Maryland and The Move: One fan's Perspective

     It's official:  Maryland is on the move to the Big 10.  I've heard rumors about the Big 10 wanting Maryland for a long time, but they always seemed to die down after a while.  When I found out it was real this time, my first reaction was a negative one.  The ACC has been home to Maryland long before I was a fan, and it was hard to imagine that not being the case anymore.  Soon after reality sank in, I decided I could be bitter about the whole situation, or look for the positives.



     I believe the landscape of college football is eventually gearing toward four big 16-team conferences, rather than the current six BCS conferences with automatic bids.  If this is the case, the obvious two to get cut out are the Big East and ACC.  The two conferences are perennially the bottom two conferences in football according to the amount of teams ranked in the top 25 polls, and rarely do they ever have a serious contender for the National Championship.  Each of the other four conferences has at least one team, that is often a threat to win a national title.  If college football is truly heading in the direction of four super conferences, I'm glad Maryland found a more stable home early.  Maryland leaving the ACC is not an earth-shattering blow to the conference, but if Florida State or Clemson decide the grass is greener in another conference, the ACC might be in real trouble.  As far as I'm concerned Maryland leaving the ACC is a bigger blow to the Big East because you have to figure the ACC will lure yet another Big East school away with Maryland's departure.  Once any of these other ACC schools goes to another conference, the rest will follow, and there are already rumors of other conferences waiting to make big time offers to current ACC schools.  I would absolutely miss playing Virginia, North Carolina, and Duke in many sports, but with the potential shift to new conferences, Maryland could find themselves in the same conference as one or more of those teams once again in the near future.



     Along with the security of the more stable conference, financial security is impossible to overlook.  The Big 10 has wanted Maryland to join their conference for a long time, and apparently are willing to pay dearly to make that happen.  Maryland has had financial problems, and the money the Big 10 is willing to fork over to make this switch happen will allow Maryland to spend money flexibly, rather than endure financial hardship.  Last year, Maryland had to cut seven varsity sports due to budget cuts.  The switch to the Big 10 and the money that comes with it will allow Maryland to guarantee that never happens again, as well as potentially revive some of the programs cut last year, as some high ranking Maryland officials have already suggested.

     Many people think football could just be a doormat in the Big 10.  I think this will eventually improve Maryland football to be as good as ever.  There is a ton of high school talent in the DC metro area that often go elsewhere to play their college ball.  Before the move, local stars had to choose between staying at home, or playing on a big national stage.  Is it possible that when these kids realize they can now do both they might be more likely to stay home?  I think teams adapt to their new conference rather than the other way around.  The best example I can think of this is Virginia Tech.  When Virginia Tech announced they would leave the Big East and join the ACC, the popular prediction, including mine, was that Virginia Tech would just own the conference in football, but get destroyed in basketball.  I remember a friend of mine who attended Virginia Tech at the time of the announcement talked to me about how easy it would be for them to win ACC championships in football.  My reply was, "If you joined the ACC for the football, you're in the wrong conference."  Turns out, not only was Virginia Tech hardly the juggernaut in football we expected, but they also turned out some pretty good basketball teams since their conference shift.  Recruiting seems to reflect the teams one plays as much as the team itself, which leads to teams adapting to their new conference.


     Ultimately, there are many more reasons to be excited about joining the Big 10, including creating new rivalries, bringing in high-end football teams to Byrd Stadium, and the possibility of playing in the Rose Bowl same day, albeit likely not any time soon.  There of course are the negatives of leaving a conference they helped create, and leaving traditions behind.  The bottom line for me, is that it's easy to understand why this was an offer Maryland couldn't refuse, and I can't wait to see the future Maryland football and basketball, and begin the next wave of traditions.  As ESPN Radio Host and Maryland Alumni Scott Van Pelt said it best on his radio show today, "I love the ACC, but I love Maryland more."
    

What's the Protocol Here?

     One of the reasons I started liking college football much more than pro football in recent years, is that the connection from the players to your team seems more permanent.  College players generally show up as a freshman, stay for four years (or maybe three, or two... maybe one), and leave.  Even after they leave, you always remember them as a part of your team.  Seeing your favorite college players in the pros gives you a sense of satisfaction too.  Even the little introductions from the network at the beginning of the game of Monday Night Football make you happy when a player says he went to your school.  You definitely hear the pride the players have, particularly from some schools.  "Cris Carter, THE Ohio State University," he always emphasized as he announced himself.  The same allegiance isn't the same for pro athletes.  Every once in a while you might get a player who stays with a team most of his career, but that is getting extremely rare with trades and free agency in every sport.  You can't really blame the players either, because the teams are as heartless as the athletes when it comes to aging superstars.  Frankly, once a player left my favorite pro team, I really didn't think twice about them anymore.  Vladimir Guerrero was my favorite baseball player on the Angels for five years or so, but it doesn't take too long for the admiration to go away when he's hitting bombs against your teams' pitchers a year later.

