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Penn State Cult (Joe Knew)

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MililaniBuckeye said:
Paterno's overall record at Penn State before joining B1G: 247-67-3 (0.784)
Paterno's overall record at Penn State after joining B1G: 154-68-0 (0.694)

That's a huge 0.090 dropoff.
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[BWI]By your math, Paterno coached 222 games at Penn State after joining the Big Ten. If he (yeah - "HE"; not "THEY") wins those 222 games at the same 0.784 percentage, that would give him (not "them") 20 more wins. 174-48 would be his (not "their") record.

Let's see if we can count 20 games that were "stolen" by Big Ten referines:
2003 Ohio State (Ben Hartsock's bounce-pass reception)
2005 Michigan (2 seconds added to the clock)
2014 Ohio State (No way Ohio State scores if the referines don't call "Leaping" on Mike Hull)
2002 Iowa, maybe? (Some OT game where the receiver dropped the ball out of bounds, but the referine gave them the completion. Obviously, that one play meant the game.)
[/BWI]

In all seriousness, I bet that the collective effort of all of BWI could come up with 20 in-conference games that they feel were "stolen" from them. One bad call in a losing game equals a "stolen" game.
 
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Zurp said:
[BWI]By your math, Paterno coached 222 games at Penn State after joining the Big Ten. If he (yeah - "HE"; not "THEY") wins those 222 games at the same 0.784 percentage, that would give him (not "them") 20 more wins. 174-48 would be his (not "their") record.

Let's see if we can count 20 games that were "stolen" by Big Ten referines:
2003 Ohio State (Ben Hartsock's bounce-pass reception)
2005 Michigan (2 seconds added to the clock)
2014 Ohio State (No way Ohio State scores if the referines don't call "Leaping" on Mike Hull)
2002 Iowa, maybe? (Some OT game where the receiver dropped the ball out of bounds, but the referine gave them the completion. Obviously, that one play meant the game.)
[/BWI]

In all seriousness, I bet that the collective effort of all of BWI could come up with 20 in-conference games that they feel were "stolen" from them. One bad call in a losing game equals a "stolen" game.
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Erroneous on all counts! Everyone at BWI knows he was 548-0, if you count the games he lost due to the refs or the other team cheating!
 
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Jaxbuck said:
Penn State win % in B1G play 1993-2000: .703

Penn State overall win % 1985-1992: .745
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Why would you exclude OOC games in 1993-2000?

If your point is that PSU's aggregate record in 1993-2000 gets inflated by non-conference games --- well, they're not an outlier. ALL of Ohio State, U-M, Wisconsin and Penn State --- the 4 teams with the best overall conference record in that era --- had a notably better record in OOC games vs. in-conference games. They're all > 81.8% out-of-conference but <74.3% in-conference.

You can't really play the "strength-of-schedule" card either. PSU's overall strength-of-schedule, per cfbreference.com, averaged 20.75 in the 1985-1992 era (16, 13, 25, 8, 20, 15, 17, 52). It averaged 20.625 in the 1993-2000 era (19, 8, 11, 26, 42, 16, 10, 33). Basically, the exact same.

My statistic wasn't wrong, and IMO given the similar overall strength-of-schedules, "aggregate" is a fair comparison.
 
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colobuck79 said:
Dayum, I know he "coached" for a long time, but I find it hard to fathom that a major college coach would ever face 12 no win teams. Unless of course he was in charge of the schedule 100%.
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FWIW, I researched this "faced 12 teams that won 0 games" statistic. What the statistic really appears to mean is "faced 12 teams that either (a) won 0 games, or (b) are not D-1A." Those teams:

1967 Maryland
1973 Iowa and Army
1983 Brown (non-D1A)
1984 William & Mary (non-D1A)
1997 Illinois
2004 UCF
2006 Youngstown State (non-D1A)
2008 Coastal Carolina (non-D1A)
2009 Eastern Illinois (non-D1A)
2010 Youngstown State (non-D1A)
2011 Indiana State (non-D1A)

I'm not a big fan of scheduling the FCS teams, but unfortunately lots of folk do it since we went to 12 games in the mid-2000s. Those games are what they are. Take those FBS games from the 2000s out, and the statistic drops to 7.

