ESPN.com puts the Buckeyes at #2

No, it's not the preseason Top 25. It's better than that.

ESPN.com is ranking every college football program over the past ten years. They've placed Ohio State at #2, just behind USC. I have every reason to believe that USC's second national championship in that time frame is the lone reason why the two teams are not flipped.

Ivan Maisel describes Ohio State's ranking as such....

There may be eight Division I-A schools in the state, but there's only one that rules it from Toledo to Cincinnati. Coach Jim Tressel has polished the Buckeyes program to a fine sheen.

That's when it hit me...we're ranked number 2 over the past decade...and 40% of that decade had our football program at the mercy of John Cooper.

- In 1999, we went 6-6, including allowing 42 unanswered points at home to Wisconsin, and giving up 46 points to Illinois...again, at home, and we lost to Michigan again.
- In 2000, South Carolina humiliated us, we couldn't beat Michigan again, and we got blown out on HOMECOMING DAY to Minnesota.

Check back in four years, ESPN. When the decade includes a full 10 years of Jim Tressel, you're going to place us at #1.

Here's a quick look at the important points of the list....

1. USC
2. Ohio State
3. Texas
4. Florida
5. Oklahoma
6. Michigan
7. Florida State
8. Miami
9. LSU
10. Tennessee

I believe that Texas is overrated on this list. In the past ten years, they have won the Big Twelve exactly one time. One Vince Young season does not make a #3 ranking.

Big Ten teams
2. Ohio State
6. Michigan
13. Wisconsin
21. Penn State
25. Iowa
33. Purdue
52. Minnesota
55. Michigan State
68. Northwestern
84. Illinois
94. Indiana

I'm thinking Michigan State might have gotten the shaft a little bit here. I always view them in the top half of the Big Ten. Putting them 8th is a misrepresentation, in my opinion. Other than that, the list looks like the football standings at the end of just about every season.

Hate mail from Michigan fans

For about two weeks, I've been getting excessive amounts of hate mail from Michigan fans. It seems to increase each day, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why.

I know that college football season is fast approaching, but why all the sudden lashing out at little old me?

The e-mails range from how Michigan is the best ever, Troy Smith sucks, and Maurice Clarett is a criminal. None of them have proper grammar or spelling, and nearly all of them have some derivation of the word "fag" in it somewhere. So why am I getting the attack dogs?

Ohhhhh.....NOW I know. This is why.

Go to YouTube.
Now do a search for "Chad Henne".

The top two results that pop up are both videos to the tune by the Dead Schembechlers, "Chad Henne Is A Joke". Mine is the most watched, with just a shade under 100,000 views.

Near as I can tell, Michigan fans are searching for Chad Henne videos, and when they search for it, the first thing they see is not a very pleasant experience for them. All of a sudden, the memories and the realization that they have won only 17% of their games against Ohio State since Jim Tressel rolled into town, and they get all crazy.

Frankly, I love it now that I know where it's coming from. So here's a little gift for the friends of The BBC.



That's my work, but music and lyrics are by the Dead Schembechlers.

I can't embed it on my page, but if you want to hear 3,000 people sing the lyrics to this song, I implore you to see the live performance on YouTube.

Oh, and welcome Michigan fans. Good to have you paying attention to us again!

I'm back and feeling refreshed

I took a long weekend and went with my girlfriend to Cincinnati. Her brother lives there, and since she resides in Utah most of the time, she rarely gets to see him. It was a great time, but I had to make a little stop on the way back.

She "gets it" that I love Ohio State, but I don't think she understands the depths of it all. So I made her take a little detour from Route 71, and we took a walk around Ohio Stadium. It'll take her seeing an actual game to understand the magnitude of what it all means, but she's well on her way. In the meantime, she's getting down the finer points of what it means to live in Buckeye Nation.

For example, she understands that;
- Woody Hayes = greatest of all time
- Jim Tressel = savior
- John Cooper = embarrassment
- When someone asks you the time you say "It's (blank) and Michigan still sucks"
- It's not red, it's scarlet
- It's "THE Ohio State University"

As you can see, I'm working on her. She'll get it. I'm trying to convince her to fly out for the third week of November and come watch the game with me at the Varsity Club or somewhere comparable. The Game is still 117 days away....plenty of time to convince her to come spend The Week with the man in her life.

One additional point to make. You can't tell from any pictures, but the end zone on the new field...that is the BRIGHTEST shade of scarlet I have ever seen. Simply beautiful!

Time off

Taking a little time off....personal reasons. When I pick things up again, it'll be Buckeye-related. I am going to write my season preview and I'll be back with that shortly. But first, I need a little time to recharge my batteries.

Gimme a week. In the meantime, go click on all the blogs to the right of this column.

Changing gears - the Cleveland Indians

Fans of the BBC know that this blog has changed it's central focus in the past....and it'll happen again. Today is one of those days.

The Buckeyes are 60 days away from their opening game of the 2007 season. As that number shrinks, the frequency of OSU posts will increase. This blog was created as a Buckeye blog, and my beloved university always be the main issue of discussion. But in the meantime, I'm still a huge sports fan, and it's the middle of baseball season. Thus, I will put a lot of focus on the Cleveland Indians.

I'm not one to get too in-depth when it comes to baseball (if you want pitch-by-pitch breakdown and if you want to know how to tell the difference between a slider and a curve, ask PoJo. He's your man. But I'm a Tribe fan and I love spending evenings at the Jake, so I'll put my two cents in as often as possible.

Having said that, how bout those Indians?

Tonight the Tribe took it to the Detroit Kitties again (do we own that city and the state they reside in or what?) We're 5-2 against the defending AL Champions, and we now hold a 3-game lead in the AL Central. Did you hear that? We're in first place in July. Hell, yeah.

One last point to bring up before I call it a night.....for any doubters out there who want to talk about the juggernaut that is Boston, or the surge that is Los Angeles, let me mention this....the Indians are 51-32. One-half game behind both the Red Sox and the Angels. Tomorrow night, it's likely that we could be the best team in the MLB.

But for now, we're the best in the Central, and that gets us into the playoffs if it holds.

Free agency news...or is it?

Sorry I've been away. With the slowdown of Ohio State/Cavaliers news, it's been difficult to get to the computer as much as I'd like to. Plus, I'm stalking a 6-foot blonde who lives 1,800 miles away. Actually, it's 1,781 miles....you have to be precise if you want to make an impression on your target. It's a full-time job.

In case you didn't hear the news, the Cavs tendered offers to free agents Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson Varejao. The discussion on Cleveland sports talk radio was often asking which player we should keep and which we would rather lose, making the casual fan assume we'd only be able to have one on the team next year. This move gives us the opportunity to keep both, but don't get too excited.

It's merely a strategic move.

We offered contracts to both players on Saturday, the day before free agency opened. It immediately moved Pavs and AV from unrestricted free agents to restricted free agents. Basically, we can offer first refusal. If a team offers them a higher-priced contract, we can match it and keep the player.

It gives us more time to scour the free agency field and see what we can sign, and balance the books while we wait to hear what the new salary cap is. Plus, if we hadn't tendered offers to the pair, any other team could have made signed them and we'd have lost them for nothing.

No, it doesn't make Danny Ferry seem smart...yes, it's a wise move and it's commonplace when you want to keep players like Pavs and AV.....but it sure shows us that our GM is not stupid.