     College players always felt more like a lifetime allegiance to a team, rather than a current location, at least until recently.  Transfers from college football and basketball programs are at an all time high.  For the first time this year, a big time player from my favorite team, is transferring to another school.  This winter, Maryland Quarterback Danny O'Brien decided to transfer to Wisconsin to finish his college football career, invoking what has now become known as the "Russell Wilson rule".  The rule was used many times before Wilson, but essentially the short description is; if a college athlete graduates from college with reamining years of eligibility, he/she can finish out their college athletic eligibility at another university for grad school, given that they are going to a university that has a grad program that their current school does not have.  Incidentally, Wilson also left North Carolina State to transfer to Wisconsin, who seems to be taking advantage of this rule more than most schools.

     So what's the protocol now then?  Do I hate Danny O'Brien for life?  Seems a little harsh to me I guess.  There was all kinds of speculation as to why he left.  Maybe he didn't fit in well with the new coaches hired at Maryland before his third year there?  Maybe he had an attitude problem once he was named the starter?  Not that I saw.  I always got the impression that he was a really good guy, he sure came across that way the few times I got to meet him. 

     I remember my first time meeting him during Maryland Day in 2011, an event held on campus for many of the departments of the University, which included the Maryland Spring Game football scrimmage, and an autograph session before the game.  By this time, he was already the face of Maryland football after his redshirt freshman year in 2010, where he was named the starter by week three over a veteran Junior on the team, and went on to win ACC rookie of the year.  I remember when I met him, I arrived near the end of the almost 2-hour autograph session.  By this time he must have signed a couple of thousand autographs, taken a couple of hundred pictures, and by then I'm sure the players were anxiously awaiting end of this session, so they could get ready for the scrimmage.  But when I got up there, he signed my football, and asked me how I was doing, and thanked me for coming to the Spring Game.  That always stood out to me as a big deal.  I've been to a lot of sports events before, but this is the first time one of the athletes thanked me for coming to the game.  I got to meet him a couple more times through similar events, and each time he made a point to ask me, and everyone else, a couple of questions on how they were doing.  I always thought that was a big deal, especially because of the few times I've gotten to meet an athlete or sportscaster I really liked, and they acted like they would rather be anywhere else in the world. 

     My getting to meet Danny helped shape how I'll think about him now, but so do some more factors that I thought of since his decision to transfer.  The fact that he's going to Wisconsin helps.  Not that I have any positive feelings toward Wisconsin, but as far as I know he could have gone anywhere he wanted.  Players are just recently taking advantage of the Wilson rule, but as far as I know, this rule takes away any of the transfer restrictions and he could have transferred within the ACC.  Even if he didn't go to an ACC school, if he went to a school that Maryland recruits against often, that would have stung a little.  I know for a while the Maryland staff was trying to restrict him from going to certain schools, but I think they ended up dropping that in the end.  I have to admit it might have been a little more difficult to continue to root for Danny if he was the starting quarterback of the opposing team in week 8.

     Secondly, Danny O'Brien is 21.  Still has his whole football career ahead of him.  What if he was having problems with the new coaching philosophies?  Maybe he gets buried on the bench for his last two years of college, and now NFL teams think he can't cut it anymore, and he's supposed to just deal with it?  He went somewhere else instead, and hopefully finishes up his college career strong and gets a good chance of playing in the NFL.  Kind of hard to blame a 21 year old for that logic, when really all he is doing is setting himself up for the best chance to excel in his professional career, kind of like what the rest of us were thinking when we were 21 years old and in college.

     Danny O'Brien may not be a Terp anymore, (although he did graduate from Maryland, which makes him more of a Terp than I'll ever be) and this fall, I'll still have my Maryland football season tickets, I'll still be ordering my new Maryland football jersey, and I'll still be rooting all the Terps, but this is one Maryland fan who will be checking in on Wisconsin each week to see how Danny is doing.  I will be rooting for him to be in the NFL some day, and hopefully he'll be the starting quarterback for a team playing on Monday Night Football, and when he says, "Danny O'Brien, University of Wisconsin,"  I'll still be thinking of the two seasons he was my favorite player at Maryland.

Super Bowl Picks

     The Super Bowl is known for a lot of things.  Great event, funny commercials, obscene amount of awful foods to eat.  One of the more funny things I think are the bets you can make on the Super Bowl.  You can make bets as simple as who wins the game, or the total points, but for the Super Bowl there are crazy bets like how long the National Anthem will last, and what kind of shirt Tom Brady's son will be wearing.  For the first time ever, I decided to take some of these bets, even if only for a dollar or two.  Here are my picks:

Will there be a score within the final 2 minutes of the first half?

