CSNbbs

I know I am bound to draw some boos and hisses, but IMO of the recent additions Maryland is clearly the best pickup. I'm not on the train of saying kick out the new guys... (Although I have said on numerous occasions that Purdue and Northwestern should fall on the knife and deemphasize athletics)... but that notwithstanding I root for the new guys and want to see them do well against everyone but the Buckeyes.

Let's very quickly review what everyone agreed were key factors in 2010-2012 expansion scenarios for the B1G.
1. Academic - especially research prowess, 2. Geography - not necessarily proximity but exposure to new recruiting territories for both student athletes and regular students
3. Athletic pedigree - let's be real athletics drove the bus so obviously traditional power
That turn on televisions and can travel 35000 to a bowl game carries weight.
4. TV Markets. Practically the same as geography but I distinguish a little for the sake of fair weather fans and B1G alumni. If every Maryland or Rutgers gets really good in either basketball and/or football the bandwagon potential is much higher.

I'm roughly paraphrasing Delany during the last round of tv negotiations but he said something to the effect of when you have good content the money will come. I believe that, but with the cable model drying up will auxiliary methods of delivery adequately fill that gap? I am a B1G and BTN fan and watch it probably more than any other channel (hate anti B1G ESPN but Fox is growing on me) for sports content if you include volleyball, wrestling, Hockey, Basketball, Lacrosse, and Football games, so I think there value in making content available on Hulu, Netflix, Twitter, Youtube, or whatever platform is the next it. But will that make up for the lost fees of cable. Better yet will the auxiliary media along with a diminished cable base at least break even so content creation can still happen? I for one hope so.

Anyway, without further ado, my explanation as to why I think Maryland is the best pickup so far.

First off Nebraska. I'm not hating on Nebraska, I like the Huskers and know more than a few of them.
They are passionate and knowledgeable fans. The issue that I have with Nebraska as a long term member is best put like this. 60-70 years ago Minnesota was a perennial National Title contender and now they are a run of the mill Upper Midwest team with a storied past but little recent success and almost no National relevance. Nebraska has a lot of things working in their favor including: Awesome program history, Administrative support, Fan support, elite facilities, financial heft, B1G membership, and name recognition. But they lack the most important "natural resource" of all when it comes to long term success and that of course is recruiting territory. Nebraska has long been an anomaly with excellent leadership, an amazing walk-on program and (until the BigXII) a conference slate that really only had 1 real tough game in Oklahoma. Take a look around the country and find another example of a long term successful program that is further than a 3-4 hour drive away from 1 or more major recruiting areas. Obviously NU budgets heavily for recruiting but what proportion of recruits actually go to school more than a 3-4 hour drive away from home?

Rutgers - I know a lot of people hate Rutgers. I don't. I think there is a lot of potential. They are in a horribly run state that has had no support for forever but after they get their full allotment of B1G cash we will get a better picture of what they are capable of. They are clearly the worse pickup of the 3 in terms of... well everything except wrestling and Lacrosse, but I dont expect that a man malnurtured for years and for all intents and purposes still starving to be able to fight competitively with behemoths.

Finally Maryland. I really think that Maryland was a good pick up and would have loved to see a UVA, UNC, and GT join as was rumored at the time. Maryland has won national titles in Lacrosse, been 1st or 2nd in basketball every year (Mens and Women). Committed resources to volleyball and is getting better, and overall seems to be a well run athletic department. Even the football teams have been competitive against everyone but Ohio State. They are in 2 major recruiting areas in football and basketball in B-more and DC with Philly about 2 hours away and NYC about 4 hours away. Virginia Beach/Tidewater area is also fairly close so there are tons of recruits IN ALL SPORTS relatively close to campus.
If there was something. I were to knock about UMD is that there has been no sustained success in football and I'm not sure that even if that were to happen, that fans would support the school. 2 issues:
Issue#1. other than Penn State are the fans really invested? I think fans miss UVA, Duke, UNC, NC St, & Va Tech and the basketball and Lacrosse rivalries built up over 50 + years. Issue#2 The Redskins and the Ravens. Popularity of the NFL is down on account of kneeling but I suspect that in time
Popularity will increase again. It is bad enough when 1 popular team sucks all of the attention in the market. Maryland has 2 and Rutgers has 3 in the Giants, Jets, & Eagles.

Overall I think Maryland has been a well run athletic department, a quality school, and has shown that they are capable of knocking of Texas 2 years in a row BEFORE they are even regarded as a top echelon team. Throw in the huge DC and B-more markets, availability of elite recruits in all sports and annual games with PSU, OSU, & Michigan that all have the potential to be huge ratings wins if and when Maryland gets good and you can see why I think Maryland was our best pickup over the blueblood program in Nebraska.

VERY VERY well said.

I too am not one of these "keep the "tradition", kick out the new guys" folks. Growth and change is part of survival, doesn't matter if it's sports or life in general, if you don't change with the times, the times will bury you. If the conference expects to get PAID, they have to do what it takes to give the networks and/or content providers reason TO pay them.

