I know this will be popular here. Everyone knows the big 10 favors Ohio State. https://www.cleveland.com/osu/2025/...on-ohio-state-footballs-side-this-season.html
Ohio state opponents are the least penalized teams in all of the ncaa
- Thread starter dailybuck777
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If osu and psu meet in the NC, not having big ten officials is a real plus for the lions
...... and Michigan.
ETA: I can only speak to what I have observed wrt to neutrality of BIG officials in contests between PSU and OSU or UM over the years.
FWIW, I don't believe that the league officiating is as corrupt and biased as it was upon our initial entry. But I have been around a while so this isn't first rodeo.
It is what it is.
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They see what they want to see. Ohio State's edges are held just like Carter and it's ignored. Tired of the excuses. Win.
Things have changed. The new B1G and the retirement of certain officials who were in charge of the officials have had an impact. We'll see if this continues.
Certainly wasn't true in the PSU game (nor was it last year) - duhO$U had 2 penalties against PSU for 15 yards - PSU had 5 penalties against duhO$U for 45 yards (a couple converting failed duhO$U 3rd Downs).
Interesting this Ohio newspaper making the allegation didn't offer any link to data.
I can name a dozen horrible calls made against PSU versus both tOSU and UM. I am talking about calls that were blatant and demonstrably bad. I am talking about Hartzock's catch, Johnson's catch against UM that was called OOB when you could see his footprint in the grass a yard in bounds, I am talking about the play clock running out 3 seconds before a tOSU FG kick, I am talking about toe-in/heel-out, I am talking about a "temporary replay outage" against tOSU that cost us a turnover, I am talking about a blocked punt that was called roughing against UM....and on and on it goes.
And I haven't even talked about the time the ref told a PSU player "you should just be happy to be here".
I can't think of a single really, really bad call that ever went PSU's way against either of those teams in the 45 years since PSU joined the B1G. Not one.
Not to mention the several calls like the fumble and int.
I’ll pile on….it’s not the frequency of calls, it’s the timing.
People focus on the place that screw them over, they don't focus on the one as much that screws over the other guy. There was one playing in the Boise State game I believe Penn State interfered offensively. In that case it prevented an interception and at themworst it would've been a loss of yardage for Penn State.
This is the difference between college and the pros since it's not the spot of the foul if it extends beyond 15 yards. College defenders will use this and if they do get flagged it's just an automatic first out. If it's on the offense it's a loss of yardage. The only time we're using a spot of ball is if the defender interferes within that 15 yard mark.
I also noticed the Penn State was penalized slightly more than Boise State, so it seemed to be fairly equal however I saw what I believe to be very many no calls when defenders were covering Tyler Warren.
This is the difference between college and the pros since it's not the spot of the foul if it extends beyond 15 yards. College defenders will use this and if they do get flagged it's just an automatic first out. If it's on the offense it's a loss of yardage. The only time we're using a spot of ball is if the defender interferes within that 15 yard mark.
I also noticed the Penn State was penalized slightly more than Boise State, so it seemed to be fairly equal however I saw what I believe to be very many no calls when defenders were covering Tyler Warren.
Agree. The college spot should be discretional on DPI. Whichever works better for the offense although I hate the rule on the pros on DPI in the end zone on long passes as it is really an automatic TD. Ball should be placed on the 7 yard line, not the two with a first down.
But penalties in college ball are the opposite of the "Jordan Rules". In other words, pro sports hype superstars and they get the calls. In college ball, offenses against Warren and Carter appear to be allowed to give the other team a chance against a superior player. I don't see these as being one-sided as we get that discretion as well. But it does seem to favor the underdog.
My ad blocker didn't allow me to read the article. Was it penalties called or enforced? Better teams often simply overcome penalties with successful plays and, as a result, they decline the penalty. For example, if a pass is caught despite PI, that 15 yards doesn't show up in the penalty column in the stats.
Let's look at competitive games. Western Michigan only having 1 flag to 6 in a 56-0 drubbing isn't doing much for the poor buckeye narrative.
In conference games decided by 14 or less.
