What we think will happen with the Buckeyes and College Football in 2011

Tweet

Ohio State and 2011 College Football

Brian	Ohio State record: 10-2 Big Ten Champs: Ohio State BCS Championship: LSU over Boise State	Ohio State loses a ton (of players), but unlike the predictions of many, they just have too much talent (and too much ability to reload) to fall back much. They pay back Wisconsin at home, but fall in a couple road games, but still end up winning the premiere Big Ten Championship game.
Tom	Ohio State record: 9-3 Big Ten Champs: Nebraska BCS Championship: LSU over Alabama	A string of tough mid-season games does in the Buckeyes' chances to appear in the first Big Ten title game. Much like after John Cooper, the Buckeyes will take a couple of years get past the Jim Tressel era. As much as the University says they are behind Luke Fickell, one has the feeling that he is nothing more then a placeholder for a more high profile coach (Urban Meyer?) come 2012.
Doug	Ohio State record: 8-4 Big Ten Champs: Wisconson BCS Championship: 'Bama over Boise St.	Off-season turmoil and loss of key players aside, the Buckeyes will remain competitive in a reworked Big Ten. Joe Bauserman does well against the various culinary schools the Bucks play early, but development of Braxton Miller becomes the key to the season. A "down" year for Ohio State is a great year for most other programs. The campaign ends with a win against Michigan and a mid-card bowl appearance.
Kevin	Ohio State record: 10-2 Big Ten Champs: Ohio State BCS Championship: LSU over Oklahoma	Despite a couple frustrating losses led by inconsistent play by their inexperienced quarterbacks, Ohio State goes down in the record books as the first ever "Leaders Division" Champion and defeats "Legends Division" Champion Nebraska to win the Big Ten title. Mark May then apologizes for being such an ass.
SamVox	Ohio State record: 11-1 Big Ten Champs: Michigan State BCS Championship: Florida State over Oklahoma	Michigan State beats OSU in the Big Ten Championship game. And no thanks Urban, careerists aren't welcome in Columbus.
Ryan	Ohio State record: 11-1 Big Ten Champs: Ohio State BCS Championship: Alabama over Oklahoma	This Buckeye team will be playing with a chip on its shoulder. The Buckeyes know everyone outside of Ohio is expecting them to struggle without Tressel. They will rally around that idea and fight to keep coach Fickell. Bucks go 11-1, losing to Nebraska in Lincoln, but getting revenge in the Big Ten Championship game and head off to the Rose Bowl where Coach Fickell is given a contract extension.
Sean	Ohio State record: 9-3 Big Ten Champs: Ohio State BCS Championship: Oklahoma over Alabama	Ohio State pulls off a Big Ten championship game victory over Nebraska (after losing to them in the regular season)

Lets hope the Browns are as good looking on the field as off it

Tweet

How beautiful the Browns look ON the field is still to be determined. Of course, it will be hard for the new-look Browns to live up to the gorgeous (on offense at least) game last night between the Packers and the Saints.

However, the apple of our eye--our own Cleveland Browns--are near the top of at least one group of standings already.  Reed Albergotti and the Wall Street Journal have put together an analysis of the "best looking" teams in the NFL. They didn't just ask a bunch of 25 year old (mostly) female fans what they thought--this was a scientific survey.

The Journal took a look at the symmetry of faces to determine best-looking players and team staff. This is generally a good way (or at least a "way") to scientifically figure out who is considered attractive or not. Which is why you'll often hear of James Franco having the perfect face. The article itself is funny, and Albergotti was quite entertaining on the Wall Street Journal This Morning podcast, where I first heard about this.

The study took 10 prominent starters from each team, as well as two other team members (owners or coaches), and analyzed them all.  Turns out the best looking team in the NFL is....wait for it...the Buffalo Bills!  Led by their super attractive (apparently) head coach, Chan Gailey.  But the Browns follow closely, in third place behind the Broncos and Bills. (Ugliest teams, FYI, are the Chiefs, Eagles, Vikings, Panthers, and Bears. But all NFL teams index significantly higher than us mere mortals when it comes to looks, apparently.)

Browns players overvalued in our fantasy draft--how about yours?

Tweet

In one of Bill Simmons' podcasts recently, he remarked that although some national observers are feeling good about the Browns, he isn't--because not one Browns receiver was drafted in their fantasy draft the other day. Now, I get what he's saying--every #1 runner and catcher usually gets drafted, they get touches by default. But in the Browns' case, there's just a wide selection of targets for Colt McCoy to throw to--and it's quite possible that nobody will have "decent" fantasy numbers from the WR position this year.

