MSU offense

[Spartanmack]

I think the public perception of the conference has continued to decline. I think the actual decline is overstated. OSU outside of this year when their QB goes down has been highly ranked like they always are. MSU has been a legitimate second power most of the past 5 years. Wisky and Iowa have been highly rated as well at different times.

OSU may have been in the national championship if it weren't for the sanctions at the time. This year is a lot of bad timing, but I hardly think the conference is falling apart. The only team that's been in serious decline the last decade is Michigan. Michigan is a big name program, for sure, but teams have stepped up to fill that void pretty well (MSU/Wisky).

This is like the reverse Notre Dame syndrome. People see the ND name and assume it's a good team, even though they haven't actually been that good for the last 20 years. People see Michigan bad in the B1G, and they assume the whole B1G is bad. This then becomes a self-fulfilling belief. Because if the conference is perceived to be bad, they don't get highly rated and then don't get the bumps up the charts from beating other teams in conference. This gets worse and worse because it means any loss is a terrible loss and any win is a pointless win. Again, that's not to say this isn't an actual down year, but down from the heights of having a team at the top of the ranking all year is not the same as down to a division 2 level, which is how a lot of people talk.

C'mon. Wisconsin doesn't have a single quality nonconference win in five years and they have some embarrassing losses (Oregon State for one) and they have 0 quality bowl wins if they even have a bowl win. Michigan has been awful for nearly 10 years. You even said nd hasn't been very good and they haven't - even in the 12-1 season where they easily could have been 8-4 or worse with near losses to shitty teams like Purdue and Pitt but they spanked us that year and have beaten us in 3 straight. Penn state has sucked, Purdue is a doormat, Iowa has done nothing, Nebraska has 1 good bowl win but hasn't been anything special and even OSU went 4-8 and had another season vacated because like sbee points out about the SEC, the buckeyes are habitual cheaters and they play a bunch of nobodies out of conference. And thank god for the sanctions because if they played in the NC hey would have gotten their asses kicked just as bad as nd did and the B1G would have suffered another black eye on the national stage. The B1G has a horrible record against ranked teams (despite MSU being 3-1 or whatever we are against top 10s) and a horrible bowl record from the top to the bottom tier of bowl teams. I used to be a B1G apologist and always tried to defend it and I don't like hearing it anymore than you but it's not a perception problem, the B1G is bad.