It would totally suck, as the Big Ten championship is very important and one of the team's stated goals.  The season is incomplete without the conference title.  Ohio State hasn't won one since 2020, so it would be nice to get one soon (yeah, I know TSUN cheated).

The article helps explain why it's ridiculous to have 18 teams in the conference and not play 8 of them every seaosn.

Yeah, an in-state tournament with Ohio State, Cincinnati, Xavier, and Dayton would be cool.  Even if it's just one game apiece would be OK.  No need to water this down with the likes of Cleveland State, Youngstown State, or MAC schools.  No one gets excited about playing them.  It becomes less feasible as well by making the event bigger and longer.

Rutgers already has 2 conference losses, and Ohio State plays Indiana and can deliver a head-to-head loss.

I consider the season a failure without a Big Ten championship (and win over TSUN), regardless of what happens in the playoff.

Might be time to give Mathews more playing time at DB.

I was trying to think of the last time Ohio State’s defense got a stop when the opponent had a chance at a game-winning drive.  The latest I remembered were the 2017 Big Ten Championship Game vs. Wisky and 2017-2018 vs. Penn State.  I cannot remember any since 2018, although I might be forgetting some games.  Every other game since 2018 has either not come down to needing a stop, or the defense has failed.

Be nice to see the defense force more 3 and outs in these big games.

 No weaknesses?  The secondary and lack of pass rush were pretty big weaknesses.  The whole D, tonight, really.

Yeah, all those championships really suck.

You don't need to post this same thing 20 times.

I'm having trouble grasping the idea of "#1 Purdue" in football.

I remember that 1996 game vs. Wisky.  It's crazy that Cooper waited so long to insert Germaine.

Well, we have the Illinois game some years for the Illibuck.

Damn, I miss the cocaine whites.  I'm sure Nike could be convinced to make a new set for Ohio State.

I generally enjoy these articles, and Crepea's responses were reasonable.

I did get a chuckle earlier from the WMU writer who thought the Broncos would give Ohio State a competitive game.

Joe Montana played in a brutal era for QBs.  Tom Brady would have missed a lot more games had he played back then.  Defenders would get 15 yards for giving Brady a dirty look.

Most pyiscally gifted is not the same as greatest.  Randy Moss was probably the most gifted WR ever, but Jerry Rice was the best WR.  Moss took too many plays off and did not maximize his talents, although he still had a very good career.

LeBron James is certainly not better than Michael Jordan.  He's definitely top 10 all-time, maybe top 5.  I'd have to dig into it more.  But Jordan was definitely better.

Meh.

Just curious -- does Oregon have "regular" uniforms?  Does it ever wear the same uniforms more than once?  It seems to have a different combination every game, which I find ridiculous.

If I were an Oregon fan and wanted the regular jersey, what would that even look like?

Eh, I’m pretty sure Ohio State would have run the table last year with Stroud.

Eh, the Big Ten was fine at 12 schools.  It didn’t need to add anyone.

Good work.  Interesting stuff, and the picture will change almost every week.

I really hope Ohio State beats 3 SEC teams in the playoff en route to a title or 2 SEC teams + Clemson.

What’s the problem?  Hartline is entitled to his opinions.  I’d say more, but I will respect the no politics rule.

Everyone seems to think it’s cool to keep adding extra teams to the conference.  Now we have this geographical mess, crazy travel, and trying to figure out tiebreakers since teams barely play half the other teams in a given football season.

I miss having 12 teams with a Midwest focus.  It’s like, as long as there’s more TV money, everything else be damned.

The Pac-12 was fine.  It just needed better leadership and a better TV deal.

The 2021 contest was a one-score game (7 points); hardly an ass-kicking.  Ohio State had 2 chances in the 4th quarter to tie the game.

I wouldn’t place much stock in that 1-8 record for teams playing at least 2 time zones away.  The favored team won in most of those matchups.

The record is really 2-8, as you are forgetting UCLA’s win at Hawaii.

Right, a 10-2 Ohio State still makes the playoff, but one of its stated goals was to win the Big Ten.

One innovative solution (probably never happen) would be for conferences to leave the last 3-4 weeks of conference play “open” and do like a Swiss-style chess tournament.  In these events, players are matched up round by round based on previous results to so that winners keep playing each other.  These are useful when there are numerous participants and not enough time to do a round robin.  Rematches are avoided as much as possible.

So Ohio State could play 5 conference games, play The Game (unfortunately, it would have to be moved up), and then the Big Ten would set the matchups for the last 4 weeks based on previous results.  It could try to give everyone 2 home and 2 away games as much as possible.  This would eliminate the need for convoluted tiebreakers.  It might be enough to do this for 3 weeks.

This could be problematic for TV and ticket sales, but the Big Ten could designate home teams for each week in November.  So Ohio State could be home for weeks 2 and 4 and away weeks 1 and 3.  Then, people could still plan ahead in they want to attend games.  You would not know the opponent very far in advance, but it would probably be a good team given that Ohio State is usually a good team.

The downside is that the good teams will pick up more losses as they play each other and hurt their playoff chances.

Kind of cool idea, though.

Maybe true, but a loss here probably makes the Penn State game a must win, as Ohio State may not make the conference title game with 2 losses.

I hear you.  If you’re up late on Saturday night, the Final Drive on BTN does a nice, hour-long recap of the weekend’s Big Ten football games.  It is usually replayed on Sunday morning as well.