The local sports show guy, Billy Packer's son, is a huge southern football guy. He had some really interesting comments yesterday when Herbstreit was on his show.
He said that Ohio State's biggest problem was between their ears. He maintains that tOSU has some real studs on their team but they are mentally mind screwed by all of this matchup stuff. And that it will be worse next season.
He and Herbstreit both agreed that the Big Ten needed to stop getting hammered in the biggest bowls and that the SEC teams were emotionally tougher though not across the board. They pointed out that although LSU was surprised a bit in the first part of the game they never panicked. They waited for the game to turn and then played from there.
Surprisingly though, they both agreed that the Big Ten was better this year than last. That there are some teams that are turning the corner, Michigan State, Illinois, and so on. And that Michigan switching to the Spread option and Penn State and Ohio State probably returning to it is changing the conference.
But until those teams step up a little more that the conference would suffer. One interesting thing they both noted was that the criticism leveled against the Big Ten could be leveled at any conference not named the SEC the last couple years.
Not sure I agree with all of it, but a lot of what we see now is hubris. I was hoping the Big Ten would avoid the title game this year because of all of the young teams at the top. Not to be. We'll have to listen to the insane criticism coming from the likes of Alabama and Kentucky fans for the rest of the year.
Will
