerback? That's the position that requires the most speed and quickness of all positions. Find me a white corner in the NFL or a standout white cornerback in college. Not safety, but corner. Find one.

Joe Slattery
 
Here is the long and short of it:

When the B10 wins it's shocking to the media and the team "ground it out" and "won in the trenches" and when they lose it's because of "lack of speed". Rinse and repeat.

If the freaking shoe fits...
 
I don't believe Oregon would score 40+ in below 30 degree weather in a bowl game against good competition. They would still score a lot of points though.
 
I don't believe Oregon would score 40+ in below 30 degree weather in a bowl game against good competition. They would still score a lot of points though.

You do know Eugene Oregon isn't on a beach right? According to the NOAA, the average temperature in Eugene is 44 degrees in November with 8 inches of precipitation. In Iowa City, the average November temperature is 40 degrees with 2 inches of precipitation.

They put up 49 points playing at home in the PAC 12 championship game in December. As long as you have LaMichael James, your offense will work on Neptune.
 
The bolded is accurate. But it has more to do with the best players wanting to play in a warm climate than an advantage in bowl games.

Why is no one also mentioning academics. The Big 10 has always had strong academics and has been more challenging for some kids to get into as opposed to some of the other conferences such as the SEC etc.

I think by some of the admission requirements the Big 10 limits itself from some of the better talent and that goes for white and black students. I think climate has less to do with it than people think. Michigan schools can still play in the cold and they have been successful in the past and are currently successful. You take a talented kid who may not have the best academics but the talent to go pro most cases you pick the path of least resistance.
 
kameltoez102 makes a very good point about academic requirements. Totally agree there as well.

I still believe temperature and different playing environments can have an impact on the outcomes of games. For example, why does Iowa always seem to struggle playing in the desert in Arizona?
 
kameltoez102 makes a very good point about academic requirements. Totally agree there as well.

I still believe temperature and different playing environments can have an impact on the outcomes of games. For example, why does Iowa always seem to struggle playing in the desert in Arizona?

These are just excuses. Stanford didn't seem to have trouble putting a team together with high academic requirements. Texas and Florida are learning institutions on par with almost any university in the Big 10, and they usually field nationally relevant teams.

As for the weather, in the ACC, Big IX, and Pac 12, teams have to play in extreme climates, both hot and cold, and they never complain about it.

There is one reason and one reason alone why the BIG is getting killed; We don't have the players. Good players come from the south, and they stay in the south. Everything else is just crybaby bs.
 
I am not disagreeing with the academics needing to be considered, but I think that can be somewhat argued against. Stanford being the pinnacle of that debate currently. Northwestern has exceedingly high academics comparatively speaking and has been doing pretty well. While Notre Dame hasn't been back to its best it certainly also does well considering it's academic gravitas. These three schools weigh in with the top 20 schools academically. Stanford is actually a top 5 school.

I am not disagreeing with your sentiment, but I think that the academic argument is largely used as a crutch for an excuse for poor performance. The truth is the B10 has largely under-performed despite some spectacular recruiting classes. Numerous Michigan teams under Carr were less than impressive. The Sweater did well at Ohio State until he ran into USC or some similar challenge.

I am proud of the academic heritage of the conference and I don't want to sacrifice that, but I don't think it's really the root of the issue.
 
I did the research earlier this week, but of the top 100 on ESPN.com's recruiting rankings, 7 of them come from the 9 states that make up the Big 10.
 
Considering the higher ranked team in each contest won yesterday I'm not so sure anything was proven other than the better team won and the integrity of the rankings held strong.

So why doesn't the BIG perform better in bowl games? I'll throw a couple darts at the board:

* Majority of the teams in the BIG are not built for quick strike offenses. I would think this is an advantage for quick strike teams in close games where time is running off the clock in the 4th quarter and you are behind. For ball control offenses you are forced to move out of your normal element to play catch up.

* You tend to build your team with elements that best prevail against the competition within your league. The BIG seems to be in a transition of sorts as some teams move to more mobile QBs and spread formations. We still, however, have a mix and as two of our programs showed (WI & MSU) you can still prevail with more traditional offenses. So we may not be best positioned against some of our bowl opponents who employ different traits than we routinely face in the BIG.

Oregon/Wisconsin and OSU/Stanford games included some of the highest of the ranked teams this season and each match-up pitted a run oriented bruiser style built offense against the more open speed oriented style. Each game could have gone the other way in its outcome. Both close games and the quick strike offense prevailed in the end.

You can win both ways but maybe the margin for error in close games favors the quick strike offense.
 
I did the research earlier this week, but of the top 100 on ESPN.com's recruiting rankings, 7 of them come from the 9 states that make up the Big 10.

Stated another way, 93 percent of the ESPN Top 100 comes from states other than those in the Big 10, which covers nearly a fifth of the states and probably has an even bigger share of the country's high school-age population.
 
Stated another way, 93 percent of the ESPN Top 100 comes from states other than those in the Big 10, which covers nearly a fifth of the states and probably has an even bigger share of the country's high school-age population.

If that is correct, the coaching staff at Iowa would be VERY well-advised to study the offensive attacks employed therein instead of using the worn out KF navel-gazing approach. Running the offenses that attract those kids would be advisable. Or at least incorporating aspects of those offenses.

