MattBrownEP
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
Rutgers wasn't in the Big Ten
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06-04-2021 08:19 AM |
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Bogg
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
You didn't have a convenient vehicle for middle-aged men to tell 17-year-olds that they and/or their family members are bad people for choosing to go to a different school than said old men chose to go to once upon a time (or never even went to, which is another level of weirdness).
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06-04-2021 08:54 AM |
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GreenHornet33
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
Texas A&M and Missouri were in the Big 12 along with Nebraska and Colorado. The Pac-12 was the Pac-10, there was no football at South Alabama, Charlotte, Georgia State, or Old Dominion. USC was THE team in college football and Appalachian State ran FCS.
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06-04-2021 08:58 AM |
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Fighting Muskie
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
(06-04-2021 08:19 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote: Rutgers wasn't in the Big Ten
i still regret the Maryland and Rutgers adds—the Big Ten should have brought in some schools with some brand power but instead Delany grabbed for markets.
Matt, why moves would you have made as commissioner back then?
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06-04-2021 08:59 AM |
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GoldenWarrior11
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
(06-04-2021 08:59 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: (06-04-2021 08:19 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote: Rutgers wasn't in the Big Ten
i still regret the Maryland and Rutgers adds—the Big Ten should have brought in some schools with some brand power but instead Delany grabbed for markets.
Matt, why moves would you have made as commissioner back then?
And each of the B1G schools are now much richer because of it. There should be zero regret.
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06-04-2021 09:01 AM |
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schmolik
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
(06-04-2021 08:58 AM)GreenHornet33 Wrote: Texas A&M and Missouri were in the Big 12 along with Nebraska and Colorado. The Pac-12 was the Pac-10, there was no football at South Alabama, Charlotte, Georgia State, or Old Dominion. USC was THE team in college football and Appalachian State ran FCS.
I'm not against all realignment in the last few decades and I'm not saying I want to go back to the days of the original Big 10, SEC, ACC, Pac 10, Big East, etc. But a lot of the moves were against geographical sense, breaking up rivalries, and against men's basketball. Would I say I would rather go back to when I was in college (90's) or right now? It's debatable. Interestingly Penn State joined the Big Ten right in the middle of my Illinois undergraduate time in football.
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06-04-2021 09:24 AM |
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GoldenWarrior11
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
The ability to play NCAA Football/Basketball on video game consoles.
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06-04-2021 09:28 AM |
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MattBrownEP
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
(06-04-2021 09:01 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: (06-04-2021 08:59 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: (06-04-2021 08:19 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote: Rutgers wasn't in the Big Ten
i still regret the Maryland and Rutgers adds—the Big Ten should have brought in some schools with some brand power but instead Delany grabbed for markets.
Matt, why moves would you have made as commissioner back then?
And each of the B1G schools are now much richer because of it. There should be zero regret.
Why should I care if the Big Ten schools got richer? I went to Ohio State...was Ohio State somehow lacking for sufficient resources to compete at a high level? Of course not.
Have Big Ten schools added sports with this newfound money? Cut ticket prices? Increased scholarship funding? Donated to the school library?
Not really! Rooting for money if you're already a p5 school is boring. I don't get a dividend check of the Big Ten has a banner year, and neither do the athletes.
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06-04-2021 09:55 AM |
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CliftonAve
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
There are a lot of good changes- ie in 1993 my alma mater went 8-3 but was held out of a bowl game. Today they would safely land in a bowl with that record.
On the other hand, the revenue gap distributed to the B10 and SEC and the rest is at an all-time high. I mean the AAC’s is awful, but there are other conference paying schools less than seven digits. That gap is just not equitable.
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06-04-2021 10:10 AM |
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Fighting Muskie
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
The proliferation of meaningless bowls was already in full swing when I was in undergrad but I think college football would be better off if the number of bowls were reduced.
I mean sure it’s great that the 5th place MAC teams gets a bowl but it cheapens the experience when over half of FBS makes one.
I also detest the other byproduct of the proliferation of bowls—the body bag, rent-a-victim games. Once teams figured out they could schedule 4 OOC weaklings (and 1 of them being FCS) and then go 2-6 in the conference slate and make a bowl that practice became common place.
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06-04-2021 10:39 AM |
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Mav
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
You went into the football season feeling like more than 2 or 3 different teams could win the national championship. Rivalries hadn't been completely screwed over by realignment. ESPN hadn't finished up its rollup of the sport yet. Bowl games had more meaning than being consolation prizes. People cared more. You still had bluehairs, but you could still get a rowdy crowd, especially with no phones distracting people.
