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OSU Athletics "Greatest Buckeye Team All-Time" tournament

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Dryden

Dryden

Sober as Sarkisian
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http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/genrel/080114aaa.html

Which Buckeye Team is the Greatest of All-Time? YOU Make the Call...
To celebrate 125th football campaign, fan-vote will determine winner of season-long tournament

Aug. 1, 2014 COLUMBUS, Ohio-- -
125 Tournament Voting Page

Seven national championships, another seven Heisman Trophy winners, 10 unbeaten seasons, 24 appearances in the country's final Top 5, 187 first-team All-Americans and it all comes down to ONE tournament to determine the GREATEST Ohio State team of all-time.

And YOU - the fan - will determine which squad truly is the BEST of the BUCKEYES.

To celebrate and commemorate this - the 125th season of Ohio State football - we're asking the Best Fans in the Land to participate in the season-long tournament to decide which Buckeye unit is the finest in its storied history.

Cont'd ...
 
Jaxbuck said:
The '98 and '96 teams meeting in the first round, winner going to face 2002 is bull[Mark May]
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Yeah - that's a tough bracket.

These discussions need to come with a rule. One way or another, it needs to be specified whether the players' abilities and size from 40, 50, 80 years ago are going to be inflated to match today's players. We can talk about how dominating the 1973 team was, but they played when 260 pounds was a decent-sized lineman. I have trouble believing that they'd be as good if you stuck them in 2014 and had them play against NCAA teams today.

But these are pretty fun and I'll be interested to see who is going to win. I'd put my money on 1998 or 2006, though I think it should be 2002.
 
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Zurp said:
Yeah - that's a tough bracket.

These discussions need to come with a rule. One way or another, it needs to be specified whether the players' abilities and size from 40, 50, 80 years ago are going to be inflated to match today's players. We can talk about how dominating the 1973 team was, but they played when 260 pounds was a decent-sized lineman. I have trouble believing that they'd be as good if you stuck them in 2014 and had them play against NCAA teams today.

But these are pretty fun and I'll be interested to see who is going to win. I'd put my money on 1998 or 2006, though I think it should be 2002.
Click to expand...

I still say the 2005 team (at the end of the year) was the best of the Tressel era.
 
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Zurp said:
Yeah - that's a tough bracket.

These discussions need to come with a rule. One way or another, it needs to be specified whether the players' abilities and size from 40, 50, 80 years ago are going to be inflated to match today's players. We can talk about how dominating the 1973 team was, but they played when 260 pounds was a decent-sized lineman. I have trouble believing that they'd be as good if you stuck them in 2014 and had them play against NCAA teams today.

But these are pretty fun and I'll be interested to see who is going to win. I'd put my money on 1998 or 2006, though I think it should be 2002.
Click to expand...


BTW I always use the "relative to their peers" evaluation method when comparing different era's, especially for football.

The teams from 1942 would get killed, literally, playing the game we call football today vs the rugby like game they played back then. That isn't even really worth debating imo.

The question I have for the "modern is the best" crowd is why the current guys can't dominate their peers to the level the old guys did (assuming they are not). The only area I give the nod to is place kicking. The uprights were twice as wide and they kicked off a block up until relatively recently (I don't remember when, maybe late 80's early 90's?). Kicking records of the post rule change era trump old kicking records imo.
 
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Jaxbuck said:
BTW I always use the "relative to their peers" evaluation method when comparing different era's, especially for football.

The teams from 1942 would get killed, literally, playing the game we call football today vs the rugby like game they played back then. That isn't even really worth debating imo.

The question I have for the "modern is the best" crowd is why the current guys can't dominate their peers to the level the old guys did (assuming they are not). The only area I give the nod to is place kicking. The uprights were twice as wide and they kicked off a block up until relatively recently (I don't remember when, maybe late 80's early 90's?). Kicking records of the post rule change era trump old kicking records imo.
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This. Chic was a GREAT football player who wouldn't have a B1G offer today.

Then again, how do you determine which teams were more dominant in their era. Football isn't baseball. I don't know how much you can trust defensive statistics from the first half of the 20th century vs 2002. The complexity of today's offenses make defending them far more complicated.
 