I bet no.  I know there are a lot of timeouts used in the last two minutes, and this is an opportunity for people to get a quick score before half time, but it's such a small window of time for there to be a score so I had to go no, and the odds are in my favor on that one.

Coin Toss

I went with tails.  I heard in a stats class once that flipping a coin is actually not 50/50 because the heads side weighs more and is more likely to land face down.  The problem is they use special coins for the Super Bowl so it's really hard to say.  Anyway, tails never fails right?

Will Rob Gronkowski score a TD?

I went with yes.  I watched a lot of Patriots games this year and it seems like a lot of their strategy around the goal line is to just throw it up and hope Gronk gets it.  Odds are against me on this one, but it sounded like a lock.

Will Ahmad Bradshaw have more than 13.5 rushing attempts?

Went with yes on this one too.  Seems like the Giants will really run the ball to death, and he's the go to guy.  I hope he gets this many in the first half.  The only problem is if the Giants get down big early, they're really gonna have to throw the ball then.

What color will the Gatorade be that the team dumps on the coach?

I took orange on this one.  Odds are better for water, but I feel like orange is used a lot.  Got nice odds on orange too.

Over/Under on National Anthem 1:34

I took the over.  I'm a little nervous about Kelly Clarkson singing it, because she doesn't seem like the type to drag it out, but 1:34 just doesn't seem that long.  I'm gonna be hoping she drags out the Brave at the end.

The actual game

I took the Patriots giving up 3 points.  I think Tom Brady could really run away with this one if the O-line gives him any sort of time at all, because he really gets the ball out quick.

     With the amount of money that I put on this game, I can't really win or lose much no matter what happens, but I still think this is gonna make the game a lot more hilarious.

Another Reason to Love College Football

     I know this seems like an odd subject the day of the Super Bowl, when there is no college football being played, but the Super Bowl tonight made me realize yet another reason why I like college football much more than pro football.

     I ran out of a team to root for many times throughout this NFL season.  My Redskins were out of contention early, probably even earlier than I was willing to admit, because you never want to think your team is out of it.  Through the playoffs there were a couple of teams I was following for one reason or another, but none of those teams made it to the Super Bowl.  I don't have much of a rooting interest for tonight, and I don't really care who wins in the end.

     There is something I will be rooting for tonight though.  Da'Rel Scott is a third string running back, and special teams player for the Giants.  He also happens to be the former running back from the University of Maryland.  One of the best parts of rooting for college teams and players, is seeing those players go from freshman who are itching to get in the game to NFL players years later.

     I still remember seeing Scott for the first time in a game as a freshman in 2007 against UVA in the homecoming game.  I didn't know much about him then, I didn't follow his recruitment very much, but he broke out for a big game that day, and it was great getting to see him get even better over his next four years at Maryland.  Looking back now, it looks like he was a highly-rated recruit, but I didn't follow recruiting much then, and would never have known that had I not looked it up today.

     He wasn't a highly rated back coming out of college, and most "experts" said he wouldn't get drafted at all.  The Giants ended up taking a flyer on him, picking him with the 221st overall pick, in the last round of the draft.  He may not have gotten a lot of opportunities to do much in the NFL in his first year, but the great thing about the Super Bowl is that it turns a lot of guys no one has ever heard of into household names.  So while I may not have a particular team to root for tonight, I'll be in my Maryland Da'Rel Scott jersey rooting for him to get his opportunity.

There's a First Time for Everything

     I've never rooted for the Steelers in my life.  Never.  Until college, I was really just indifferent about them.  After all, I'm an NFC kind of guy, and they are an AFC team, which isn't as big of a deal as it is in baseball, but you don't think about competing against them to get in the playoffs, just when your team plays against them every once in a while.  In college, one of my roommates freshman year was a big Steelers fan.  You know how that goes, having a friend who likes a team makes you hate them.  The worst part about it is that the Steelers were really good that year, and he wouldn't even brag about it.  The silence was terrible, but I knew he was just loving it.

     Anyway, there is a first time for everything, and this weekend I will be rooting for the Steelers.  It's not because I'm anti-Tebow either.  I'm actually a big fan of Tim Tebow, which I have proof of, in the form of a previous post if you care to go back a few pages and check it out.  I'm rooting for the Steelers this week because of a decision head coach Mike Tomlin made about his starting lineup this week.  Tomlin announced that starting safety Ryan Clark would not be traveling with the team to Denver, and he's not hurt, and he's not in any trouble.  Ryan Clark suffers from sickle cell trait, which is a condition that gives him problems if he exercises heavily, and is worse in high altitudes.  So the combination of this trait and the fact that the Steelers are going to Denver this weekend led Tomlin to decide that Ryan Clark would not be going.  He has held Clark out of games at Denver before, but those have been preseason games or regular season with little playoff implications, and this is the playoffs.