Oregon 3, OSU 8
Nebraska 7, OSU 3
Penn State 5, OSU 2
Michigan 4, OSU 2
minimum 2 to 1 advantage buckeyes in 3 of their 4 toughest games.
Hmm....
In conference games decided by 14 or less.
Oregon 3, OSU 8
Nebraska 7, OSU 3
Penn State 5, OSU 2
Michigan 4, OSU 2
minimum 2 to 1 advantage buckeyes in 3 of their 4 toughest games.
Hmm....
Why even post this on an opponent's board? It's useless
I travel all over the CF boards and and it's the same all over - "we lost because of the refs" or "the conference is out to get us." Travel over to the Nebraska boards if you think I'm BSing. Most of these claims are ridiculous-hilarious but some (like Nebraska) border on insanity
I travel all over the CF boards and and it's the same all over - "we lost because of the refs" or "the conference is out to get us." Travel over to the Nebraska boards if you think I'm BSing. Most of these claims are ridiculous-hilarious but some (like Nebraska) border on insanity
Sounds like the refs have been told to call lots of penalties on Ohio State when they are playing cupcakes. That way the overall penalty stats don't looks so bad.
Point taken, and I certainly believe at this point, there is no deliberate fixing type calls that occur.
However, when PSU originally entered the Big Ten, there were coaches , administrators, players, fans and Big Ten Officials that were not happy about Penn State joining. It certainly seemed at that time that penalties, out of bounds calls and clock management by officials reflected those sentiments. As a result, Paterno complained and pushed for replay which probably caused even more anti Penn State bias and poor on the field calls.
It’s hard for PSU fans who have been around for awhile to forget such things.
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I believe - could be wrong - that the 3 schools that voted against PSU joining the B1G were Indiana, Michigan, and MSU, The rest voted for PSU.
Yup, the list goes on...and on. It's pretty ridiculous really. Not to mention when Kole Knueppel, apparently the conference's successor to John O'Neill, advertised to Joel Klatt that the Buckeye defensive backfield would have a green light to mug our receivers under the euphemism "letting them play."
As for offensive holding not called, no sympathy for Ohio State here. Abdul Carter and company are held a lot...with no calls. Sometimes it's ridiculously blatant.
All that said...and just to show what a totally objective and fair-minded person I am...there was one...and I mean only one...bad non-call that went our way in a game against Ohio State. It was on a long ball to an Ohio State receiver as the Buckeyes were trying late to pull out the famous 2016 game. It could easily have been called DPI, and if it had, things might have turned out differently that evening. To this day I'm amazed the flag didn't come out. Anyway, that makes the zebra hose-job score 89-1 in favor of Ohio State.
If I remember correctly, there was a lot of arm twisting and behind the scenes politicking that made it happen. A review of the National Championship voting at the end of the 1994 /95 season is a pretty good reflection of how Penn State was welcomed by the established Big Ten media.
Ohio State did not vote for us. In fact as I heard it the night before the vote it didn’t look like we had the needed votes to get in. I believe it was Minnesota that decided to change their mind and vote for us and broke the deadlock. I got this info from a very reputable source.
I am in no way a conspiracy theorist, but even when watching other conferences, in which I have no rooting interest, conference refs seem to protect their blue blood teams. Whether this is intended or unconscious bias, I have no idea, but on its face, officials hired by the conference, where millions of dollars are at stake on whether a team makes the playoffs or not, certainly presents an incentive for inpropriety. One solution is to stop having the conferences pay officials.
For many decades, the guy in charge of the refs was a Michigan grad. He not only was the guy who finally graded out the refs, did the hiring/firing, but also was the guy who assigned refs to big B1G games and Non-B1G bowl games. So refs kissed his ass. He had a UM helmet lantern on his office end table. In those days, the message was pretty clear.
The team that has a beef is Arizona State. A clear targeting call was missed right in the middle of the field. Possibly caused them to lose the game.
My son played D line and until then I did not have a trained eye. He now has me watching the linemen. Abdul Carter is almost impossible to block without holding. And I've seen a number of blatant holds against him.
I think you hit the nail on the head. You mentioned one solution. Another is to have a national corps of NCAA-employed officials rather than people connected with particular conferences. Of course neither of these measures is on the horizon.
