Well the Big12 is 4-3 now and it's being considered a down year. The Big11 is now 3-3 and Jon is posting on his board that this has been a "banner year" for the big 10. I guess that just shows where each conference is right now.
How will the Big 12 do in Bowl Games
- Thread starter Cyrocks
- Start date
It was a banner year for the Big 10 in bowl games. Two BCS wins. A matchup between solid #3 teams with the SEC. And a solid win by #4 against a talented Miami team. That's a great bowl year even with close losses by Minnesota, Northwestern, and Michigan State. It's a great year when a conference that typically gets solid bowl opponents gets two in the BCS (making all lesser games harder) and still wins the top-4 games.
Ok, but you're still dis-crediting the fact the other conferences also get 2 teams in the BCS, it's not just the Big 10 who does that. SEC has the past couple of years, so has the the Big 12, just not this year. I really don't get that argument that the Big 10 teams always play "up" in a bowl game. (Up obviously meaning being moved up in pecking order).
Due to the disparity in the bowl matchups, you have to look further than bowl records when comparing conference bowl performance.
Looking at the matchups, the Big 10 represented well in every bowl game, and excelled in the elite bowl games. The Big 12 got owned by the SEC and Navy, with their only big wins against the Pac 10 which has been proven to be bad this year, possibly the worst BCS conference. I'd say the Big 10 had a much better bowl season than the Big 12.
Looking at the matchups, the Big 10 represented well in every bowl game, and excelled in the elite bowl games. The Big 12 got owned by the SEC and Navy, with their only big wins against the Pac 10 which has been proven to be bad this year, possibly the worst BCS conference. I'd say the Big 10 had a much better bowl season than the Big 12.
It was somewhat true this year, although not to a large extent.
5 of their bowls were against teams who finished in the same spot in their conference (OSU-Oregon, PSU-LSU, Wisconsin-Miami, Northwestern-Auburn, and Minnesota-ISU), and 2 of their bowls they were at a disadvantage (Iowa-Georgia Tech, Michigan State-Texas Tech).
There weren't any bowls where the Big 10 team finished higher in the conference than their opponent.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
So Gene coached himself up over a better opponent? So maybe Jamie really did see something in that guy, something that was actually there?
Just saying, maybe that's an option?
No, Northwestern wasn't a better opponent. When #8 in the SEC beats #4 in the Big 10, it just shows that the SEC is much better than the Big 10. Put Auburn in the Big 10 and they would probably have finished in 1st place.
No they wouldn't have. And for the record, Auburn almost beat Alabama.
Big Ten was better than the Big 12 this year. Bowl records prove it. Deal with it.
Hmmm . . seems to me the Big 12 did pretty well against the Big 10 in their bowls games.
Of course they did....if you want to use Minnesota (3-5 Big Ten record & fumbled away and opportunity to win at the end of the game) and MSU (4-4 Big Ten record, 14 players suspended for bowl game, 7 of which were starters) as a measuring stick. Those two games are a perfect example of why you have to look at match ups in bowl games before drawing conclusions.
I was VERY confident before the Insight Bowl that ISU would win. My reasoning:
-Minnesota lost 4 out of its last 5 regular season games
-Minny had been to the Insight Bowl in 4 out of the last 5 years
-ISU hadn't been to a bowl game in 4 seasons - they were going to come to play
To be quite honest, I really thought ISU would blow out Minny, but, nonetheless, that game proved pretty much nothing, as a break or two either way would have dramatically changed the outcome of the game.
MSU was missing 11 players from their two deep rosters (including 7 starters) against Tech and was in that game until the very end.....again, another game I predicted to be a blowout in the Big 12's favor, yet it wasn't.
This year, the best of the Big Ten proved to be better than the best of the Big 12, without much of any doubt.
Texas got beat by Bama, and even though McCoy was out, I doubt he could have put up the 37+ he would have needed to win in order to defeat the tide. OK. St. got beat by a pretty mediocre Ole Miss team. Oklahoma had to eek out a win over Standford. Perhaps the Big 12's best bowl win would be Nebby's thrashing of Arizona, however, the PAC 10 has proven to be pretty bad this bowl season, so I'm not sure how much stock you put in that.
Compare that performance to the Big Ten's: OSU beat the PAC 10 champ, Iowa beat the ACC champ (2-0 in BCS games), PSU (#3 Big Ten team) beat LSU (#3 SEC team), and Wisconsin beat a 9 win Miami team. The Big Ten had 4 wins over teams in the top 15 of the coaches poll and finishes the year with 4 teams with 11 or more victories. This was a damn good year for the Big Ten.
Bama, Florida, and UT are head and shoulders above OSU and Iowa.
The Big 10 had a great bowl season and proved many of the pundits wrong, but let's not get crazy here. Iowa or OSU could not go toe-to-toe with the Big 3.
The Big 10 had a great bowl season and proved many of the pundits wrong, but let's not get crazy here. Iowa or OSU could not go toe-to-toe with the Big 3.
:biglaugh: You make this too easy.
So...IF you are using this bowl games this year as a measuring stick when stating the Big Ten was better than the Big 12, then you have to use bowl games from the last four years as a measuring stick to say the Big 10 sucked during that time.
EDIT: And for the record, UNI and Appalacian (sp) State ALMOST beat Iowa
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You make some good points but then you go on to really prove why the big 10 and big 12 can't really be compared because no marquee teams matched up against each other. I think the big 10 had a really good bowl season and showed that the top half of the conference was much better than people would like to admit, but none of the wins by the big 10 you listed really shocked me.
Iowa and OSU both would have given Texas a game, I have no doubt in my mind watching that last night. The "big 3" aren't as high above other teams this year as they usually are. Alabama only beat VA Tech by 10 (and look how bad the ACC was), Tennessee by 2, LSU by 9, and Auburn by 5. It isn't like that team just crushed everybody in sight. Texas, well I don't have to look any further than their struggles with Oklahoma and Nebraska to prove that they would struggle with any team that had a defense (which both OSU and Iowa do). Florida isn't the Florida of last season, they had plenty of games within 10 points: LSU, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
I would have loved to see OSU or Iowa play any one of those 3 teams.....I'm not saying the Big Ten team would win, but I'll guarantee it wouldn't be the blowout loss you'd be hoping for.
I would have loved to see OSU or Iowa play any one of those 3 teams.....I'm not saying the Big Ten team would win, but I'll guarantee it wouldn't be the blowout loss you'd be hoping for.
Ummm.... yeah? The Big Ten has been down for a few years. Have I denied that?
Did you not watch any of the bowl games this year? I think it's pretty undeniable which was the better of the two conferences.
And I didn't say the Big 10 didn't play well in their bowl games. I would agree with another poster, however, that Texas and Alabama are head and shoulders above the rest of the teams.
And you used Auburn ALMOST beating Alabama for some sort of justification. I simply pointed Iowa ALMOST lost to UNI and Appalacian State. Auburn>UNI, Appalacian State.
Big 10 did well, for once.
Like I pointed out to SplitIdenity, Iowa ALMOST lost to UNI and Appalacian State. VA Tech > UNI, Appalacian State, Tennessee>UNI, Appalacian State, Auburn>UNI, Appalacian State, Oklahoma>UNI, Appalacian State, Nebraska>UNI, Appalacian State.
AND, it's not like IOWA crushed everyone in sight.