When the B1G added Nebraska I thought it was a great move. It's rare that a conference has a chance to add a blue blood program, which Nebraska is. The issue is the same thing that many professional teams run into, they give contracts based on PAST performance, not on the future. Can't blame the B1G though, I don't think anyone could have predicted that the Huskers would be THIS bad for a few years. I hope Frost can bring them back, if not to champion status then to being contenders. A good Huskers team is not only good for the B1G, but college football.

I still stand by the decision to add both Maryland and Rutgers. Both are large, state flagship schools with solid academic reputations. Rutgers sports programs have been down for a while, but it wasn't too long ago that they were winning football and going to bowls. No reason with that recruiting ground to think they can't get back to that level. Maryland has been solid overall in just about everything but football. Most would think their athletic department could compete with anyone in any sport. There was no way of predicting this whole DJ Durkin situation, but despite that, their football program seems to be improving.

Adding quality, adding markets, expanding the footprint, and increasing influence is a good thing.

The assumption is realignment additions of Nebraska, Maryland, and Rutgers. I assume the addition of Penn St would be considered greater than Maryland - despite the scandal. Agree?

(10-08-2018 12:44 PM)BePcr07 Wrote: [ -> ]The assumption is realignment additions of Nebraska, Maryland, and Rutgers. I assume the addition of Penn St would be considered greater than Maryland - despite the scandal. Agree?

I specified 2010-2012 in the text. Of Course Penn State was added in 1990 and they have been phenomenal. As far as I'm concerned they are our clear #2 rival and an absolute gem of the NorthEast.

(10-07-2018 10:00 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote: [ -> ]I know I am bound to draw some boos and hisses, but IMO of the recent additions Maryland is clearly the best pickup. I'm not on the train of saying kick out the new guys... (Although I have said on numerous occasions that Purdue and Northwestern should fall on the knife and deemphasize athletics)... but that notwithstanding I root for the new guys and want to see them do well against everyone but the Buckeyes.

Let's very quickly review what everyone agreed were key factors in 2010-2012 expansion scenarios for the B1G.
1. Academic - especially research prowess, 2. Geography - not necessarily proximity but exposure to new recruiting territories for both student athletes and regular students
3. Athletic pedigree - let's be real athletics drove the bus so obviously traditional power
That turn on televisions and can travel 35000 to a bowl game carries weight.
4. TV Markets. Practically the same as geography but I distinguish a little for the sake of fair weather fans and B1G alumni. If every Maryland or Rutgers gets really good in either basketball and/or football the bandwagon potential is much higher.

I'm roughly paraphrasing Delany during the last round of tv negotiations but he said something to the effect of when you have good content the money will come. I believe that, but with the cable model drying up will auxiliary methods of delivery adequately fill that gap? I am a B1G and BTN fan and watch it probably more than any other channel (hate anti B1G ESPN but Fox is growing on me) for sports content if you include volleyball, wrestling, Hockey, Basketball, Lacrosse, and Football games, so I think there value in making content available on Hulu, Netflix, Twitter, Youtube, or whatever platform is the next it. But will that make up for the lost fees of cable. Better yet will the auxiliary media along with a diminished cable base at least break even so content creation can still happen? I for one hope so.

Anyway, without further ado, my explanation as to why I think Maryland is the best pickup so far.

First off Nebraska. I'm not hating on Nebraska, I like the Huskers and know more than a few of them.
They are passionate and knowledgeable fans. The issue that I have with Nebraska as a long term member is best put like this. 60-70 years ago Minnesota was a perennial National Title contender and now they are a run of the mill Upper Midwest team with a storied past but little recent success and almost no National relevance. Nebraska has a lot of things working in their favor including: Awesome program history, Administrative support, Fan support, elite facilities, financial heft, B1G membership, and name recognition. But they lack the most important "natural resource" of all when it comes to long term success and that of course is recruiting territory. Nebraska has long been an anomaly with excellent leadership, an amazing walk-on program and (until the BigXII) a conference slate that really only had 1 real tough game in Oklahoma. Take a look around the country and find another example of a long term successful program that is further than a 3-4 hour drive away from 1 or more major recruiting areas. Obviously NU budgets heavily for recruiting but what proportion of recruits actually go to school more than a 3-4 hour drive away from home?

Rutgers - I know a lot of people hate Rutgers. I don't. I think there is a lot of potential. They are in a horribly run state that has had no support for forever but after they get their full allotment of B1G cash we will get a better picture of what they are capable of. They are clearly the worse pickup of the 3 in terms of... well everything except wrestling and Lacrosse, but I dont expect that a man malnurtured for years and for all intents and purposes still starving to be able to fight competitively with behemoths.

