I thought the consensus was 1-6 or 0-7 as the expected record. So the Big Ten overachieved slightly.

Shade45 wrote: 1-4 on New Years Day and 2-5 overall.

What do you guys think it will take for the B1G to get back?

par for the course.

Many will throw out the slot excuses ( you know, the #2 XX conf vs the #3 B10 conf playing each other. GASP! SO UNFAIR!) But gimme a break.

Bad year. Its over. Lets look forward to next.

OSUVB wrote:

calibuckeyefan wrote:

OSUVB wrote: About what was expected. A couple of games (Minny, Michigan) could have gone either way.

yup.. i was thinking it would go 3-4   (with michigan winning).

It could have been anywhere from 0-7 to 4-3 (if Michigan & Minny had pulled it), with an outside shot at 5-2, assuming Wisky somehow beats Stanford, which IMHO was unlikely.

Nebraska's lack of D did them in again, and Purdue was clearly in way over their heads.

So assuming the outcome was likely to be between 0-7 & 4-3, it came out right in the middle... with 2 wins. So no surprise overall, really.

     Purdue was the only team not in the game, all others could have been won by a Big Ten team. Big Ten should do better next year.

flaosubuck wrote:

Shade45 wrote: 1-4 on New Years Day and 2-5 overall.

What do you guys think it will take for the B1G to get back?

The 2 best BIG teams did not play in a Bowl in 2012

I would disagree strongly that Penn St was the second best team in the league. No way.

CFBFan2003 wrote:

flaosubuck wrote:

Shade45 wrote: 1-4 on New Years Day and 2-5 overall.

What do you guys think it will take for the B1G to get back?

The 2 best BIG teams did not play in a Bowl in 2012

I would disagree strongly that Penn St was the second best team in the league. No way.

I agree.  PSU lost to Ohio U and UVA.

Minnesota showed well, but lost... MSU looked awful, but won.... Northwestern beat an SEC team (was close to a top 10 team in the polls at 7-0 early in the season, what a joke!)... #18 Michigan lost to the #10 team in the nation (an SEC school) in the closing seconds... Nebraska was beating the #7 team in the nation, the SEC runner-up (a one loss SEC team that had a legit NC shot) halfway through the third quarter... Wisconsin (the third best team in their B1G division) lost by 6 in a hard fought game to the PAC 12 champ, in the PAC 12 champs home state... Purdue got curb stomped.


Overall, not a bad showing. If you look at the W-L record, we did BAD, and I'm upset we didn't do better... But if you sit back and realize that the B1G had a down year, perennially has the hardest Bowl schedule and plays bowl games that are close to home games for their opponent... The B1G did okay, NOT good, but okay.

I'm sure ESPN will talk for days about 2-5... But with 2 of the top 3 teams of the conference watching from home... All the facts point to the B1G doing WELL this bowl season, not great, but well!

the big ten isnt that good, but today shows that the sec isnt light years ahead of anybody

Wisconsin was probably 2nd best....but they did lose 2 straight at the end

Michigan was probably the next best but they got smacked in Lincoln and didn't have to face Wisconsin


But to answer your question about what it will take.....

1. A more level playing field wi respect to # of recruits
2. Better coaches

If those 2 things happen, you will see an instantaneously leveling of the field

---------------------------------------------


--- Shade45 wrote:

CFBFan2003 wrote:

flaosubuck wrote:

Shade45 wrote: 1-4 on New Years Day and 2-5 overall.

What do you guys think it will take for the B1G to get back?

The 2 best BIG teams did not play in a Bowl in 2012

I would disagree strongly that Penn St was the second best team in the league. No way.

I agree.  PSU lost to Ohio U and UVA.

---------------------------------------------

I am OK with Big 10 bowl season overall.

The Good
Northwestern beat Mississippi State by 14 points to go 2-0 v. SEC teams in 2012.
Michigan State beat TCU by 1 point in a battle of good defenses.

The OK
Minnesota losing to Texas Tech on a last second FG by 3 points.
Michigan losing to South Carolina on a TD pass with 10-15 seconds to go by 5 points.
Wisconsin losing to Stanford by 6 points after promising looking drive ended with INT.

The Bad
Nebraska v. Georgia after taking a 31-23 lead, only to be outscored 22-0 to end the game.

The Ugly
Purdue's 44 point loss to Oklahoma State, which is worse than people expecting a blowout expected.

Big 10 still needs to make up ground on the Lines. However, the biggest deficit is probably playmakers at WR and on Special Teams. Nebraska and Michigan both probably would've won if not for all the big plays made by WRs for Georgia, and SC, and of course the punt return made by Ace Sanders of SC v. Michigan as well.

Most predicted Big 10 to go 0-7 or 1-6 and have several blowout / embarrassing losses. 2-5 with 3 close losses, and only one blowout is a lot better than the conference was supposed to do.

While 2012 wasn't as bad as people want to make it out to be. Hopefully 2013 will be a much better season.

buckeyemark wrote: I am OK with Big 10 bowl season overall.

The Good
Northwestern beat Mississippi State by 14 points to go 2-0 v. SEC teams in 2012.
Michigan State beat TCU by 1 point in a battle of good defenses.

ehhhh... i watched that game. TERRIBLE offenses.

Shade45 wrote: I agree.  PSU lost to Ohio U and UVA.

That was early in the season, though. Sometimes teams improve immensely throughout the year (like Ohio State in 2009), or go the other way (USC in 2009 seemed to go in reverse).

I doubt in the extreme UVA would have beaten PSU the second time around, or Ohio either.

One other factor was that PSU had a new coaching staff. It takes a while for a new staff to get the team on the right page. You could see the improvement in OSU over the course of the season as well, for that matter.

I was not disappointed I thought about right and couple of close games could have gone either way. I will take it this year. I thought it could be worse.

I thought Nebraska showed up and had things very close.

Purdue should be given a bowl ban, just for playing so badly today.  I didn't expect them to win, but man, they got curb stomped today.

Considering some of the match ups, the results were better than I expected.  The Minnesota and tsun games were well within reach and neither team got terribly outplayed.  Wisky was a fraud in the Rose Bowl and even the 6th place B10 team took the Pac 10 champ to the wire.  OSU would have won that game and PSU might have been good enough to steal one more win depending on who they played.

B1G did better than I thought they would, even the losses were good games (besides Purdue). This is what the conference is in this day and age, competitive but not the best, people just need to get used to it.

How about getting the two best teams in the league playing in Bowl Games?

Shade45 wrote: 1-4 on New Years Day and 2-5 overall.

What do you guys think it will take for the B1G to get back?

Smerc wrote: the big ten isnt that good, but today shows that the sec isnt light years ahead of anybody

I agree with this.

Got to love the disingenuous hand wringing by the op...

Basically, like everyone said, the matchups were tougher without Ohio State and Penn State in the rotation. And a lot of people know the Big Ten could use more programs with a serious commitment to winning, better coaching, a more generous sprinkling of playmakers on both sides of the ball, and more legit depth in the trenches.  

But it's really just silly to think a bunch of fans of a team that went 12-0 are going to sit here and get all bent out of shape about the Wisconsins, Michigans, and Nebraskas losing bowl games.

Michigan State gave up 16.3 points per game. TCU gave up 22.6 points per game.

They have good defenses, which make bad offenses look like terrible offenses.

CFBFan2003 wrote:

buckeyemark wrote: I am OK with Big 10 bowl season overall.

The Good
Northwestern beat Mississippi State by 14 points to go 2-0 v. SEC teams in 2012.
Michigan State beat TCU by 1 point in a battle of good defenses.

ehhhh... i watched that game. TERRIBLE offenses.