Babers UT Press Conference

[BillyLP]

Enjoyed listening to him today, particularly about 12:20 into the video where he calls out the MAC for not having the game against UT as the last game of the season. Seemed like he's been waiting to say something about it for a while.

[Falcon137]

Your rival should be the last game of the year. Sticking Toledo in the middle of the season is as bad as playing it on a Wednesday night, IMO. I'm fine playing Kent or Buffalo on a weeknight in November those games aren't likely to draw anyway.

The thing I don't like about the ESPN MACtion, is that most games aren't that good. UT vs NIU is the one exception every year.

Hell, last year BG won their 2 Tuesday games by a combined score of 94-3. Just put anybody on, nobody in Oklahoma or Oregon care that BG UT is a rivalry game, if they're watching they would be watching if it was Akron vs Ball State.

[Falconfreak90]

"We want the bragging rights for 365 days". Love that, Coach. He gets the rivalry cuz he's been in a lot of BiG ones. I dig the way Coach talks about the team and program.

Agree 150% about this game being the last one of the year...every year. Always.

[jpfalcon09]

At the very least those of us who can't make it can watch it on national TV. This rivalry deserves at least that as it got in the early 2000s.

[Falconfreak90]

Would be nice if the local media would actually WRITE articles about the game. I've been looking online at the Blade and ST and not stories yet? The freakin game is 48 hours away. There should be an article every day leading up to this game. Player spotlights, interesting facts about the rivalry, series information. I guess they're too busy covering the Columbus Tech Buckeyes.

Heck the Cleveland Plain Dealer covers the MAC better than the above and that's saying something with Elton Alexander covering the MAC>

[bgsufalcon24]

Freak, you're right about the newspapers in NW Ohio not covering UT and BG very well. That was a major shock to me when I arrived in BG, reading the local papers and not seeing anything about not only our teams, but Toledo's as well. The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Akron Beacon Journal both do a solid job covering local teams, including Akron, Kent State, and Cleveland State. Akron and Kent State almost always have articles from beat writers in the Sunday PD following their games in the first 2 months of the year, and you'll usually see an article or two during the week as well. In addition to that, you often get coverage of the other schools in the state, even of those not in the MAC, like Mount Union, Baldwin Wallace, etc. You don't get the same coverage in the Blade or the Sentinel-Tribune, and I always thought it was because Cleveland is such a sports-mad city that they devote more pages/time/people to sports than most other parts of the country. But it could also be that the people in power at the major NWO rags just don't see Toledo and BG as important.

Shameful.

[Schadenfreude]

The Blade has a beat writer, John Wagner, who pretty much does nothing but write about BGSU sports when he isn't covering the Mud Hens in the off season. The Blade has a second beat writer who is equally devoted to UT athletics and the paper also has Dave Hackenberg who frequently offer commentary on stuff that matters to us. (This past week, for example, Hackenberg lamented the ESPN TV deal and November night games, as many of you have done here).

I doubt there is a newspaper as large as the The Blade anywhere in the country that is expending this kind of effort covering MAC athletics. At one time the Akron Beacon Journal's effort to cover Kent State and Akron sports was comparable, but I know they've been through some budget cuts. One way a newspaper can save money on coverage is by not sending reporters to away games. My impression is that the Akron is less likely to send a reporter to an away MAC game than The Blade is. (If someone wants to weigh in on the exact situation there, please do).

As far as the Plain Dealer: The idea that Elton Alexander does a better job covering the MAC than The Blade is a nonstarter for me. He does a reasonable job (when he isn't calling our football team a bunch of cupcakes, at least), but he's one guy cherry picking the best story lines from across the entire conference. His approach is high level and, at times, sophisticated, but it isn't the same level of depth we get from The Blade.

[Falcon137]

BGSUFalcons.com has pretty much replaced the Blade for me. Just watch the press conferences and read the game notes.

The Blade / BCSN article today is just a bunch of quotes from the press conference with a small blurb about Davidson winning player of the week. Game recaps are generally the same thing. Rarely do you get notes or anything interesting.

Wagner does share some interesting stuff of twitter. But, Orange and Brown blog is a better source, he does a good job recapping recruiting, retweeting things from recruits and other sources, and generally has a more in depth recap of games.

There's a reason newspapers are becoming irrelevant.

[BGFan]

http://www.sent-trib.com/sports/falcons ... 3dd92.html" target="_blank

http://www.bcsn.tv/news_article/show/44 ... _id=986236" target="_blank

[jpfalcon09]

Journalism as a whole in sports is pretty terrible. I asked Wagner on Twitter why there's been a lack of articles and I never got a response. Pretty lazy to copy and paste in quotes from a press conference and then add in filler to finish the article. It's pretty telling that the writers from both cities don't have anything until the day before the game how little they care, and those attitudes have started to perminate into the student and alumni bases as well.

Unfortunately this game lost a lot of its luster once BG got moved to the East division.

[Falconwriter]

Journalism as a whole in sports is pretty terrible. I asked Wagner on Twitter why there's been a lack of articles and I never got a response. Pretty lazy to copy and paste in quotes from a press conference and then add in filler to finish the article. It's pretty telling that the writers from both cities don't have anything until the day before the game how little they care, and those attitudes have started to perminate into the student and alumni bases as well.

Unfortunately this game lost a lot of its luster once BG got moved to the East division.

I don't think the division move is it. I think it's more about two things: (1) newspapers are dying and while local sports tend to still be a lifeblood for many, it's also one of the easy areas to cut back. That is probably a part of this. However, I think the real reason the game isn't garnering attention like it used to is (2) because there is no consistency to when it's played.

Moving it around, and putting it as an after thought in the middle of the week pretty much kills the normal week long build up you'd get for a Saturday clash.

It also makes it far more difficult for students to be involved having it on a week night instead of a Saturday.

Like it or not, traditions are what make rivalry games so much fun, and if you don't maintain any of those, it loses focus, even if the "hatred" between the teams isn't diminished that much.

Put the game back to the last Saturday of the season and keep it there, and it will help rebuild the rivalry. Of course, BG winning a game more often than every 4 or 5 years would help, too.

[Flipper]

Exactly! playing the game mid-week kills the momentum in the local media. And having us in the east doesn't help because it doesn't seem like we're playing for anything other tan that lackluster battle of I-75 trophy. In the early 2000's, UT, NIU and BGSU were playing what amounted to a round robin tournament for the West. That was fun....

[Falcon Commander]

http://www.toledoblade.com/BGSU/2014/11 ... -time.html" target="_blank

[Schadenfreude]

In 2013, we played Toledo on a Saturday in late October last year. More than 21,000 came to watch.

I wouldn't mind doing that again next year. There is a long tradition of playing this game in October, and I wouldn't mind going back to that, at least when Bowling Green hosts.

[Lord_Byron]

In 2013, we played Toledo on a Saturday in late October last year. More than 21,000 came to watch.

I wouldn't mind doing that again next year. There is a long tradition of playing this game in October, and I wouldn't mind going back to that, at least when Bowling Green hosts.

YES!! Pick a SATURDAY night in October and hold the game the same weekend every year. Make it an event, separate from homecoming, that would entice alumni to come back and spend the entire day tailgating for the game.

Those of us out of town could plan on it well in advance and not have to wait for the schedule to come out. We could be making our 2015 and 2017 arrangements right now.

If they want to hit us up for money, which they do, they need to do things that will connect us back. Weeknight games, nice to watch but I'll opt for a tradition.