Also, FWIW: from 1966-2011, Ohio State played ten teams (all conference foes) that won 0 games. Plus 2 FBS teams, YSU twice in the late 2000s. Add it up, we're at the same 12.
 
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MililaniBuckeye said:
Paterno had one losing season (1988, 5-6) in the 27 years as head coach before joining the B1G. He had four losing seasons in a five-year period after joining the B1G. While Paterno did quite well initially in the B1G because of the increase in TV exposure and the resulting recruiting bump, it wasn't all that long until they started their slide into relative mediocrity due to the punishment of playing in a physical conference like the B1G...

Paterno's overall record at Penn State before joining B1G: 247-67-3 (0.784)
Paterno's overall record at Penn State after joining B1G: 154-68-0 (0.694)

That's a huge 0.090 dropoff.
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Yes, that's a drop-off, and a significant one. But, it's not a 100% apple-to 100% apple comparison. More like 100% apple to 90% apple. A few more years to one side, weaker schedules in the 1966-1975 era.

If you do a 100% apple-to 100% apple comparison (same # of years), there is no drop-off for PSU's first 10 B1G years. And as noted above, PSU's SOS was nearly exactly the same in 1983-1992 to 1993-2002.

Let's just get to it. The hypothesis of many here is "Penn State football would not have been as successful in the 1970s and 1980s had they been in the B1G vs. being an independent." Well, it's all hypothesis, can't prove it one way or the other.

I grew up a Michigan fan, in Detroit, in the 1980s. I liked B1G football well before I went to Penn State. I like college football history. One truth I know in retrospect: Although B1G football was very good in the 1950s and 1960s, in the 1970s and 1980s it was neither very good nor deep. It just wasn't.

7 of the 10 B1G teams had a losing aggregate record from 1966-1992. The B1G Rose Bowl representatives went 7-20 in that same span. That despite having a higher AP Poll ranking in 18 of those 27 Rose Bowl games. The B1G went 23-30 in non-Rose Bowl games in that same era.

If you put the late 1970s and 1980s Penn State teams in the B1G, IMO they would have done just fine, they would not have fallen off. I can't "prove" that, but I do 100% believe that. I wasn't a PSU fan at the time, I don't have a bias in that belief. I simply think my eyes plus the numbers bear that out. And, as the 1993-2002 vs. 1983-1992 comparison shows, PSU kept things going nearly the same upon joining the B1G (if one wants to say I'm "biased", I admittedly was a PSU student/fan for a portion of the 1993-2002 era).
 
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409fold said:
Also, FWIW: from 1966-2011, Ohio State played ten teams (all conference foes) that won 0 games. Plus 2 FBS teams, YSU twice in the late 2000s. Add it up, we're at the same 12.
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Not a whole lot Ohio State could've done when those 10 winless foes, as you pointed out, are conference foes...Penn State got to pick and choose all their opponents pre-1993 while Ohio State played the schedule the conference dealt them. As for YSU, then only reason we played them was Tressel was YSU's head coach from 1986-2000, so Tressel threw them a couple bones.
 
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409fold said:
If you put the late 1970s and 1980s Penn State teams in the B1G, IMO they would have done just fine, they would not have fallen off. I can't "prove" that, but I do 100% believe that. I wasn't a PSU fan at the time, I don't have a bias in that belief. I simply think my eyes plus the numbers bear that out. And, as the 1993-2002 vs. 1983-1992 comparison shows, PSU kept things going nearly the same upon joining the B1G (if one wants to say I'm "biased", I admittedly was a PSU student/fan for a portion of the 1993-2002 era).
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1. If your "if" part of an "if/then" sentence is false, then your statement is true (or, at least, it isn't false). For instance, if you paid me $12 million per year, I'd hit for a 0.450 batting average and 80 home runs every year in the major leagues. You don't know me, but you can believe that I'd probably never get a base hit against a major league pitcher. (I'd be shocked if I made contact with the ball). But since you (or anyone else) are never going to pay me $12 million per year, we can never prove my statement wrong. So your statement that PSU would have done "just fine" can't be proven wrong.

