ROSE BOWL BOUND
Ohio State demolishes Tennessee, 42-17, and advances to the Rose Bowl to face top-seeded Oregon.
Turns out, Marvin Harrison Jr. can jump a little bit.
super marv pt. II https://t.co/NgU1CwgcNe pic.twitter.com/pgzTjgElUz
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) February 17, 2022
I'm gonna set the over/under on 8.5 goal line fades to between him and C.J. Stroud next season, and I'd probably bet the over.
Word of the Day: Inimical.
KINGS OF THE COACHES POLL. Turns out, Ohio State has been consistently very good at football for a very long time and damn-well may be the top college football program ever. At least, according to the coaches poll.
College Football News put together a scoring system taking every coaches poll since 1950 and giving the top-ranked team 25 points, second-place 24, third-place 23 and so on until every team has a cumulative score.
At the end of the day, Ohio State and Oklahoma are tied at No. 1.
Here's your top-10:
- T1 Ohio State 1028
- T1 Oklahoma 1028
- 3 Alabama 1011
- 4 Michigan 806
- 5 Notre Dame 743
- T6 Nebraska 736
- T6 USC 736
- 8 Penn State 715
- 9 Texas 714
- 10 Florida State 617
There's a little bit of nuance that needs to be addressed here, though.
There’s one key, funky difference between the two polling systems over the years. The Coaches Poll doesn’t rank teams on probation.
That started in 1974 after the 1973 Oklahoma Sooners finished the season No. 2 despite being penalized for past transgressions. So in 1974 when OU went 11-0 and finished the season as the AP’s national champion, USC won the UPI Coaches Poll national title – the Sooners weren’t even ranked.
But Oklahoma wasn’t alone. Ohio State – you’ll see in a moment how much probation matters – didn’t see its 2012 12-0 season get ranked.
Alabama – 2002 and 1995 – wasn’t ranked despite finishing in the top 20 of the respective AP polls for those seasons. Others like Auburn (1979, 1993), Clemson (1982, 1983), and Miami (1981, 1995) likely would’ve been higher, too, if their great seasons were ranked.
That's stupid, but there's not much you can do in hindsight. But at the end of the day, Ohio State's on top and that seems correct to me.
REAL RECOGNIZE REAL. With both Ohio State basketball teams sharing a building, E.J. Liddell can't help but notice the work put in by the women's squad – particularly Taylor Mikesell.
"Every morning at 6:30, she's in here shooting on the shooting machine in their gym."
— Ohio State on BTN (@OhioStateOnBTN) February 16, 2022
Game respects game when it comes to @OhioStateHoops' @EasyE2432 @OhioStateWBB's @TMikesell23.
Subscribe to @BTNMikeHall's pod : https://t.co/CaKxX84c6c pic.twitter.com/mmKKngmlEN
For those unaware, Mikesell is currently the best three-point shooter in the country, hitting an absurd 49.44% of her threes this season.
Turns out, those numbers don't just happen by magic.
B1G TO NBC? The Big Ten's media rights are up for grabs after the 2023 season, which means we could be seeing a drastic difference in how our local team's games are broadcast in just a few years.
While Fox and ESPN have been the major broadcast partners under the current deal, one new bidder could be NBC.
With the Big Ten’s media rights set to expire in 2023, major networks are gearing up to bid for some of the most sought-after packages in college sports.
NBC Sports is expected to make a major push for the Power 5 conference’s rights, sources tell Front Office Sports. The Big Ten could command fees of up to $1.1 billion annually on the open market, said sources.
NBC views the combination of the Big Ten along with its existing deal with Notre Dame football as the “perfect one-two punch,” said one source. With its $100 million-per-year deal with the NHL off the books, NBC has the cash and ambition to boost its college portfolio.
“If I’m ESPN or Fox, I’m looking over my shoulder because NBC is going to go hard after the Big Ten,” said another source.
On one hand, this would almost certainly mark a joyful death of the egregious number of nooners Ohio State has played on Fox recently. On the other hand, I absolutely do not want to have to watch the Buckeyes play Rutgers live-streamed on Peacock.
THAT TIME OF YEAR. There are few traditions more American than little girls peddling overpriced boxed cookies every year, and it looks like Chris Holtmann is observing this year.
And he's got himself quite the haul...
I limited myself to two (2) boxes of thin mints this year. We'll see how long I stick to that.
Also, I can't just let that glorious wreath go unmentioned. That is CLEAN.
SONG OF THE DAY. "Do Better" by Say Anything.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. Francis Ford Coppola’s $100 million bet... How I turned a derelict brothel into an iconic Ibiza club... New York trains carrying millions of gallons of poop are heading for Alabama again... Elephant dung filters the botanical mix for a South African gin maker... Victoria's Secret's first model with Down syndrome... 11 successful people who were actually scammers, dummies or frauds... Ikea’s race for the last of Europe’s old-growth forest... Domino’s spent $50 million on commercials about giving $100,000 to local businesses...
