What happened to the Big Ten?

As anyone who follows college football knows, the Big Ten has been off this year. Well, they’ve been off for a few years, if you ask most people. The problem is, they haven’t had a set of top flight marquee teams. Even though there are several teams that are good, and there aren’t many teams that are awful, it’s often labeled as a bad conference. It’s considered a travesty if Ohio State makes it to the national title game, and many pundits were disgusted at Penn State’s run before losing to Iowa.
With Ohio State running a freshman quarterback and Michigan being terrible, Penn State’s season has been less impressive. It’s been like this for several years now. Even when Ohio State won the Championship after the 2001 season, many didn’t believe they belonged on the same field as Miami before the game. Two blowout losses in championship games since that win have put a greater damper on the conference.
Then, there is basketball. Typically, the conference is evenly distributed with a couple great teams, several good teams and a few bottom feeders. Generally speaking, there are 5-6 teams that make the Big Dance every year, maybe 7 on a good year. This year, however, ESPN’s “bracketologist” Joe Lunardi only has 4 in his preseason predictions. Beyond that, he doesn’t have a single team among his last 8 out. (Of course, he has Kansas playing Missouri in the first round. Maybe by this point, Missouri will be in the Big Ten?)
So it’s not just football, it’s basketball too. Both of the premiere sports in the conference are off in the Big Ten. What’s the problem? As I see it, it started with perception. With both sports, the Big Ten has played a slower, plodding game. They are a running conference with strong defenses in football, and a trapping, half court style basketball conference. This worked just fine when they were able to attract top flight talent. Perception turned though, and the Big Ten was called boring, and the schools were unable to attract the talent they once were. In the beginning, the conference wasn’t bad, it was just alleged that they were. After so many people said so, it became a self fulfilling prophecy.
Purdue was poised to overtake the division in football because their offense was more wide open than other schools in the conference, attracting talent from Texas and Florida, football breeding grounds. Joe Tiller became less aggressive, however, and the talent stopped coming in. Ohio State and Michigan State remain atop the basketball world because they push the ball, and Illinois will return, because that is their philosophy as well. These four schools were the exceptions that proved the rule. They scored more points, were flashier and were met with more recruiting success. It’s fortunate that the coaching in the Big Ten is so skillful, otherwise the Big Ten would be completely adrift. Younger coaches may be well served to go to a more aggressive schemes if only to pull in more blue chippers.
Or maybe the problem is that young talent from California or Florida don’t want to spend four years in Wisconsin or Indiana. If that’s the case, then I don’t know what to say.