Template talk:Ohio State Buckeyes football navbox

Red text in header

The red text in the header (the words "Ohio State Buckeyes football") makes it look like the article Ohio State Buckeyes football article is a red link. I think the font color shouldn't be red for this reason. I know that red is a Buckeyes color, but in this particular case it's in conflict with the standard Wikipedia use of color for its user interface. I don't want to change this without starting a discussion, first, however. Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 23:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Illibuck

Nobody calls it the "Ohio State-Illinois rivalry". All sources I've found call the OSU-Illinois game "the battle for Illibuck", "the Illibuck game", or some such variant, but the common denominator is that "Illibuck" is front and center.

Quite frankly, the wooden turtle trophy is the only reason this game has any extra meaning over the run-of-the-mill Big 10 game.

So please leave the name of the article as is.

Thank you. Vjmlhds (talk) 18:46, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

"Widely recognized" 1970 championship

I think it's a real stretch to claim that the 1970 national championship is "widely recognized". Apparently the team lost to Stanford in the Rose Bowl, and neither the AP nor the Coaches poll ranked OSU #1 in their final polls. I have no stake in this, and I have no real interest in becoming involved. I'm not even sure if 1970 should or should not be counted as a national championship in this navbox. I just think the statement that it's "widely recognized" overstates available coverage on the topic. Levdr1lp / talk 08:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

@Levdr1lp: Both OSU and the NCAA recognize the Buckeyes as being a National Champion for 1970. Notice that I didn't say THE National Champion, as back in those days, all the various pollsters recognized their own national champion, and the National Football Foundation (NFF) recognized OSU as their national champion. It was fairly common back in the day for different schools to claim national championship status in a given year, as there was no set format to determine an "official" national champion back then. Vjmlhds (talk) 00:01, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@Vjmlhds: Notice that I did not change the navbox-- if Ohio State fans are comfortable with claiming a national championship for 1970, then that's fine with me. I simply don't think it's "widely recognized". And I don't need a lesson in college football. I've attended 50+ Big Ten games in the last 15 years. I've been to Memorial Stadium (Illinois), Spartan Stadium, Notre Dame Stadium (when they played a Big 10 opponent), Michigan Stadium, Ohio Stadium, and Beaver Stadium (PSU), among other FBS venues. I've also been to five bowl games, including two Rose Bowls. I know that when Michigan (#1 AP) and Nebraska (#1 Coaches) split the 1997 national championship, it helped usher in the BCS. I know all about the flawed BCS (2003 Trojans, anyone?), and the flawed attempts to establish a consensus champion before it. I saw Urban Meyer coach when he was at Utah. That said, I just can't take a claimed national championship from a team that lost its bowl game very seriously. Apparently, neither can players from that 1970 team:

"In 1970, the more recognized — i.e. 'official' — poll championships were the Associated Press (media) and United Press International (coaches). But Ohio State counts the NFF title... Anderson loves his alma mater, but wonders at the legitimacy of the NFF 1970 national championship. 'The sign is big as life up in the stadium, but I know that me and my roommate at that time (Jack Tatum) would not consider ourselves national champions. The reunions we have? I don’t know if we have one for that year.' "

Levdr1lp / talk 02:04, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@Levdr1lp: No disrespect intended, I just wasn't sure if you knew or not. OSU obviously recognizes it, which is why they have the banner up in big red LED lights at the Horseshoe. How much credence one puts into it is up to the observer. If somebody doesn't want to consider it a "real" national title, they're entitled to their opinion. Would I call it "widely recognized"...not really. But the school recognizes it, and the NCAA lets them - if they didn't they'd ky-bosh it...they struck wins from their record coming off of the "tattoo-gate" scandal, so if they didn't want them claiming the 1970 National title, they'd say something. You are very much spot on about the mess both pre and post BCS. At the end of the day, since it's school recognized and has NCAA blessings, we can't ignore it, but it's entirely fair to put an metaphoric asterisk by it and refute claims of being "widely recognized". User:Vjmlhds (talk) 04:41, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@Vjmlhds: No disrespect taken. I'm not sure the NCAA offers its "blessings" so much as it reports any and all claimed national championships. All the more reason college football needs an actual playoff like March Madness or the NFL Playoffs. At least four rounds. Though I'm sure if Jim Delany has any say on the matter, true college football fans will be fighting tooth and nail for decades to come -- that guy is way too possessive of the Rose Bowl. I appreciate the history of the Pac-10 (err, "12") vs Big-10 (but really "14"), but schools from other conferences, particularly the SEC, are no less deserving of a trip to the Arroyo Seco. With all due respect to the Big 10, the conference as a whole hasn't really deserved any special treatment for a long time. If it isn't all just about the money, which we all know it is, then these University presidents should stop getting in the way of a truly competitive, truly consensus system for determining a national champion. Levdr1lp / talk 05:04, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@Levdr1lp: Won't happen as long as those bags and bags of ESPN cash keep rolling in (they're paying God knows how much for the rights to the current format, plus the bazillion other bowl games they televise). Vjmlhds (talk) 05:11, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

@Vjmlhds: I'm actually somewhat optimistic, though not necessarily for the reasons you may think. ESPN will only have "bags and bags" of cash so long as they get paid by the cable/satellite companies, and the cable/satellite companies will only have money so long as they have subscribers. I've long since "cut the cord" on 500-channels-but-nothing-is-on, and by no means am I the only one. I like to think of all sports on TV -- professional and college -- as the next great financial bubble waiting to burst. Subscriber rates are falling, which will inevitably lead to less lucrative pay-for-TV deals, which will lead to lower player salaries and ticket prices. I read somewhere that 60% of all cable subscribers pay for 60% of all sports programming that they don't watch. Bundling will be the downfall of pay-for-TV, no matter how many mergers get rammed through the FCC. Of course, while I'm fairly knowledgeable about college football, I basically think the system is a joke -- playoff or no playoff. It's exploitation (free labor), and I think it's time for the FBS schools to break away and form a professional minor league farm system. Let's all stop pretending we're about the nobility of the student-athlete ideal. The fans aren't, the cable companies aren't, and the Universities absolutely aren't. It's all about wins and dollars. I like how George F. Will summed up college football following the Penn State scandal -- "A few millennia from now, archaeologists will wonder why a 109,901-seat entertainment venue was ever attached to an institution of higher education." Sounds about right to me. So when I see that there's some disagreement on the claimed 1970 national championship in this navbox, or the extent of its recognition, it's really not a major problem for me. Bundling sports on pay-TV is a problem, and the painfully slow transition to an actual playoff in college football is merely a symptom of that larger problem. It's the same reason why the Indians will never truly be able to compete with New York, Boston, or L.A. I also think college football players are getting a raw deal; they deserve a piece of the profit pie, even if that pie is too big right now. Levdr1lp / talk 05:39, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I have stricken my last comment as it went somewhat off topic. Levdr1lp / talk 09:59, 4 November 2014 (UTC)