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BUCKYLE said:
This. Chic was a GREAT football player who wouldn't have a B1G offer today.

Then again, how do you determine which teams were more dominant in their era. Football isn't baseball. I don't know how much you can trust defensive statistics from the first half of the 20th century vs 2002. The complexity of today's offenses make defending them far more complicated.
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We'll never know if Brax or Nuge could play defense...
 
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Jaxbuck said:
BTW I always use the "relative to their peers" evaluation method when comparing different era's, especially for football.

The teams from 1942 would get killed, literally, playing the game we call football today vs the rugby like game they played back then. That isn't even really worth debating imo.

The question I have for the "modern is the best" crowd is why the current guys can't dominate their peers to the level the old guys did (assuming they are not). The only area I give the nod to is place kicking. The uprights were twice as wide and they kicked off a block up until relatively recently (I don't remember when, maybe late 80's early 90's?). Kicking records of the post rule change era trump old kicking records imo.
Click to expand...

the year was 1989 for the kicking blocks. and I agree - the game as it's played today is a world of difference even from as recently as 30 years ago. The level of athlete is entirely different as are the offensive systems and defensive schemes.
 
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There are some things that change and make it seem that yesterday's athletes would be lost on today's playing fields. The size and strength conditioning of today's athletes vs an era when only a few players lifted is one. So is the discouragement of athletes to play more than one sport, and year round conditioning and skills training beginning in junior high. Let us not forget the expansion of coaching staffs.

Some times it's equipment. I'd like to see Bob Richards make a 17 foot vault with a 1950's pole.

Perhaps that's why I'm so enamored by Jesse Owens, who ran on ciders - not a "tuned" synthetic surface - with leather shoes, without starting blocks, undernourished, under coached and conditioned and yet produced this: a 10.2 100 M and a 26' 8.5 inch long jump that stood as the World record for 25 years.

On the other end, put Usain Bolt in leather shoes, have him dig his own starting holes and then run on ciders and let's see him pull a 9.1 out of his ass.

My point is that if you took today's athletes and raised, trained, coached, equipped them to the level of an older era - something that seems to not be considered in such discussions - they would rank as evenly with the old time athletes as they do with their peers now. If you made them play both ways, practice defensive and offensive skills in equal proportion, if you limited substitutions as has been an off and on rule, you would find that they were no better and no worse than the old timers.

IMO Reaction speed has not changed over the years and it's the latter, reaction speed, that separated the Harleys and Granges from the forgotten ordinary and separates the Braxton Millers from the Joe Bausermans today; the key component you can't coach.
 
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I agree 100% on Jesse Owens.

As far as the rest of it, and Kyle touched on it as well, if I understand what you are saying correctly I feel like it makes my point.

In my mind all those variables you are all listing I.E. Today's athlete gets better nutrition, beter equipment, beter coaching, is why you just evaluate peer vs peer and see who was able to create the largest Delta if you will.

So a 200 lb MLB in 1950 wouldn't be doing that today. The guys he was playing against in 1950 had roughly the same level of access to nutrition, equipment, coaching etc. Braxton miller today throws for more yardage than Corny Green could have dreamed of. You have to look at relative production to their peers instead of absolute production between players of different eras (IMO).

Does Braxton Miller have a bigger gap in total yards between himself and other top shelf QBs of his day than Green did in his day? That type of thing.
 
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Jaxbuck said:
I agree 100% on Jesse Owens.

As far as the rest of it, and Kyle touched on it as well, if I understand what you are saying correctly I feel like it makes my point.

In my mind all those variables you are all listing I.E. Today's athlete gets better nutrition, beter equipment, beter coaching, is why you just evaluate peer vs peer and see who was able to create the largest Delta if you will.

So a 200 lb MLB in 1950 wouldn't be doing that today. The guys he was playing against in 1950 had roughly the same level of access to nutrition, equipment, coaching etc. Braxton miller today throws for more yardage than Corny Green could have dreamed of. You have to look at relative production to their peers instead of absolute production between players of different eras (IMO).

Does Braxton Miller have a bigger gap in total yards between himself and other top shelf QBs of his day than Green did in his day? That type of thing.
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That is why the Babe is the GOAT in baseball
 
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