COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio State is the team to beat in this year's Big Ten football race.
The Buckeyes were picked to win it all by voters at the conference's football media day. The results were announced Monday. Penn State was the runner-up, followed by Michigan State.
"Almost every day when you walk into our building you're reminded of the tradition Ohio State has -- what you're trying to live up to," coach Jim Tressel said. "Then you lose 28 seniors and three juniors (who left early). All of a sudden you come back in and your preseason ranked again."
Tressel said the prediction would serve as incentive for his team.
"I guess it's just another reminder: That's what's expected of Ohio State," he said. "We have a lot of work to do to live up to that."
Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor was selected as the preseason offensive player of the year and Michigan State linebacker Greg Jones was singled out on defense.
Pryor is set to lead the Buckeyes following a season in which he was named the conference's freshman of the year. He led the Big Ten with a pass-efficency rating of 151.3 in conference games, making him the first freshman to top the Big Ten in the category since the stat was introduced in 1980. Pryor produced an 8-1 record as a starter and became the first Ohio State true freshman since 1978 to start at quarterback.
The Buckeyes are pursuing their fifth-straight Big Ten title after going 10-3 a year ago and tying Penn State for the title with a 7-1 mark. Twelve starters will be returning for Ohio State.
Tressel became just the fourth coach in Big Ten history to win five or more titles in his first eight years with a conference team.
Penn State ended last season with an 11-2 overall record. Last year's Big Ten title marked the program's second in the last four years and the school's third overall in football. At the helm once again for the Nittany Lions is Joe Paterno, the winningest coach in the Football Bowl Subdivision (Division I-A). Penn State welcomes back nine starters from last year's squad.
Michigan State went 9-4 overall with a 6-2 mark in conference play a year ago. MSU is led by third-year head coach Mark Dantonio, who has guided his team to back-to-back bowl appearances for the first time since 1997. The Spartans return 15 starters, including eight on defense, led by Jones.
Jones was third in the Big Ten with 127 tackles in 2008 while earning first-team All-Big Ten and ranking among the conference's top 10 with 14 tackles for a loss.
The 114th season of Big Ten football kicks off on Sept. 3 when Indiana hosts Eastern Kentucky. The conference open two days later.
Big Ten trying to change perception
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CHICAGO (AP) -Between a 1-6 bowl showing last season and some high-profile upsets in recent years, the Big Ten's reputation is as bruised as an unprotected quarterback.
For coaches and players, those are painful hits.
"Everybody in this room wants to change it," Ohio State defensive lineman Doug Worthington said Tuesday at the conference's media day.
Around the conference, Michigan and Indiana are touting sparkling training facilities, and Minnesota is welcoming football back to campus after 27 years with a stadium set to open. But that new shine alone isn't enough to restore an image that could use a polish.
The Big Ten is 9-20 in bowl games the past four years - including two BCS championship game losses by Ohio State - and has not had a winning postseason record since 2002. Things have been particularly bad in BCS games, with the conference in an 0-6 slide the past three years, only one of those losses by fewer than 14 points. That includes a nearly decade-long dive in the Rose Bowl, where the conference has dropped six straight since Wisconsin beat Stanford 17-9 in 2000.
"I feel like every team in the Big Ten needs to take that as a sign of disrespect," said quarterback Daryll Clark of Penn State, a 38-24 loser to Southern California in the Rose Bowl.
He realizes the critics have plenty of ammunition. The same goes for Illinois coach Ron Zook.
"Until we go win the bowl games and obviously win the games out of conference, there's not really a whole lot we can say," Zook said.
The bowl losses aren't the only elements fueling the idea that the conference isn't what it used to be, feeding the misguided perception that it's plodding and antiquated. The Big Ten has taken some high-profile shots in the regular season, and had Michigan, one of its two flagship programs, collapse last season.
It would help if Ohio State beat Southern California in September and avenged a 35-3 blowout last year or if the Wolverines rebounded from a dreadful 3-9 showing in its first year under coach Rich Rodriguez.
The Wolverines also have also been on the short end of two huge upset the past two seasons. In 2007, it was Appalachian State walking out of the Big House with a victory. Last season, Toledo did the same.
Northwestern didn't help matters in '07 by falling at home to a Duke team that had lost 22 straight, although the Wildcats rebounded last season to go 9-3. Illinois, however, fell to 5-7 after reaching the Rose Bowl, losing to Western Michigan along the way.
As for Michigan?
"You expect Michigan to be playing in a January Bowl game or potentially in a BCS game and in the top ranks," Rodriguez said.
He sees a connection between Michigan's swoon and the perception of the Big Ten.
Wolverines linebacker Stevie Brown isn't so sure.
"I don't feel we have to be great for the Big Ten to be great," he said. "I think all the schools in the Big Ten are good."
Yet, something isn't quite working.
The physical play is what attracted the 6-foot-6, 276-pound Worthington to the Big Ten. But even though spread offenses can be found throughout the league, from State College, Pa., to Minneapolis, the league just doesn't seem as sleek as others.
"Some guys who are 150 pounds and run a 4.2 wouldn't want to play in this conference," Worthington said.
