Ohio State Tops the List of Top RB Schools

Rich at CollegeFootballNews.com just wrote an article entitled Running Back U. – Top All-Around RB Schools highlighting colleges which are producing the best running backs.  He gives his take on the top 15 Running Back Universities over the last 40 years and highlighted Ohio State as #1 naming Eddie George as our top guy.

Here’s his writeup of Ohio State:

Consistency, dotted with periodic episodes of brilliance, is what separates the Buckeyes from every other NCAA program seeking the title of Running Back U.  And unlike most other schools, Ohio State backs haven’t endured any serious dry spells.  In the 1970s there was two-time Heisman winner Griffin and pile-driving fullbacks Otis, Brockington and Johnson.  The 1980s gave us Spencer and Byars, a Heisman runner-up Byars. The 1990s were highlighted by Eddie George and his 1,927-yard Heisman season.  After a stellar rookie season, Clarett looked poised to carry the torch early in the 21st century torch before his life spun out of control.

Since 1969, 16 different Buckeyes have rushed for more than 1,000 yards in a college season.  Six hit the milestone in the NFL. Again, a model of consistency. From 1969-1981, no one was better than USC. Not even close. However, since that time, the Trojans slipped until Reggie Bush came along, and the Buckeyes have stayed the course, passing by at some point in the late 1990s. With both teams recruiting so well in recent years, expect them to jockey for the pole position for the foreseeable future.

Check out his story for the other 14 Universities and his take on them.

Big Ten mailbag Part I

Posted by ESPN.com’s Adam Rittenberg

It’s a bit of a slow week around the blog and you guys have a ton of questions (well done, folks), so this will be the first of two Tuesday mailbags. Let’s get it going.

John from Austin, Texas, writes: Adam, First off, congrats on a great year with the blog! Its been a pleasure having someone cover the Big 10 as well as you do. My question is: What the heck is keeping Mike Locksley at Illinois? His name was mentioned for a few of the higher profile head coach jobs this season, but never seemed to get past the first interview. I can understand why he might be shy about an SEC job, but what else is keeping him from going to the next level?

Adam Rittenberg: Thanks for the kind words, John. Locksley is definitely holding out for a BCS-conference head-coaching position, ideally on the East Coast near his recruiting hub of Washington, D.C. He did talk with Clemson but didn’t have a great chance to get that job. Other than Clemson, I’m not sure how many other schools have interviewed him, though it wouldn’t surprise me if Syracuse has made contact. Locks gets paid well at Illinois and has no need to leave for a non-BCS job if he doesn’t want one. He’ll be a frontrunner for the Maryland job whenever Ralph Friedgen moves on, and he should get a close look for Syracuse. Locksley definitely has the personality and recruiting clout to succeed as a head coach on the highest level.

---

Rob from Philadelphia writes: I’ve been reading the national media since Oregon State lost and (most likely) gave USC a Pac10 championship and a Rose Bowl birth. Most people of the opinion that it’s very unfortunate that USC is resigned to destroying Penn State. Some USC players are acting like they’ve already won the game. Defense aside, what is the basis for the Trojan’s status as a national media darling this year?

Adam Rittenberg: The national media loves teams that dominate November and win bowl games, and USC does both. After watching the USC-Notre Dame game on Saturday night, I’ll admit I bought into the hype quite a bit as well. The Trojans’ defense is merciless, and it will be tough for Penn State to score points. That said, USC’s offense is nothing special, and this team falls short of previous editions with Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush. Penn State has a strong bowl record and doesn’t seem like the type of team to play itself out of a game. I’ll have a hard time picking against USC, but it won’t be a rout.

---

Ian from Hartford, Conn., writes: It’s not necessarily big ten related, but who would play in the national championship game should OU get knocked off by Missouri this weekend. Texas is still ahead of USC in the BCS, but would they take a team that didnt win their conference? If USC does get bumped out of the Rose Bowl in favor of the title game, does Oregon State take their spot or another BCS team maybe OU or Texas?

Adam Rittenberg: If Missouri wins, I’d expect Texas to get the nod and play the winner of the SEC championship game in Miami on Jan. 8. USC might get bumped to No. 2, but the Trojans really lack quality wins, while Texas has beaten Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Missouri. Texas absolutely deserves to go over the Trojans, who needed a marquee win down the stretch and couldn’t get one because of the competition. Should USC jump into the title game, the Rose Bowl likely would take a team not from the Pac-10 (Texas would be my guess). USC, of course, also has to take care of business against UCLA.