That being said, I wonder how much local fans overvalue their hometown teams. I have a long history of not picking Indians or Browns for my team, from a pure value perspective. I can't justify picking up Carlos Santana five rounds too early just because I can watch him play every day.

Some people would pick hometown players precisely because of that reason. (And, to be fair, I do avoid Steelers and Ravens as much as I can.)

We had our own fantasy draft the other day. And I wanted to compare where Browns players were taken compared to other (non-Cleveland-based) leagues. Note that ours is a 12-team league that drafts 17 rounds, so it's a bit deeper in rosters than most. But still, an obvious bias was formed.

I compared them to the ESPN Experts League, which is a 10 team league, the CBS Experts: league, which is 12 teams but only 14 rounds, and also the ESPN online community (all the leagues that run through ESPN), which are normally only 10 teams--and so only show the top 170 players.

Really, only Peyton Hilis was a sure thing to be drafted in other leagues. Some have Colt McCoy being taken, and maybe a little bit of Montario Hardesty or Greg Little. But not much love for the Browns from NFL fans more than a hundred miles of the Forest City.

Fireworks to end the summer (literally as well as figuratively, unfortunately)

Tweet

What a weekend. And the football season hasn't (well, has barely) even begun!

I don't know where to begin. The ups (Ohio State looking quite impressive, as good as they could have, against Akron, no matter what Mark May says.) The downs (Ubaldo Jimenez making one mistake and costing the Indians yet another game in the AL Central standings.) Or the downright confounding (me agreeing with Stephen A Smith twice.)

Tom Heckert: Man of the People. And
non-disastrous drafts. Thank God.

The long "weekend" started for me in Cleveland last Wednesday. As I've mentioned before, I watch most Browns games with a great group of Browns fans at The Red Ivy in Wrigleyville. The day before the final preseason game, Tom Heckert and a few other front office members swung by to have a few pops with some Browns fans. Was a great evening and Tom Heckert seems like a great guy. You can tell he's not 100% familiar with Cleveland fandom, because he didn't fully approve with "torture" as a suitable description of being a Cleveland fan. But I did ask him if he'd trade places with another team if he could, to get out of the Steelers and Ravens' division. And he responded just like I had hoped. Paraphrasing here, but something like "hell no, I want to beat the crap out of them." Most likely more colorful, but this is a family blog.


Plenty of Browns fans were in attendence at Soldier Field on Thursday too. (The stadium, by the way, while looking exceedingly weird from the outside, is extremely nice on the inside.) What did we learn from the game? War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Who cares, let's get the regular season started!


Seems that many bystanders expected Ohio State to lose every game this year because of all the turmoil. It's hard to learn too much from a game against a MAC opponent (although the ESPN announcers did try to lend a little bit of hype to the Toledo matchup this weekend), but one thing is for sure. Joe Bauserman looked good. Real good. I think he's about eligible to run for president, but still. True freshman Braxton Miler got a lot of work at QB also, and I'm sure he had some critics. But he did pretty good himself, and there's reason to hope for good things in Columbus this year.


The weekend proceeded with the Indians taking two of three from the Royals, and then, in what virtually everyone had as a must-win start to a must-sweep series versus That Team Up North, Ubaldo Jimenez served up a fastball to Victor Martinez. Virtually his only mistake of the game, but our old friend Victor made him pay, and now the Tribe finds themselves looking up a very steep hill. Should the Tigers not just fall apart (and that isn't unthinkable--this IS Detroit, after all), the boys of summer seem to be heading into the twilight of fall, far too soon.


And then my Labor Day afternoon had a couple Stephen A. Smith moments. I normally can't stand "Screamin' A Smith." But can't believe that twice in the past 24 hours, through drastically different distribution channels (nerdy media reference, sorry--see following), I saw something from Smith that I liked.

Radio Somewhere: WHY Cleveland needs more sports talk

Tweet

Roughly 1 week ago, a rather heart felt editorial asking if Cleveland needed more sports talk radio was posted by CST contributor and resident optimist Doug. This in response to FM 92.3's announcement that it was changing its format to a 24 hour sports station. As a sports talk connoisseur... or junkie... or loser if you prefer (sadly I basically listen to it from 7:00 a.m.  - 6:00 p.m. every week day and any time I'm in the car)... I figured I'd give this new dynamic of having multiple sports talk stations a chance to marinate. And this weekend I got my first taste of exactly why Cleveland needs more sports talk: Options and Competition