Tuesday's Buckeye Bits

Good morning Buckeye fans. Welcome to your Tuesday morning Buckeye Bits. If your new to this daily feature we here at ITS attempt to scour the web for interesting stories for you to read. Think of it as a quicker way to get your sporting fix before the boss makes his/her morning rounds.

The basketball Bucks are a #2 seed this year and open up play this Thursday. We have some great writers that will have tons of info on the upcoming game and tournament as it approaches. With that said, I thought it would be nice to keep it on the football side of things today. Off we go!

Butch Davis Leaves His Mark- Well, it's probably not his fault entirely as Butch hasn't been linked to any of the problems at North Carolina but as a Browns fan I don't miss an opportunity to slander his name. I found it extra hilarious that this story was buried down the page on ESPN. Where is all the outrage that was expressed during Tatgate? How much do you want to bet this story doesn't come up until half way through Sportscenter? Ahh, got to love that bias.

BCS vs. Playoffs: Another Reason For The Playoff System

Do teams like Boise State deserve a shot?

Ed. Note: This is Brady's response to Danny's take on the BCS

I couldn’t agree with you more Danny. The pre-BCS era was awful and in no way gave us a true national champion. You will get no argument on this point from me. Unfortunately, just because the system was tweaked to get a “national championship game” in the fold doesn’t mean that the NCAA got it right. It is still an incredibly flawed and biased system. The fact remains that teams are still elected to their various BCS games in what amounts to be a beauty contest.

You mentioned that individuals have bias and computers don’t. I don’t think anybody would argue with that. You also noted that by combining a voting public with a non-emotional-by-the-numbers computer entity, one comes up with two teams that the majority of people think should be in a title game.

That is also true but why must the public settle on a majority vote when a playoff bracket, used in almost every competitive sporting competition in this country, could just crown a champion on the field? The combination of computer programs, crazy algorithms and voting could still be used to seed the brackets. Arguments would still exist as to why team A got in over team B on the lower end of the brackets but that wouldn’t bother me as much. If a given team’s reason for missing a 8 or 12 seed (depending on the number of teams) in the playoffs was due to a loss or scheduling a weak out of conference slate then tough luck. I can guarantee no undefeated squads would be left out and the TCU’s of the world would get a fair chance to compete for a national title.

If The 'Shoe Fits: Podcast #3

Good afternoon faithful readers, we have another podcast today for you. This time Brady is coming in giving his long awaited thoughts. We go over the new Big Ten Logo and Divisions as well as the Heisman, coaching moves, and even a little TCU.

*Note* I say Danny will be joining us, but do to issues, it's just Brady. Next time, promise.

Podcast after the jump

No Rose Bowl? No Problem!

Very small chance

Obviously, the goal every year at Ohio St. is to win the Big Ten and ultimately a national championship. The Buckeyes are easily one of the top 5 programs in the nation and 1 or 2 loss seasons are often deemed as a failure. Short of a MNC appearance, the Rose Bowl is the next best post season destination for the Scarlet and Gray. Historically, Pasadena has been THE destination that all Big Ten/Pac Ten schools would aspire to be at. The BCS has changed that somewhat but a trip to sunny southern California is still considered to be a great accomplishment.

This year, it appears that the only way the Buckeyes are going to Pasadena is if they can somehow pass Wisconsin in the BCS standings by Sunday night. This seems to be a pipe dream at best because of Ohio St.’s head to head loss to the Badgers in Madison back on Oct. 17. To be honest, I don’t think OSU deserves it over a Wisconsin team this year. They beat the Buckeye’s up and down the field in that fateful first half and deserve to be slated higher in the standings. In reality, it looks like the Buckeye’s will have to settle for a trip to Miami to face an ACC team or New Orleans to face an SEC team. Is that really a bad option for the team this year? I don’t think it is.

TCU To Join Big East, 2012-2013 Season

Coming to a conference near you!

Update #1 10:16 AM EST: According to Joe Schad, TCU will announce their joining the conference 2 PM EST, 1 PM CT.

TCU is now accepting membership into the Big East, in all sports. They will join in the 2012-2013 season. An announcement will likely come early this week. It might not make much sense right now, but it's designed to add another football school that's actually good into the Big East, which hasn't been good as of late.


This would now mean that TCU is in a BCS school, which means they get an automatic bid once they join, if they win the conference. 


"The Big East had said a few weeks ago it wanted to get its football membership to 10 teams. The league also made an offer to Villanova, a member in all sports but football, to move up from FCS to the Big East."


"The current four-year evaluation period for the BCS concludes in December 2011, so TCU's past BCS rankings – three consecutive top 11 BCS rankings, including this year – will transfer to the Big East since it joined the league before the 2012-13 school year.

The current 2008-11 evaluation period is being used to determine if a seventh conference earns automatic qualifying status for the 2012 and 2013 regular seasons – and the Mountain West (TCU's current home) will not qualify. The Big East, however, already has its automatic qualifying status for the 2012 and 2013 regular seasons by virtue of the contracts, Hancock said.

Adding TCU also would strengthen its position when the league starts renegotiating its television contracts that expires after the 2013 season."


- Fanhouse 


Updates as they come