I didn't like Keith Jackson at the time, but he was great. Better than the current crews ESPN and ABC roll out there. Gus Johnson's surprisingly decent at calling football games, though.
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06-04-2021 12:57 PM |
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CliftonAve
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
(06-04-2021 10:39 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: The proliferation of meaningless bowls was already in full swing when I was in undergrad but I think college football would be better off if the number of bowls were reduced.
I mean sure it’s great that the 5th place MAC teams gets a bowl but it cheapens the experience when over half of FBS makes one.
I also detest the other byproduct of the proliferation of bowls—the body bag, rent-a-victim games. Once teams figured out they could schedule 4 OOC weaklings (and 1 of them being FCS) and then go 2-6 in the conference slate and make a bowl that practice became common place.
I am less bothered that the 5th place MAC school got a bowl than I am the 9th or 10th place P5 school getting into a bowl game that is better than what the 1st or 2nd team non-autonomous bowl get invited to.
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06-04-2021 01:28 PM |
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The Cutter of Bish
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
Game stoppages for commercial/media breaks in general. I was in school this time 20 years ago, and the games weren’t as long because stations weren’t using every posession change or time stoppage to cram in cut-outs to ads. And you can tell the difference when the energy is naturally way up in the stadium and not pumped through speakers (though, to be fair, there were said to be canned noise at Penn State during those rough 2003-4 seasons of suckage).
You started to not being able to find local teams on the television at that point. Iirc, out in the Philly burbs, finding Pitt and Temple wasn’t easy, but at least PSU was on the local ABC or WPHL-17. That’s not true anymore for the Nits (and add ESPN to that accesibility).
CBS also still used stoppages to do actual analysis. At some point a few years later, they went off the deep end and just started jamming ads whenever possible. I used to track media for Nielsen for a few years toward the end of that decade in my 20’s. I think it was the 2007 or 2008 NCAA Tournament...holy ****, they changed feeds at will, but you still got jammed up with ads. I loathe CBS NCAA coverage now (football and basketball). Unwatchable to me, really. ESPN isn’t so bad by comparison, but it has gotten worse since the 2000’s.
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06-04-2021 01:51 PM |
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SoCalBobcat78
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
The Bluebloods were actually Bluebloods when I was in college (1973-1978). Nebraska football was great and their annual game against Oklahoma was a game you did not want to miss. Same with Michigan football when they played Ohio State. It was always a great game and they actually won some of them.
In basketball, Indiana was a true Blueblood. Being able to keep players around for four years really helped. The Indiana team of 1975-1976 was loaded with talent, going 32-0, the last undefeated team. That team had six future NBA players, four of which were first round picks. They beat UCLA 65-51 in the semifinals of the final four. That UCLA team had nine future NBA players on their roster, six that were first round picks.
In college baseball, USC, Texas and Arizona State were the dominate teams in college baseball. USC baseball won five consecutive national championships from 1970 through 1974. They have not won a conference title in twenty years.
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06-04-2021 04:01 PM |
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HawaiiMongoose
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
Halftime marching band shows were uncensored.
It was amazing to see some of the raunch that the Princeton marching band got away with in the 1970s.
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06-04-2021 04:01 PM |
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mikeinsec127
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
(06-04-2021 08:19 AM)MattBrownEP Wrote: Rutgers wasn't in the Big Ten
Oh I've got some New Jerzy sayins for ya, but this is a polite message board.
What was better:
The cops weren't ball busters about underage drinking in the Yellow Lot.
The games din't constantly stop for TV timeouts and replay reviews.
RU played on grass - I'm old school and believe in dirty uniforms.
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06-04-2021 05:04 PM |
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DFW HOYA
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
The Southwest Conference.
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06-04-2021 05:28 PM |
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Renandpat
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
(06-04-2021 08:54 AM)Bogg Wrote: You didn't have a convenient vehicle for middle-aged men to tell 17-year-olds that they and/or their family members are bad people for choosing to go to a different school than said old men chose to go to once upon a time (or never even went to, which is another level of weirdness).
That's a very good one.
One which hasn't been discussed is the increased use of 6-day or 12-day window to announce gametimes by the networks.
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06-04-2021 05:44 PM |
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ChrisLords
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
Miami (FL), Nebraska, FSU and VT were all better than they are now.
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06-04-2021 05:48 PM |
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CliftonAve
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RE: What was better about college sports when you were college age?
ESPN was about sports and Sports Center was watchable back in the early 90s.
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06-04-2021 06:46 PM |
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