BCS Title Game: The Morning After

Driving into work this morning, and then reading some of the blogosphere, there seemed to be an overwhelming consensus about why LSU beat Ohio St. 38-24 in the BCS Title Game last night: The Tigers simply had better athletes than the Buckeyes. "Too fast, too strong, too tough to contain!" is the refrain that I'm hearing over and over again. And while yes, the conventional wisdom is that Big Ten teams simply don't have the elite level of athletes that SEC schools do, I don't think it's that simple.

Getting past our preconceived notions, last night's game was simple, and brought up an equally disturbing trend that I've noticed among Big Ten schools: they simply cannot pass block. A big part of this, I think, goes back to where you come from. While Big Ten schools like Ohio St. might go cross-country to recruit skill players, the meat of their offensive line recruiting comes from the Midwest. And most high school teams in the Midwest are still run-first in nature. Offensive linemen don't work on pass blocking in the Midwest as much as they do in the West Coast or the South, where high school teams have much more balanced offenses. And pass blocking is a technique-based skill, versus run blocking which is much more about physical ability, size and power. You can try to teach pass blocking in college, but if the skills weren't developed in high school, you've got a long way to go.

I'll use my personal observations watching USC play Big Ten teams in the recent Rose Bowls as an example. In last year's Rose Bowl, Michigan's Chad Henne was sacked six times. In the 2004 Rose Bowl, Michigan's John Navarre was sacked nine times. This would kind of lead you to believe that this is just a problem with the Wolverines' offensive line. But in this year's Rose Bowl, Juice Williams was sacked five times by USC. The same "elusive" Juice Williams that was supposed to give USC fits all game. And make no mistake, the Illini has a lot of talent on offense - besides Williams, Rashard Mendenhall is going to be playing on Sundays, and Arrelious Benn was heavily recruited by USC.

But Illinois, like Michigan teams before them, could not cope with a sustained pass rush, and had no idea how to adjust to the variety of blitz packages USC was sending at them. These weren't just sacks, they were "linebackers coming in untouched and crushing the quarterback like an empty beer can" sacks.

Flash forward to last night. Ohio St. had shown early on that they had speed and athleticism at skill positions - witness Beanie Wells blowing past everyone for a 65-yard TD run on their first series. But if your line is getting pushed back play after play, it's going to wear on your line and they are going to start getting killed in the second half. And that's just what happened. They couldn't run, and Boeckman was scrambling for his life. Five sacks of Boeckman and a costly fumble on fourth down later, and that is pretty much that.

Again, it's history repeating - the Buckeyes were sacked five times in last year's BCS Title Game loss to an SEC team (Florida). Say all you will about "coping with speed" or "athletic disadvantages" - the thing that is holding the Big Ten back is their total inability to pass block, plain and simple. Get a Big Ten team down, where they have to pass and the defense can pin their ears back and rush hard? Look out.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 11:35 AM 5 comments  

USC to the Rose Bowl...permanently?

On Tuesday, USC made the startling announcement that it had begun negotiations with the Rose Bowl to move from the Coliseum and begin playing home football games there starting next season. You can read the story for the full details, but the gist of the situation is this: USC wants control over running the Coliseum (and scheduling), and wants renovations to be made. They are willing to kick in $100 million over the next 10 years towards the renovations. However, the Coliseum Commission has been putting this issue on the back burner and hoping it goes away, mainly because they are still committed to the pipe dream that the NFL is going to be back in the Coliseum someday.

Bill Plaschke's column in the LA Times on Wednesday does a fairly good job of summarizing how I feel about this. This is clearly a lot of political posturing and muscle-flexing being done by USC to let the Coliseum Commission know that "it means business". It's almost inconceivable that USC would anger so many of its alumni by destroying 80+ years of tradition by forcing them to move from their home just off-campus to a new site 20 miles away with lousy parking and freeway access (and would be second tenant to their arch rivals).

However, this is the Coliseum Commission we're talking about, and if anyone can screw something up royally, it's them. Plaschke's column gets into it in a little more detail, but the Commission has directly or indirectly lead to the Rams and Raiders leaving Los Angeles and the O'Malley family selling the Dodgers.

The indirect good news in all of this is that the brouhaha has forced LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to stop sucking face with news anchors long enough to finally, publicly state that he's given up on the NFL ever returning to the Coliseum and that the Commission should too. And the general outrage this has caused has pretty much put the Coliseum Commission into such a bad spot than even they seem to be forced to admit defeat at this point. (Well, except for exceptionally stubborn Commission members like current City Councilman and former really lousy LA Police Chief Bernard Parks, who "must keep the door open for a professional team."

And just who is the Coliseum Commission? As you can guess, a bunch of bureaucrats! More specifically, a nine-person panel made up of: four politicians (the afore-mentioned Parks and three LA County Supervisors) and five "private citizens", including the widow of Aaron Spelling and the wife of City Councilman Herb Wesson. (Apparently, being married to old, white guys is excellent training for deciding the fate of one of LA's major landmarks.)

And just how effective is the Coliseum Commission? I'll let a current City Council member tell you:

"There is nothing that that commission has [accomplished] in the 30 or 40 years that I know of," said L.A. City Councilman Greig Smith, who offered a list of teams that have left the Coliseum and neighboring Sports Arena. "One government agency can screw up. Three government agencies can screw up a lot."

I'll leave with an interesting article from the LA Times' architecture critic about the situation. I think it's a good overview of the challenges faced in maintaining the Coliseum, and LA's older stadium structures in general. I'm going to let my USC alum bias show here for a second in response. I've been to both the Rose Bowl and the Coliseum, and frankly, in terms of "watching the game" aesthetics, I prefer the Coliseum. The site lines are better and the seats are wider. I always have a sense of being more "on top" of things at the Coliseum from the upper deck, versus being lower and further away at the Rose Bowl. And I can still find free street parking at the Coliseum (and never had any issues with break-ins, etc.) on game days, even on sell-outs. At the Rose Bowl? Not so much.

But the Rose Bowl does have a pretty view of the mountains...I guess that counts for something.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:26 AM 0 comments