---

Read more

Penn State led by three of a kind

Posted by ESPN.com’s Adam Rittenberg

You don’t coach a team for 43 years without being dealt some good cards, particularly at the wide receiver position. 

Joe Paterno has seen several standout pass through Penn State, including Biletnikoff Award winner Bobby Engram and All-Americans Kenny Jackson and O.J. McDuffie. He has even had some standout receiver pairs (Engram and Freddie Scott, Jackson and Gregg Garrity).

But before 2005, the 81-year-old had never received a hand that included three of a kind.

That was the year Derrick Williams, Deon Butler and Jordan Norwood began starting for the Nittany Lions. Four seasons later, the three wideouts remain the pillars of the Penn State passing game.

“We’ve had two at different times, but I don’t think we’ve ever had three that are quite like these three are, who have played so much and so long and who have made so many plays,” Paterno said. “They’re like a band of brothers.”

The record-setting wideouts are capping their careers in historic fashion as No. 3 Penn State continues its quest for a national title Saturday night at No. 9 Ohio State (ABC, 8 p.m. ET).

Butler needs six receptions to pass Engram and become Penn State’s all-time receptions leader. Williams has more touchdowns on kick returns than any Penn State player during Paterno’s tenure. On Sept. 27, he became the first player under JoePa to record a rushing touchdown, a receiving touchdown and a kick return touchdown in the same game.

Norwood is tied with Williams for third place on the school’s career receptions list with 142. 

For the third consecutive season, Penn State is on pace to have three different receivers catch 40 or more passes, a milestone that hadn’t been reached until Butler, Williams and Norwood did it in 2006. 

“It’s been a long road already,” Norwood said. “We’ve kind of grown up together.”

Read more

The Roots of Ohio State’s Problems, Part Three: The ESPN Agenda

In Part Two of my ongoing series on the problems revolving around the Ohio State football program, I touched on the Big Ten not helping Ohio State’s cause when it comes to the national perspective on the program.

This morning, I want to touch on another aspect/entity that leads the way in criticism of the Ohio State Buckeye football program.

Finding that problem is quite easy and something any sports fan is quite familiar with…none other than the “worldwide leader in sports,” ESPN.

ESPN has led the way in criticism of Ohio State football and has done so particularly harshly for about the last three to five years now. Some of the quotes from ESPN analysts have been borderline astonishing.

The “Luckeyes” slant is largely credited to ESPN’s 1st and 10 personality Skip Bayless. Tom Luginbill, one of the talking heads of ESPN’s college recruiting division, summed up Ohio State’s 2009 recruiting class by saying, “while Ohio State’s recruiting class this year was impressive on paper, unlike LSU and Georgia’s classes, Ohio State’s is going to have prove it on the field at the next level.”

If you watch College Football Scoreboard, you won’t have to listen too hard to hear the biting criticisms on the Buckeyes every Saturday by Mark May. Mark Schlabach, Pat Forde…the list of ESPN analysts ready to bury the Buckeyes seems infinite.

But why is this the case? BuckeyeNation is convinced there is a bias against Ohio State and thinks that ESPN takes its shot at the Buckeyes every chance it gets.

What does ESPN have against Ohio State? Why are we a kicking post for the worldwide leader in sports? Fans have been wondering aloud for some time if this is just paranoia inside our scarlet and gray minds. Today, I will contend to you that it ISN’T just in your head. There is a lot more at play in regard to this topic than you might think.

Granted, I will admit to you that I have no “black and white” evidence convicting ESPN of anything, and I will further tell you that ESPN has done nothing overtly illegal to harm THE Ohio State University. What I do have are a lot of coincidences that tie together that may have you thinking that this “Buckeye bias” isn’t just a figment of our imaginations.

The Buckeyes aren’t alone in this 24/7 soapbox beatdown. The rest of the Big Ten conference has gotten a share of the belittlement as well, but seemingly not to the degree that the Buckeyes have had to endure. Why is that? Why is the Big Ten also seemingly under fire as well?

Let’s look at some facts…and some even better questions…

Does anybody recall the time ESPN’s criticism of Ohio State began to increase? EWW! PICK ME, PICK ME!!!! I know this one! Well, let me tell you.

