Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Big 10 (12 or 14) Newest Rumors + Gary Tinsley

The Herd is reporting that UCONN will be the next member of the B10 and PITT and RUT could be coming over as well. I'm kind of indifferent to this news, assuming all of these rumors are true. I was really hoping ND would finally cave and come into the B10 - I read something last week that said currently the NBC deal makes less for ND than each B10 school gets from the BTN deal. And the BTN deal is expected to double over the next 5 years while ND is losing leverage fast with NBC. They actually appear to need us or another conference at this point more than we need them.

Thoughts on the proposed expansion? Obviously, this will shift the B10 into Championship Game mode and 2 divisions. My guess is that it's MIN, IOWA, WIS, MICH, MSU, PUR, IND - then ILL, NW, OHIOST, PSU, PITT, RUT, UCONN. Teams would get 6 inter-division games each year and then likely 2 conference non-division games...unless they expand that to 3. The biggest question in all of this has been the plan for MICH and OHIOST. If they decide to go with the alignment I have listed, the 2 would be in separate divisions but still likely play every year. This is why I think the 9 conference games makes sense...each team can play one of the other division teams every year and then rotate every 3 years between the other 6.

I know what you're asking, what about the Governor's Bell?? Well, I'm hoping the worst trophy in the history of college football would just disappear. Seriously, you can't just create trophy games with other schools for the sake of having it be called a rivalry. This would give PSU some nice natural rivals on the east coast as well, while making the Gophers half of the conference very interesting.

Overall, I like it. The expansion is the right move and whether it's just UCONN or all 3 from the Big East, it's the right thing to do. The first super-conference might be coming together. These 3 teams might not do a ton for B10 football...but how about the hoops teams that are coming over!?!? Wow! Definitely much more on this as more concrete info comes out.

What were you up to last Sunday night? I think we should have been partying at the U w/uber intelligent Gary Tinsley. After having his 2x4 swinging incident kind of swept under the rug last fall, Gary decided that being the projected starter at MLB just wasn't worth it - so he got hammered and jumped on his moped. Eventually Gary started driving down the wrong way of a one way street, cops saw him, he sped off trying to escape...on a moped. After a bit of a chase, Gary ditched the moped and starting showing off that B10 LB speed...but was eventually caught. He's been charged with 2 felonies and 3 misdemeanors...and I think it's safe to say his days with the Gophs are numebred. I hate to jump to conclusions, but sounds like he doesn't have much of a chance right now. Maybe Brew will look past it all, again, and just suspend him for 1/2 the season or maybe just 3 games. Who knows, but this Spring couldn't have any worse news than we have seen with all the incidents.

The question being posed is, are we recruiting bad people because we need to take the chance? Or is this something that just comes out and couldn't possibly be expected. I tend to lean toward the latter. I can't fault Brew for recruiting these guys and hoping they can keep their nose clean. All of these incidents have been just pure stupidity, and they have all been very avoidable. Hopefully there will be some serious discussion for the rest of the week from the coaching staff and maybe some of the older guys can help these young idiots learn how to have fun and not go to jail once in a while. We have depth at LB, but this sucks. I don't think I'm taking anyone for granted this fall...we'll see who's still on the roster when we lineup on the opening Thursday nighter against MDTN.

Spring Game on Saturday - weather looks brutal, but that could change. Go enjoy the APR 2010 version of the Gophers because the SEPT 2010 version might look a lot different!

No comments:

Post a Comment