Execution, execution, execution. Bla, bla, bla. Yes, when you have Franco Harris and/or Eddie George and Robert Gallery blocking for them, and Mke Singletary/Jack Hamm tackling, you can go plodder and 4 yards and a poof of dust all day long with success. But even those instances are of EXCEPTIONAL players inside plodding, ball control systems. They do NOT represent the AVERAGE success of AVERAGE teams composed of merely AVERAGE players. It ain't always execution.

Who's fault is it, precisely, when players routinely FAIL to "execute"? Are the coaches perhaps required occasionally adjust their thinking and responses, or is it ALWAYS simply failed player execution?

What would a systemic failure of KF football look like? Would we know if we saw it?
 
These are just excuses. Stanford didn't seem to have trouble putting a team together with high academic requirements. Texas and Florida are learning institutions on par with almost any university in the Big 10, and they usually field nationally relevant teams.

As for the weather, in the ACC, Big IX, and Pac 12, teams have to play in extreme climates, both hot and cold, and they never complain about it.

There is one reason and one reason alone why the BIG is getting killed; We don't have the players. Good players come from the south, and they stay in the south. Everything else is just crybaby bs.

Stanford has high academic requirements, but the demographics of trying to build a football program with high academic achievers are much more favorable in Northern California than they are in Evanston. Stanford has also been playing a little offshoot of the oversigning game where they will get verbal commits, string kids along for weeks leading up to signing date and then yank their offer as soon as a better kid commits. Case in point is this Jordan Perkins kid on Northwestern's roster, he's a guy from Cali who had a 3.9 GPA who had verbally committed to Stanford who then was given some line of BS about his grades not clearing admissions, which was conveniently timed when Stanford got a better recruit at his position. I'll complain sometimes when Iowa football loses ballgames, but there is a special place in hell for guys like Saban, Miles, et al who screw over 17 and 18 year old kids.

If Faith Ekatitie ends up being the second coming of Adrian Clayborn and is the kind of guy who changes the outcome of a few games a year, you can point to Northwestern's academics as a reason for them sucking. By all accounts, he really wanted to go there and here is what he said on his blog:

Unfortunately after submitting my grades and ACT scores to the admissions office at NU, I was informed that they would not be able to admit me to school. My gpa was approximately .2 below where it needed to be for them to admit me into school. Now was this a heart breaker? Most Definitely. But it also worked as a wakeup call to me. If I had pushed myself a bit harder in school, I would have been admitted to one of the most prestigious schools in America. However, I will not dwell on that and of course I have to move on.

I would love to know which SEC school (including Vanderbilt) wouldn't bend over backwards to admit a 4 star defensive end.
 
If that is correct, the coaching staff at Iowa would be VERY well-advised to study the offensive attacks employed therein instead of using the worn out KF navel-gazing approach. Running the offenses that attract those kids would be advisable. Or at least incorporating aspects of those offenses.

Execution, execution, execution. Bla, bla, bla. Yes, when you have Franco Harris and/or Eddie George and Robert Gallery blocking for them, and Mke Singletary/Jack Hamm tackling, you can go plodder and 4 yards and a poof of dust all day long with success. But even those instances are of EXCEPTIONAL players inside plodding, ball control systems. They do NOT represent the AVERAGE success of AVERAGE teams composed of merely AVERAGE players. It ain't always execution.

Who's fault is it, precisely, when players routinely FAIL to "execute"? Are the coaches perhaps required occasionally adjust their thinking and responses, or is it ALWAYS simply failed player execution?

What would a systemic failure of KF football look like? Would we know if we saw it?

New week, different troll.

Look numbnuts, this has nothing to do with Ferentz. This is a conference wide problem. Guess how many recruits in the south have chosen to go the Big 10? Guess?

That's right, zero. Zero recruits in ESPN's top 100 from the south have chosen to come north to play for Urban Meyer, or Brady Hoke, or Bert Bielema, or any other coach. I hate to interrupt your bizarre Kirk-jihad, but get your head out of your Sith-hole and look at some freaking facts.
 
How many of the top 100 recruits in the nation are white? What percentage? What percentage of all starting varsity football players in America are white? I bet the latter is a much much much much higher percentage. That alone is proof that it is advantageous to have more African Americans in your own back yard because they are disproportional much better athletes. The B1G is slow because the states in the B1G have less African American high school athletes. The states in the South East, South West, and California win almost all of the national championships now because they have more African Americans. Its not the weather.
 
How many of the top 100 recruits in the nation are white? What percentage? What percentage of all starting varsity football players in America are white? I bet the latter is a much much much much higher percentage. That alone is proof that it is advantageous to have more African Americans in your own back yard because they are disproportional much better athletes. The B1G is slow because the states in the B1G have less African American high school athletes. The states in the South East, South West, and California win almost all of the national championships now because they have more African Americans. Its not the weather.

Yahoo Sports: Rivals.com Ranking - Rivals.com Rivals100 2012

Do the research yourself
 
Two of the top 20 are Caucasion.

17 of the top 20 are African American.

No Caucasion skills positions other than QB in the top 50.

You're making yourself look like a complete d bag, and racist. So what are you really saying? Black athletes are better than White athletes plain and simple, what about Duke Basketball? they seem to get a long just fine with those "slow white guys"
 
You're making yourself look like a complete d bag, and racist. So what are you really saying? Black athletes are better than White athletes plain and simple, what about Duke Basketball? they seem to get a long just fine with those "slow white guys"

Duke still has their fair share of African Americans. Almost all PG's and SG's on Elite 8 and Final 4 basketball teams are African American. Like 95%.
 
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