It began Jan. 7, 2007 in Glendale, Arizona following a 41-14 Buckeye defeat at the hands of the Florida Gators. The Buckeyes walked into the stadium that night undefeated, heralded, celebrated, and crowned by the college football world and ESPN as national champions before the ball was kicked that evening.

The Buckeyes left as the goats, and ESPN has been the biggest monkey that has ever latched onto a back in the history of college football. ESPN has since said it is because Ohio State has failed to show up on a national stage—which, considering that public embarrassment to Ohio State that night, seems like legitimate reasoning.

But is that really the truth? Or was it just the right excuse for ESPN to unleash its publicity blitz against the Buckeyes and the Big Ten?

Do you think I’m just crying conspiracy? Maybe, because I have nothing CONCRETE to prove my point. But I sure do have a whole lot of convenient coincidences…

Another question for you: Does anybody know their history, and what event was coming to fruition almost simultaneously to the national championship disaster? No? The development of the Big Ten Network, which was set to kick off broadcasting that summer and begin programming of regional Big Ten football broadcasts that next fall.

What does that have to do with ESPN, you ask? Well, let me tell you! The successful development of the Big Ten Network would eliminate Big Ten programming on the ESPN GAMEPLAN PPV packages and also the ESPN+ programs.

The loss of a BCS conference’s programming on their packages means ESPN is losing most of the Midwestern audiences, who would most likely prefer a Big Ten contest as opposed to a national game without regional ties.

You see, for as much blame as the Big Ten gets for the problems the conference has right now, they were WAAAAAAAYYYYY ahead of the curve on this thought.

Why have to share conference broadcasting profits with ESPN, who will put the money in their pockets and give nothing back to the universities that provide their money and ratings, when we can make our own network, cut out the middle man (ESPN), get all of the money, and enrich the universities in the end?

The Big Ten saw this vision LIGHT YEARS ahead of the rest of the conferences, and since then all the other conferences were looking with a watchful eye to see if the network idea would work.

ESPN joined everyone in the watch, but for a completely different reason. ESPN knew that if the Big Ten Network got off the ground and was successful in the Midwest region, other conferences were going to follow suit.

Well, guess what sports fans?!?!?!? It’s taken a while to fully get off the ground, but with Time Warner and BTN finally coming to terms this fall, BTN is up, operational, and here to stay. The ACC and Pac-10 conferences are also looking seriously at setting the groundwork for their own networks now.

Does anybody realize just how big a deal this is to ESPN? BTN’s success has cost ESPN tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue, programming, and sponsorship dollars. Their GAMEPLAN package value has been cut about in half. ESPN+ now runs MAC conference games in the Midwest region that obviously don’t carry the value of Big Ten programming.

If the ACC and the Pac-10 do in fact start their own networks as well, that is even more money lost in VALUABLE program dollars—and from the looks of it, the ACC and Pac-10 will eventually reach their independent goals.

What has ESPN done to answer this serious threat to their value as a company? Panicked, that’s what—and recently with their programming agreement with the SEC, absolutely destroyed any objective news source programming in my book.

You see, the SEC was looking into its own network as well, and ESPN had to do something to try and stop the bleeding. With that, beginning in 2009-2010 the “SEC on ESPN” will be the mantra for the upcoming 15 years!

You may still be wondering, Zuke, what is your friggin’ point?!?! My point is that ESPN is now, in my educated opinion, broadcasting with a biased agenda. The ESPN/SEC marriage now has placed the ABC/ESPN Co. in direct financial success with the Southeastern Conference.

What does that make the Big Ten Network? That’s right kiddies—it makes them direct competition! ESPN will also be in competition with any conference that follows the Big Ten’s path in gaining its own network.

I also find it oddly coincidental that the ACC seems to be the next closest conference to following the Big Ten’s lead, and all of a sudden, ESPN has turned up the volume on the criticism of the conference’s strength when just a few years prior, the ACC was to be the next “superpower conference in college football.”

But I digress. Back to Ohio State…

The Big Ten has been ESPN’s whipping boy for the last few years now, and who is the premier team in the Big Ten conference right now? Ohio State.