2. For what it's worth, I share your opinion on that. I think PSU would have been "just fine" in the Big Ten in those years. (As far as football goes, that is. It seems that the culture doesn't enjoy being part of the Big Ten, and I doubt that the fans would have liked it any better in the 70s or 80s.) I think the same about Ohio State in the SEC - we'd be "just fine". SEC fans like to say we'd finish last in whichever division they want to talk about. Or 5th or 4th. But not top-3. And that may be true for any given year, but I think Ohio State would pull their weight well enough in the SEC fairly consistently. Again, I started an "if/then" statement with something false. Prove me wrong.

3. I gotta say that I'm torn about Penn State. Part of me wants them to do well. I believe that in order for the Big Ten to truly be THE dominant conference in the NCAA, we need 3-5 consistently strong teams. Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, and Nebraska should all be HUGE teams. Each year, when those teams play each other, it should be a battle of titans. Maybe 1 of those 4 teams can have a down year every 4 years, but any team that can survive playing the other 2-3 teams should be a shoe-in for the playoffs. Ohio State has done what they need to do, but the other three have not. Did the Big 12 kill Nebraska? Did the Big Ten kill Penn State? I think Ohio State killed Michigan. But I think that's one reason I am really despising this conference. The other part of me enjoys watching train wrecks. So I enjoy watching Michigan lose 9 games in a year, and Penn State fans cry about their player being offsides on an onsides kick, when there is video evidence that he WAS offsides, and watching them argue that they might have driven down the field to win the game.

4. I, personally, have no problem with you being biased. I'd be surprised if people thought I wasn't biased.
 
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Zurp said:
3. I gotta say that I'm torn about Penn State. Part of me wants them to do well. I believe that in order for the Big Ten to truly be THE dominant conference in the NCAA, we need 3-5 consistently strong teams. Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, and Nebraska should all be HUGE teams. Each year, when those teams play each other, it should be a battle of titans. Maybe 1 of those 4 teams can have a down year every 4 years, but any team that can survive playing the other 2-3 teams should be a shoe-in for the playoffs. Ohio State has done what they need to do, but the other three have not. Did the Big 12 kill Nebraska? Did the Big Ten kill Penn State? I think Ohio State killed Michigan. But I think that's one reason I am really despising this conference. The other part of me enjoys watching train wrecks. So I enjoy watching Michigan lose 9 games in a year, and Penn State fans cry about their player being offsides on an onsides kick, when there is video evidence that he WAS offsides, and watching them argue that they might have driven down the field to win the game.
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I could have typed this myself. Perfectly encapsulates how I feel about the rest of the conference, specifically Michigan and Penn State. Part of me wants them to do well, being some of the biggest brands in the sport it would be good for the conference and, ultimately, good for Ohio State to have Michigan, Penn State and Nebraska doing what they're supposed to do.

The rest of me can't get enough of Ohio beating Penn State and Appalachian State beating Michigan, because fuck 'em. Ohio State just won a national title without any of them holding up their end of the bargain and the flames are just so pretty.
 
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Nobody will ever be able to explain to me why they want other teams to do well. Especially cesspools like Penn State or shitbag fanbases like Michigan. Fuck them. Having the strongest conference is for the South Carolinas of the world to use as a crutch for when they fail, AGAIN, to ever do anything themselves. WELL WE'RE IN THE SEC SO IT'S HARDER. Who cares?
 
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I think there's an argument that the conference needs more than just tOSU to be elite. And it def got us a bad rep a few years ago when nobody else could win a BCS bowl.

But it doesnt need to be scUM or NamblaU either. Fuck them. And yes, Nebraska lost their elite status shortly after BXII was formed.
For now Sparty is filling that role. We just have to beat them more consistently.
 
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