hammb wrote:This BG team would probably be in the top half of the Big 10 this year,
Perhaps, but I'm not sure we have demonstrated this. Purdue is a mess and Maryland seems flat out bad. These might be the two worst teams in the conference.
B1G actually looks pretty good this year...OOC records aren't always the best measure, but you have 5 teams at 4-0 and 5 at 3-1. OSU and MSU are legit national powers. UM is maybe a year from joining them, but they're vastly improved defensively. Northwestern looked good the one time I saw them this year. whisky is Whisky...Even IU is unbeaten after edging WKU and beating the Claw and Wake Forest. With the B1G having the top two teams in the country and three others ranked in the top 25 (depending on the poll), as talented and as explosive as we are on offense...I'd be hard pressed to put us in the top half of that conference this year.
It's not the fall that hurts...it's when you hit the ground.
hammb wrote:This BG team would probably be in the top half of the Big 10 this year,
Perhaps, but I'm not sure we have demonstrated this. Purdue is a mess and Maryland seems flat out bad. These might be the two worst teams in the conference.
Do you disagree?
Obviously BG has already beaten Maryland and Purdue, but I'd also give us a very good shot at beating Rutgers, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Penn State.
Flipper wrote:B1G actually looks pretty good this year...OOC records aren't always the best measure, but you have 5 teams at 4-0 and 5 at 3-1. OSU and MSU are legit national powers. UM is maybe a year from joining them, but they're vastly improved defensively. Northwestern looked good the one time I saw them this year. whisky is Whisky...Even IU is unbeaten after edging WKU and beating the Claw and Wake Forest. With the B1G having the top two teams in the country and three others ranked in the top 25 (depending on the poll), as talented and as explosive as we are on offense...I'd be hard pressed to put us in the top half of that conference this year.
I think MSU is greatly overrated. They played Oregon at the best time, that is when people thought Oregon was the Oregon of every year. Besides that game they have not looked like a top team to me. None of their other 3 games lead me to believe they should be ranked where they are. Nobody in the Big Ten looks all that superior so far. Not saying we'd do OK in the conference but it isn't out of the question if the schedule was favorable.
BGSU33 wrote:Obviously BG has already beaten Maryland and Purdue, but I'd also give us a very good shot at beating Rutgers, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Penn State.
That seems fair. Indiana and Penn State seem like coin flips. I think we can say this: Bowling Green would probably be a bowl team in the Big Ten.
BGSU33 wrote:Obviously BG has already beaten Maryland and Purdue, but I'd also give us a very good shot at beating Rutgers, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Penn State.
That seems fair. Indiana and Penn State seem like coin flips. I think we can say this: Bowling Green would probably be a bowl team in the Big Ten.
That's probably where I'd slot us with the caveat that we are probably more likely to drop a game against one of these guys that we are to beat an osu or Msu. Of course osu hasn't been nearly as dominant as I expected this year, so who knows.
I just think we stack up white favorably with half of that conference. Maybe we couldn't win enough to be in the top half if we had to play that schedule week in week out, but I think we are close enough that we wouldn't embarrass ourselves, and certainly we could still be a bowl team there.
We have a tendency to severely underrate the Power 5 schools who aren't the traditional top 10 powers. The rosters of Purdue and Maryland are stocked with three star, four star and five star players. Maryland has an offensive lineman recruited by Coach Stud that had offers from every school in the country. Purdue's new starting QB was an Elite 11 player (meaning top 11 in the country) raved about by Trent Dilfer on their ESPN show a couple years back. He replaced a guy who was also in the Elite 11. Their starting middle linebacker is 6'4", 260 pounds and we could go down the roster and list similar size differentials position by position. They have massive off-field staffs and pay their coaches millions of dollars.
Beating them and overcoming all the advantages they possess will always be a prized achievement.
mscarn wrote:We have a tendency to severely underrate the Power 5 schools who aren't the traditional top 10 powers. The rosters of Purdue and Maryland are stocked with three star, four star and five star players.
There was much grumbling in West Lafayette about the loss to Bowling Green on a postgame talk show. Some of the talk turned to recruiting; the hosts could only think of one five-star recruit who ever agreed to play football at Purdue. In general, the hosts of the show felt like they often were battling MAC schools for talent.
I would agree that Purdue and Maryland have much greater resources -- more staff, more experienced coaches, etc. They certainly hold their own in recruiting, too. To beat them is certainly an achievement. But these aren't great football teams this year.
mscarn wrote:We have a tendency to severely underrate the Power 5 schools who aren't the traditional top 10 powers. The rosters of Purdue and Maryland are stocked with three star, four star and five star players.
There was much grumbling in West Lafayette about the loss to Bowling Green on a postgame talk show. Some of the talk turned to recruiting; the hosts could only think of one five-star recruit who ever agreed to play football at Purdue. In general, the hosts of the show felt like they often were battling MAC schools for talent.
I would agree that Purdue and Maryland have much greater resources -- more staff, more experienced coaches, etc. To beat them is certainly an achievement. But these aren't great football teams this year.
To go one step further...Joe Tiller is the only Purdue coach in the history of the program to have a winning record upon retiring. He was able to establish Purdue as a power in the late 90s and early 2000s, but they've really been more of a hoops program in recent memory, especially under the direction of Gene Keady.
Maryland is kind of in the same boat. They've had some years where they've popped up a competitive and at times top-20 program, but most of their resources are focused towards basketball and that can be supported by the attitude of their fan base.
It is great that BG can take down schools like this because yes it does help in recruiting and national profile, but with the college football landscape changing so much the past 5-10 years I think people are beginning to realize that the upper tier teams of the G5 are just as good, if not better than the bottom third of the P5 schools.
