Back in January 1969, as the Ohio State Buckeyes celebrated their new national football title, man had not yet walked on the moon.
A machine on Mars? Sci-fi fantasy.
But nearly three decades later, Pluto may be populated before a Big Ten team finishes No. 1 again.
It doesn’t take a Purdue aerospace engineer to figure out why no Big Ten team has repeated the feat of the 1968 Buckeyes. They usually lose a big game at the worst possible moment, near the end of the season.
But in a year when there is no clear preseason pick for No. 1, one school is poised to end the Big Ten’s drought before it reaches 30 years: Penn State, which notched two national titles as an independent since the Big Ten’s last championship.
A handful of voters in the AP (media) poll gathered here for the Big Ten’s annual kickoff festivities said they had put the Nittany Lions atop their preseason rankings, which will be released Aug. 9. The USA Today/CNN (coaches) poll also is due out next week.
Not surprisingly, Penn State coach Joe Paterno shrugged at the suggestion that his team rates among the national title contenders. He also didn’t turn handstands when told that the conference media had picked the Nittany Lions to return to the Rose Bowl for the first time in three years.
“Whether we should be the favorite in this conference, that doesn’t impress me and it doesn’t make me despondent,” Paterno said. “It’s nice to have people looking at you.”
It would also be nice to add a national championship trophy to the display at the league office in Park Ridge. The Big Ten has fallen just short of No. 1 many times since 1968. In each of the last two years, Michigan has upset an unbeaten, second-ranked Ohio State team in the final game of the regular season.
But no one has come closer than Penn State did in 1994. The Nittany Lions went 12-0 but finished second to Nebraska, a landslide No. 1 in both major polls.
No wonder Paterno endorses the idea of computerized rankings–but only if they’re handled by a select panel of a half-dozen or so former coaches. “I think a computer ought to be part of it, but it’s got to be done right,” Paterno said.
Ohio State didn’t have nearly as strong an argument after finishing 11-1 last year. But the Buckeyes, who wound up second, thought they deserved at least a share of the national title after edging previously unbeaten Arizona State in the Rose Bowl. But Florida–which, like Ohio State, had lost to its archrival in late November–claimed No. 1 after defeating top-ranked Florida State in the Sugar Bowl.
“I think we were as good as any football team in the country last year,” Buckeye coach John Cooper said. “I don’t understand why more people didn’t vote for us.”
Part of the problem might be emphasis: except for Penn State, the Big Ten’s strongest programs make the Rose Bowl the ultimate goal. At other national powerhouses, such as Florida, Florida State and Nebraska, conference crowns are assumed and national titles are the objective.
“You’ve got to put yourself in a position to win the national title, and that usually means you’ve got to win all your games,” said new Minnesota coach Glen Mason, a member of the 1970 Ohio State team that blew a national title shot against Stanford in the Rose Bowl. “Rather than playing an eight-game (conference) schedule, maybe you should play seven games. I know that in the Big 12 (where Mason coached Kansas), the coaches who are in programs that regularly compete for national titles wanted to play only seven (league) games.”
The idea is to allow schools to fatten their records with an extra non-conference opponent, often at home. The Big Ten requires teams to play eight conference games. That can put them at the mercy of voters, who don’t always share the conference’s high opinion of itself.
“With the polls playing a big role in the (bowl) alliance, it makes it much easier if you play an easy non-conference schedule,” Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr said.
No one can accuse the Wolverines of lining up creampuffs in an effort to end their national title drought, which is at 49 years and counting. Michigan opens the season against Colorado, resumes its fierce series with Notre Dame and meets Penn State and Ohio State.
