The Buckeyes and Trojans both suffered notable blows over the past 10 days and Al Dannity says the ramifications could be huge for the NCAA Football landscape.
Big Ten Blown Open The resignation of Jim Tressel as head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes could have huge ramifications for the 2011 Big Ten season. The Buckeyes have won at least a share of the conference title for every year since 2005 but that streak looks almost certain to be broken this coming season. The odds were already stacked up pretty high for the Buckeyes, with Terrelle Pryor amongst a group of players that will sit out the first five games of the season. Tressel’s departure and reports that Pryor and the other suspended players may suffer further sanctions has all but eliminated Ohio State from the title chase.
The new Leaders division, yes the name is awful, is hardly stacked but Penn State looked poised to benefit from OSU’s misfortune. College Football betting fans may also find more value in Wisconsin, who wouldn’t have been overly confident of a strong 2011 after losing many of their top stars to graduation. Even in the unlikely event of the Buckeyes getting out of the division, they would face a tall order if Nebraska comes out of the Legends division. Jim Tressel promised an impromptu assembly of fans outside his house that OSU would beat Michigan in 2011. They probably will be it’s far from a certainty now.
Regression of Troy It’s not quite the fall, that happened with the main batch of NCAA sanctions, but the announcement that USC would lose its 2004 BCS title could slow the Trojans return to prominence. In the short-term this won’t have any impact. The Pac-12 race in 2012 was never going to feature USC due to the aforementioned sanctions. Down the road it could be a different matter. The Trojans won’t be down for long but the definition of ‘up’ could change quickly.
It’s simply impossible to expect USC to reach the heights of the Pete Carroll era, you know the one where they committed all those violations, in the face of an increasingly competitive conference. Cross-town rivals UCLA may be a mess but they will eventually regain a foothold in recruiting. Likewise the Trojans can’t really point to the Carroll achievements when trying to wow young prospects. They may be Hollywood but they aren’t Nike and you can bet Oregon will look to feast on the recruiting grounds of Los Angeles in the near future. That 2004 title was the last bit of recent history the Trojans could point to for incoming recruits. USC remains a undoubtedly enticing prospect for talent but it will take time to restore the killer edge it once had.