Keep in mind also that in the case of Penn State and the Big-10, the issue goes deeper. There was a lot of resentment toward us in the league from Day One...and hell yeah, Ohio State was one of the main offenders in that regard. Even the friggin' Ohio writers hated us.
In fact, their university president, Gordon Gee, reportedly went to the trouble of privately telling some sportswriters' that Paterno was overrated. I mean, you could cut the hostility with a knife, and the message was clear: you may be hot shit in the East but don't think you'll come into this league and ever be on the same plane as Ohio State and Michigan.
A few years in, Joe knew we'd made a mistake joining and broadly hinted at that, but he also knew there was no going back. And all the time the overarching irony is that we rescued their chicken-ass league from the mediocrity and irrelevance to which it had descended after Woody had won his last national championship over 20 years earlier.
According to this article, this is wrong. OSU, Illinois, Iowa, Purdue and Wisconsin were always "yes" votes for PSU admittance into the Big Ten. The initial "no" votes were Michigan, MSU, Indiana, Northwestern and Minnesota. It's believed that Minnesota and Northwestern flipped their votes to make a final count of 7-3 for PSU into the Big Ten.
The two coaches that were dead set against PSU into the Big Ten were Bo Schembechler of Michigan and Bobby Knight of Indiana and they stayed that way until the end which is understandable as both were total control freaks
How Penn State nearly ended up in ACC: Of Knight and Bo and which Big Ten schools voted “no” in 1990
This is the untold story of PSU's wild 6-month ride toward its hair's-breadth Big Ten confirmation, including exactly which schools didn't want it in, told by one who voted "nay" and two who saved the day.
Yep, and at one point I use to believe the government wasn't involved in the assassination of JFK
All I know is that I played golf with Richie Lucas the day after the announcement. Richie was associate AD at the time. He told me that the day before the vote, it appeared that we were not going to be invited to join. He specifically pointed to Minnesota as the school that changed their mind to let us in. I was under the impression that Ohio State was not initially in favor of us joining. Stan Ikenberry (the Chancelor of Ilinois) was instrumental in getting us to join.According to this article, this is wrong. OSU, Illinois, Iowa, Purdue and Wisconsin were always "yes" votes for PSU admittance into the Big Ten. The initial "no" votes were Michigan, MSU, Indiana, Northwestern and Minnesota. It's believed that Minnesota and Northwestern flipped their votes to make a final count of 7-3 for PSU into the Big Ten.
The two coaches that were dead set against PSU into the Big Ten were Bo Schembechler of Michigan and Bobby Knight of Indiana and they stayed that way until the end which is understandable as both were total control freaks
How Penn State nearly ended up in ACC: Of Knight and Bo and which Big Ten schools voted “no” in 1990
This is the untold story of PSU's wild 6-month ride toward its hair's-breadth Big Ten confirmation, including exactly which schools didn't want it in, told by one who voted "nay" and two who saved the day.www.pennlive.com
It was a b2g Crew that did the Texas v ASU Game.... and who the B12 Commissioner registered a formal complaint about... Go figure!
According to this article, not sourced, not one Big Ten team called for holding against very good OSU dline. https://www.elevenwarriors.com/foru...2/152049/zero-holding-calls-in-buckeyes-favor
Every team's fans says their players are mugged. Chase Young was repeatedly held without getting calls. Jack Sawyer hasn't had a holding flag thrown for him since. Sep 2021. I think the B1G refs simply don't call holding even if its right in front of them.
Well…..that’s because it was so blatant…..so obvious……so disgusting the rest ov ghe B2G raised hell and started instant replay. But as we have seen numerous times didn’t that rarely helps.
That’s the bigger point. Against suckeyes and chicken it’s the non-calls that determine games. They constantly hold along the o line and defensive backfield. All game long.
And they hold because they know it won’t be called. And because non-calls are non-reviewable. No way to fight it.
In the double overtime loss to suckeyes years ago there were three offensive holdings on their online not called on just that one play, a the running td.
The B2G sucks.🤬
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So are you saying the B1G crew was incompetent or that it was rigged? If it was rigged and they wanted the easier opponent for OSU, they probably would have favored ASU.