This leads me to questions of ESPN’s validity as a network when the Reggie Bush money scandal, Alabama infractions, and the SEC’s “oversigning” policy, amongst other whispers of SEC improprieties, are kept at whispers.

But the Troy Smith fiasco was 24/7 across the wire, Penn State’s player conduct issues have gotten Outside the Lines special report coverage, and Rich Rodriguez’s legal dispute between Michigan and West Virginia has been littered across ESPN’s programming the past few months as well.

If you think all of this in the article is just a nice bedtime story, you might want to remember that there is something called the “ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll,” and that ESPN for the last two years has been the loudest voice proclaiming that a two-loss SEC team should get a national championship opportunity over any one-loss team from another conference.

From this man’s eyes, ESPN is not out to help the Buckeyes’ cause. Think about it…

As always, leave me comments, arguments, and thoughts on my board! I welcome all praise and criticism. Also please add me to your favorites list. My words make no sound without your ears!

Also look for the next installment to the series “The Roots of Ohio State’s Problems, Part Four: Stale Is the Beginning of Death.”

Go to Source

Javon Ringer: Ready to Start Practicing The Pose?

If voters had their way, the Heisman would be awarded to the best player whose team plays for the National Championship title. Forget who is the best player in college football—even though that is the stated mission of the Heisman Trust—a BCS title contender’s best player has now become a prerequisite to winning the Heisman.

Take a look at the last Heisman winners since the inception of the BCS Series.

Tim Tebow, Troy Smith, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Jason White, Carson Palmer, Eric Crouch, Chris Weinke, and Ron Dayne were all Heisman winners who, with the exception of Tebow, played in BCS Bowls the year they won, and only Palmer and Dayne didn’t play in the title game—they played in the Orange Bowl and Rose Bowl, respectively.

It looks like so far, the voters have had their way.

While no one is saying the Heisman winners didn’t deserve their hardware, there seems to a growing consensus that unless your team is bowling in January, you cannot possibly be the best player in college football.

It took Superman, aka Tim Tebow, to change that current trend.

So what are Javon Ringer’s chances of being crowned Mr. December?

While Michigan State is no slouch, and in fact, a rapidly-rising Big Ten team, they aren’t expected to be in a BCS Bowl come this January. Ohio State, Penn State, and Wisconsin have a more probable date in Pasadena, not Sparty.

Does that diminish Ringer’s chances? Maybe.

It’s up to him to put up such un-earthling stats that the voters have no choice but to vote for him. Marshall Faulk did just that, but unfortunately, was a victim of playing at San Diego State, while the U’s Gino Torretta was gobbling up all of the East Coast/Midwest votes.

Lucky for Ringer, he plays east of the Mississippi.

Time to grease those wheels, feed those O-linemen some more carbs, and run due north. In short, keep doing what he’s doing.

So what’s the big deal about Ringer, anyway, except for the very cool name?

In just four games, he has racked up 699 yards in rushing and 11 touchdowns. He’s on a projected season total of 2,097 yards and 33 touchdowns. Let that sink in a bit.

Against Florida Atlantic—the Sun Belt champ—he carried 43 times for 282 yards and a 6.6 ypc average. A week later, against Notre Dame, he rushed 5.2 ypc on 39 carries for 201 yards, with a long of 62 yards.

More eye-popping stats:

• He’s No. 2 on the rushing leaders list, less than five yards behind UConn’s Donald Brown.
• He’s averaging over 234 all purpose yards per game.
• He’s No. 3 on the all-purpose yardage leaders for 2008.
• Ringer is No. 3 on yards from scrimmage, at 184 yards per game.
• He averages over 4.8 ypc and 174 ypg.

Ringer has such speed and athleticism, no one may be able to stop him once he gets past the tackles. He’s a 5′9″, 202-pound bruiser, and the perfect size for NFL scouts to drool over. Solid, and unassuming.

A team player.

“Hopefully with the way we’ve been running the ball,” Ringer told The Free Press, “people will start to stack the box and kinda forget about our passing game, and that will just help us to win.”

Well said, young Jedi. You have been taught well. Open up the passing game when they stack the box.

A player who isn’t a diva? A player who wants his team to win above his own personal gain? A big-time running back from Michigan State? A swell guy?

Yeah.

Sparty got some wheels now. Now don’t look back, kid. Run, Ringer, run.

Then you can strike the pose.

Go to Source