Finally Maryland. I really think that Maryland was a good pick up and would have loved to see a UVA, UNC, and GT join as was rumored at the time. Maryland has won national titles in Lacrosse, been 1st or 2nd in basketball every year (Mens and Women). Committed resources to volleyball and is getting better, and overall seems to be a well run athletic department. Even the football teams have been competitive against everyone but Ohio State. They are in 2 major recruiting areas in football and basketball in B-more and DC with Philly about 2 hours away and NYC about 4 hours away. Virginia Beach/Tidewater area is also fairly close so there are tons of recruits IN ALL SPORTS relatively close to campus.
If there was something. I were to knock about UMD is that there has been no sustained success in football and I'm not sure that even if that were to happen, that fans would support the school. 2 issues:
Issue#1. other than Penn State are the fans really invested? I think fans miss UVA, Duke, UNC, NC St, & Va Tech and the basketball and Lacrosse rivalries built up over 50 + years. Issue#2 The Redskins and the Ravens. Popularity of the NFL is down on account of kneeling but I suspect that in time
Popularity will increase again. It is bad enough when 1 popular team sucks all of the attention in the market. Maryland has 2 and Rutgers has 3 in the Giants, Jets, & Eagles.

Overall I think Maryland has been a well run athletic department, a quality school, and has shown that they are capable of knocking of Texas 2 years in a row BEFORE they are even regarded as a top echelon team. Throw in the huge DC and B-more markets, availability of elite recruits in all sports and annual games with PSU, OSU, & Michigan that all have the potential to be huge ratings wins if and when Maryland gets good and you can see why I think Maryland was our best pickup over the blueblood program in Nebraska.

I don't think anyone realizes how hard of a hurdle this is to overcome. Drive an hour in two directions from our campus and there are 3 pro teams in an area that loves pro football.

Nebraska football being down has thrown the Big Ten West division out of wack.

If Scott Frost can get the football team back to being a consistent top 25 team that wins the conference a couple of times a decade, then Nebraska still will remain the top recent addition as was originally thought.

If Frost fails, then its panic time for Nebraska because I don't believe they can do any better than getting somebody like Frost as a coach. In which case, Nebraska becomes the next Minn and turns out the Big Ten made a huge mistake adding Nebraska instead of Missouri.

Not that Frost needed any more pressure, but I really believe he is Nebraska's last hope.

(10-08-2018 04:25 PM)megadrone Wrote: [ -> ]I don't think anyone realizes how hard of a hurdle this is to overcome. Drive an hour in two directions from our campus and there are 3 pro teams in an area that loves pro football.

The biggest hurdle we have to overcome is the administration's inability to think on a bigger stage and unwillingness to spend the money to get there like the big boys do. How do you expect to convince the top local recruits to choose Rutgers over Penn State, Michigan, Ohio State, Syracuse, Pitt, Maryland or West Virginia if you continue to get C level coaches with flat personalities on the cheap? And unless those guys are freaking geniuses that can get mediocre talent to play at elite levels, the program will continue to struggle. Hobbs needs to ante up and buy out Ash and pay for a star.

(10-09-2018 02:32 PM)goofus Wrote: [ -> ]In which case, Nebraska becomes the next Minn and turns out the Big Ten made a huge mistake adding Nebraska instead of Missouri.

I don't understand why Missouri would have been a good pick up. Nebraska adds more national attention, more viewers, more prestige. Missouri doesn't add a big recruiting territory (which is what the Big Ten, particularly the west, needs) and has been about the same as Nebraska over the same period. Nebraska brings viewers and high attendance whether they win or lose because they have a great brand. I just don't understand why Missouri is such a catch while Nebraska is better all around.

(10-09-2018 08:18 PM)GE and MTS Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-09-2018 02:32 PM)goofus Wrote: [ -> ]In which case, Nebraska becomes the next Minn and turns out the Big Ten made a huge mistake adding Nebraska instead of Missouri.

I don't understand why Missouri would have been a good pick up. Nebraska adds more national attention, more viewers, more prestige. Missouri doesn't add a big recruiting territory (which is what the Big Ten, particularly the west, needs) and has been about the same as Nebraska over the same period. Nebraska brings viewers and high attendance whether they win or lose because they have a great brand. I just don't understand why Missouri is such a catch while Nebraska is better all around.

Never quite understood that either.

It's not like Missouri is Bama or OU, they're a middle of the road P5 school. When given the chance to pick up a blue blood football program or pick up a school who's reputation is having an OK basketball team, the answer is pretty obvious.

Seems that the people who are banging the Missouri drum are also the people who seem to think that when realignment happens again the B1G should go after Iowa State and Buffalo. Let's not try and add OU or TX, let's add BUFFALO!

That should speak volumes.

From a college president perspective, Maryland was everything they wanted new market, decent athletic department, continuous state that left Penn State feeling less on an island (and thus ended any long term thought of them going to ACC even if short term was never a chance), at a school that was well regarded.

I get all of that. That said, I personally hated the move because to me conferences should be regional and I wanted to continue playing a Midwestern schedule of schools in a league I could call a Midwestern conference. I have accepted the change since and I do think the conference now needs to make sure the east coast portion does get attention and some events (like basketball every 5 years or so). I would be lying though if I didn't same something to me has been lost with now a full 1/3 of Ohio State's football schedule being against east coast teams and so many fewer against traditional opponents though. I have grown more fond of Maryland and Rutgers since joining the conference, but I have also grown to be less of a conference homer as a result too.