Posted by Dr Fro 3:26 AM
My link below (2 posts down) to my UT-OSU summary on Hornfans now works (I can't figure out why it keeps going wrong, but it does work).

Columbus was great. There were several things that struck me in addition to what I wrote on Hornfans, the first being the sheer size of it all. Hardly anybody we play is ever bigger than us. I didn’t say “better”, I said “bigger” (I know Texans have trouble understanding the difference.) No matter who we play, we are bigger. We have more fans that watch us at home, more TV ratings, a bigger endowment, a bigger national following, more victories, more championships, etc. There are <>never, but hardly ever. As a result, just about everybody we play looks at the UT game as their biggest game of the year. On the flip side, just about nobody we play excites us that way; that is, they don’t excite us on the basis of being a bigger program than we are.

Notable exceptions in our past 150 games are Nebraska (5 times), Notre Dame in 95 and 96, Michigan in the Rose Bowl and Ohio State.

OU can talk quite proudly about beating us the past 5 years, but I am not talking about recent on-the-field success. I am talking about the sheer hugeness of the program; I am talking about the very characteristic about UT that makes OU (and A&M, and Arkansas and Tech…) want to beat us so darn bad in the first place.

Well, I bring this up because Ohio State is only the 3rd time in my life (the other two being in Lincoln and in South Bend) where I definitely felt like Gomer Pyle saying “gawwwwly” in the face of the opponent’s program. Ohio State sells out 105,000 seats every game. I don’t know how many we could sell out if we expanded, but I think it would be a stretch to say that we would sell out 105,000 every game. But not only is their stadium 25% bigger than ours, the demand of those would-be ticket buyers left out of the stadium are even higher. Based on my friend’s parents and my perusing Ebay, Ohio State tickets on the black market consistently get about $100-per, even for crap games. You are an idiot if you pay $100 to see UT beat Baylor. Market value is below face for those games.

I am rambling here, but I think that somewhere in it all, the point is made that I have a healthy respect for OSU for the very characteristics for which our fellow (non-UT) Texans hate us. They are one big, big, big-time program. Bigger than Texas. (is that considered blasphemy??)

Some reasons are obvious, the first one being recent on-the-field success. It should be pointed out that they are the only big time Div I-A school in Ohio and one of only 3 (I think) Div I-A schools in Ohio - they kinda have a corner on the market for college football in the state. Contrast that with UT who shares the somewhat big-time status with at least one other school in state and has 10 total Div I-A schools (UT, A&M, Tech, BU, North Texas, UTEP, UH, Rice, TCU and SMU). Did I miss one? So if you live in Ohio and you want to support college football, you root for Ohio State (unless you have good reason to root for Miami or Cincinnati). In Texas, it tends to work out that unless you actually have a tie to UT or A&M, you root against both of them. And since we don’t root for each other, then it is true that nobody roots for UT (or A&M) except people with some sort of tie.

Proof of what I am saying was the fact that I talked to a total of 14 OSU fans during the game. Not a one went to OSU. Contrast that with a UT game, where I think it would be impossible to randomly pick 14 guys in orange and have all of them be yahoos that just happen to root for us because they got transferred to Austin and they like football.

Now layer in one other fact: Ohio is the most densely populated state in the union (check me on this, I say this based on hearsay, but it seems feasible). All the millions of people in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Columbus, Dayton, etc, can make a daytrip to Ohio Stadium and be back for dinner. In Texas, where Dallas and Houston take up a huge amount of seats at DKR-TMS, people are driving 3 hours to get there.

Anyway, there are reasons why they are the big time program they are, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they are. And I find it a unique feeling to experience something bigger than DKR-TMS on Saturday.

As I fill up another glass of scotch, I should probably warn you that not everything I am typing will probably make sense to me in the morning…

Sloopy most definitely let go. Sloopy let go.
OSU needs to increase their budget…$500 doesn’t get you what it used to.
V stands for victory.
We kicked them in the poisonous nuts.
Then we kicked some Buck.
Yet one pun still remains…

I had an epiphany after the game. I told Jane that I was really upset with VY’s ugly interceptions. But then I made a little poker analogy. The poker equivalent of a TD is a won pot and the poker equivalent of an INT is a lost pot. In football, we seem to expect our QBs to throw TDs yet never have an INT. In poker, you could guarantee no lost pots by never playing a hand. If you waited until you flopped the nuts in the big blind, well, you wouldn’t ever lose (or throw that metaphorical INT), but you wouldn’t score many TDs either. Your QB efficiency rating would suck ass.

So, when V racked up 270 yards and scored the game winning TD, it all made sense to me. The INTs are just the ugly side of the exact same strategy/approach that puts TD passes in the hands of Limas Sweed. (And how Sweed it was when he did).

So his passing efficiency is 11th in the nation, which is good. This includes the effects of INTs, so you cant say “yeah, but he throws INTs” (which is what I would have said before my epiphany). But passing efficiency does not include rushing TDs, which are obviously a very important (the most important?) part of his arsenal. That would be like judging Anna Kournikova on popularity based on tennis and completely ignoring her other talents.

Anyway, I think that people could look at my poker game and point to individual pots and say “dude, he needs to slow down. Moving in so many chips so fast was an obvious recipe for disaster,” but to truly judge, they would need to net the losses on failed moves against the sum of the many small gains. And I think that the result would prove the strategy to be profitable. I would not get a poker efficiency rating of 11th in the nation, but I would win more than I lose.

So in poker I have learned to accept losses as long as I can say that the decisions involved were part of a larger portfolio of decisions that collectively are winning decisions. I can now view VY in the same light.

Speaking of which, I definitely lost tonight. I lost a ton in the 2-5NL game. I got kicked in the nuts, so to speak. I lost most everything on three hands, TT, QQ, and AK, and in all cases I made big raises pre-flop, hit my hand on the flop and made an obscene bet. In all 3 cases, I ran into bizarre hands that called a $20+ pre-flop bet, including losing to 33, 34, and 57. I can’t cry about the losses, I was ahead when I bet. My poker efficiency rating will come back up. For now, I have 3 INT’s and (anybody? Anybody? Bueller? What else do I have?? Anyone???)

A: "and that stupid look on my face."

2 Comment(s):

Posted by  Johnnymac, at 9:16 AM, September 16, 2005  

I would be one of those 14 guys in Orange, but I have a couple of good excuses.

If I remember correctly, this was one of the first topics you and I ever pontificated about over a beer - college fans vs actual alums, that is.

__________________________________________________

Posted by  Dr Fro, at 1:21 PM, September 16, 2005  

Evidently there are 8 DI-A schools in Ohio too:

OSU
Ohio
Cincinnati
Akron
Miami
Bowling Green
Kent State
some other school

Point still remains that there is only one big time school. Actually, most of those schools are small and suck ass completely and pose no threat to OSU for fan base.

Thanks for the tip, AH

__________________________________________________

Post a Comment