The coaches seem fixated on the schedule.
Most are pushing for a break from the tradition that had no conference games scheduled after the Michigan-Ohio State game just before Thanksgiving. The idea is to avoid the long layoffs they believe are allowing other conferences to feast on the Big Ten in top-tier bowls.
That would mean adding an open date and/or playing into December.
Or, as Penn State coach Joe Paterno suggests, add a 12th team, split into two divisions, and play a championship game the way the SEC, Big 12 and ACC do.
"I'm trying to get people to talk about expanding so we could have a playoff, but I don't think there's a lot of enthusiasm for that with some of the presidents," Paterno said. "That's obviously their call. ... I'm just putting on the table an idea."
While Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany indicated expansion won't happen anytime soon, the scheduling shift is gaining momentum. Illinois has two open dates and two games after the Ohio State-Michigan weekend - at Cincinnati on Nov. 27 and Fresno at home on Dec. 5, the same day Wisconsin visits Hawaii.
5 Things Michigan Needs to do in order to WIN
CHICAGO - Last year, Rich Rodriguez plus July equaled silly speak. All the talk was about the job he used to have (West Virginia, its fans and its buyout), the job he could have had (Alabama) and the circumstances around the Michigan job he still has today. Football became a footnote for the Big Ten's most gregarious man.
Michigan went 3-9 in Rodriguez's first season in Ann Arbor.
This time through the conference's media days? Some straight talk, for a change. And in the middle of it, this doozy, which frames Rodriguez's predicament, and the state of the Wolverines, as the 2009 season dawns.
"If we're not in a bowl game," Rodriguez said, "we're all going to be ticked."
So maybe that's the new equation: Michigan plus Motor City Bowl equals success? Or at least a sigh of relief? Here's a certainty: Wolverines football is broken, with each of last year's school-record nine losses and 347 points allowed adding to the evidence. And whether you think Rodriguez is the guy who ruined it, or whether you absolve him of blame, you're faced with the reality that he's the guy charged with fixing it.
So to assist Rich Rod in his reclamation project, here's a five-point plan to keep the ticked folks to a minimum at the holidays.
1. Find a quarterback
Point No. 1 hits on question No. 1 in Ann Arbor: Who in the name of Bo Schembechler will be behind center Sept. 5 against Western Michigan? Candidate No. 1 is Tate Forcier, the California kid who enrolled in January and put up big numbers in the spring game. Candidate 1-A is Denard Robinson, a fellow freshman who showed up five weeks ago and already has impressed coaches during summer workouts.
"Within two weeks," Rodriguez said, "he was making all the runs and doing the stuff that some of the guys who have been here a year and a half aren't doing."
Rodriguez likes Forcier and won't count out Nick Sheridan, who looked like a bantam among the varsity when he took snaps last season. But Rodriguez has a crush on Robinson, whose speed (or the stories of his speed) conjures two words: Pat White. Give the ball to Forcier, sprinkle in Robinson in Chris Leak/Tim Tebow fashion, and hope the pair of freshmen can deliver seven wins.
2. Hold on to the ball
Michigan's 18 fumbles and minus-10 turnover margin ranked last in the Big Ten and was the primary reason for the squad's struggles in '08. Only East Carolina, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Georgia Tech and Army coughed up the ball more than the Wolverines.
"We'll win more games just by taking better care of the ball," Rodriguez said.
More consistent quarterback play should help, but the key to a change here might be the offensive line. The group made its usual gains in the weight room, but Rodriguez sounded especially excited about the mental improvements. Translation: This year's starting five should crash into the other team's defensive line more than it crashes into each other.
3. Tackle, tackle, tackle
The positives from Year No. 2 of this Michigan offense might be muted by the pains from Year No. 1 of this Michigan defense. Greg Robinson arrives to replace Scott Shafer as defensive coordinator and plans to install a 3-4 scheme that could look more like a 3-3-5 as the season wears on.
Scheme, of course, doesn't matter if those players again perform as though they're allergic to ballcarriers. So, Coach Robinson, anything bigger than the basics might be too much for a starting 11 that could feature only one senior.
"We're going to be solid in the fundamentals," Robinson said this spring. "That's the focus. You've got to tackle the other team's guy with the ball."
4. Bring back the belief
The Wolverines move into a new indoor facility next week, the completion of a nine-year project that cost more than $25 million. A new-look Michigan Stadium opens in 2010. Rodriguez said Monday he likes the spirit around his program even more than his players.
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"They've come closer together in the last five or six months than I ever could have hoped for," he said.
Of course, about 119 other Division I-A coaches say the same thing this time of year. But the changes on campus, combined with a strong 22-man recruiting class expected to report in full for the opening of camp next week, give his words some backbone.
5. Beat a big boy
Notre Dame in Week 2. Michigan State or Penn State in October. Ohio State in that Motor City Bowl tune-up. As Rodriguez said Monday, his faith in the maize and blue won't spread to the masses until the program starts winning more than it loses. Beating an old rival, or the team up Interstate 96, or a fellow traditional power expected to threaten the BCS, might accelerate the Rich Rod reclamation.
If nothing else, it might keep some folks from feeling ticked for a while.
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