     Tomlin actually told Clark he was not permitted to come to this game, and the reason was that if were his own kids, he wouldn't feel comfortable with them playing.  Maybe this was an easy decision for Tomlin, but I get the feeling not every coach would be so sure about going to a playoff game without one of their star defenders.  I think it's very refreshing to see a coach put the well-being of his players before the team.  They could lose the game, but in the end, it's just a game, and it's not worth risking Ryan Clark's health over.  It's especially refreshing to me because of all the players who know the secrets to pass a concussion test so they don't have to sit out of a game.  Tomlin has downplayed this decision and acted like he's not doing anything major, but I think it's what truly makes Tomlin a great person, as well as a great coach.

     Unless you're a big NASCAR fan, you may not realize that one of the greatest streaks in sports history ended last Sunday. Tony Stewart just won his third Sprint Cup Championship, which means Johnson's 5-year reign as the Sprint Cup Champion is officially over. 

     I think a lot of times people tend to forget about past sports figures and think everyone or every moment they see if the best of all time.  Well in that spirit, I will go ahead and say Jimmie Johnson is the best driver in NASCAR history.  The obvious other top drivers would have to be Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jeff Gordon.  Each of them had a reason why they were great, and I think Johnson has one reason why he separates himself from those three.

     Petty won 200 races and 7 championships, but when he won his races there was far less competition and they ran more races.  Earnhardt also won 7 championships, and much of that was because he revolutionized the sport by driving as aggressively as he did.  Many of the NASCAR drivers now try to drive like he did, but few have the respect from other drivers to make it as successful as he did.  Gordon was/is a great driver, but had the benefit of his race team revolutionizing the pit crew.  Gordon's "rainbow warriors" was the first pit crew made up of athletes from other sports.  That team was a huge advantage for Gordon which amplified his great driving.

     The reason I think Johnson stands alone as the best NASCAR driver of all time is how much the sport changed over his 5-year reign.  There was the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff format, and then they changed how many people got in the Chase, and then they changed the qualifications to get in the Chase, and they changed the points system, and how many points a driver who wins gets, and most notably, they changed the cars.  The cars Johnson started in and continued his reign in were completely different.  What made Johnson so great is his adaptability.

     We may never see another team or individual with an absolute dominance in a sport like Jimmie Johnson, so while many NASCAR experts talk about how Tony Stewart is the current face of NASCAR, don't forget that we are lucky enough to witness the greatest driver in NASCAR history.

The NBA Lockout... A Whole Different Story

     I have never been a huge fan of the NBA.  It's just not the same as college basketball.  They don't play defense like college, and NBA teams let themselves get beat by superstars too easily.  How come LeBron never gets double teamed?  But I must admit, I am completely captivated by the NBA lockout, mostly because of how different it is from the NFL lockout.

     With the NFL, you kind of had the feeling that everything was going to be fine.  They got the deal done in time, and the teams had just enough time to still have a crazy quick off season.  I even heard some fans call in sports talk radio shows to say they preferred it this way, instead of having the trade and free agency season drag out all summer, all the moves happened one after another in about two weeks.  The NBA has already cancelled two weeks of the regular season, and there are players saying they are fully prepared to sit out the whole season.

     The NBA players have a huge negotiating chip that the NFL players did not have.  The NBA players have other options.  Dozens of players have already signed contracts to play overseas if the NBA lockout doesn't end.  These are no contracts to laugh at either, some of these guys are getting paid a million bucks to play for a month.  Another option that has come up recently is a group of NBA stars going on a 4-city international exhibition tour.  I think this would be pretty interesting.  You get the NBA superstars, presumably big ticket sales, everyone wins, except the NBA.  Football players couldn't have just decided they'd play a season for NFL Europe, it's not quite the same.  Also, you don't really have the risk of injury in the NBA like you do in the NFL.

    I don't have the numbers to prove this last point, but I think the NBA just isn't as popular as the NFL.  The NFL could have handled some games being cancelled I think.  The NBA really can't.  Like other sports with long seasons, the middle of the regular season can drag on.  The NFL is so short and sweet, that every week is a big deal, and the fans would come back through just about anything.  I just don't think the NBA has the fan base to support an extended lockout.  Plus, more basketball fans might take up watching college basketball during the lockout, and come to the conclusion that many sports fans already have:  The NBA doesn't come close to the entertainment of college basketball.