More Bulletin Board Material...and Lazy Journalism at its Finest

Brandon Siler...We Knew You Could Do It!!

But when fielding questions at the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game Media Day, Florida linebacker Brandon Siler, from Evans High School, said his team will win.

"I've had the feeling all year," Siler said. "We will win this game. I know it."

Las Vegas says Florida's a 7-7.5 point underdog. But Siler insist not to bet on Ohio State.

"Not unless you want to lose some money," he said.

I guess you guys really are disrespected down there...I feel your pain brother...oh it stings...it stings...

Moving on...
I have been hearing a lot of smack from moron SEC beat writers (not bloggers) that feel the need to bash OSU's academic standing and utilize the NCAA numbers from past year graduation rates (Student entering in 1999...aka documentation containing players that were on the roster before Meyer or Tressel took over their respective programs) and african-american graduation rates.

First, I will never understand the need to segregate a race in the graduation rates, but whatever works...like people in the south (sans African-Americans) give two shits about the african-american graduation rates at UF or any other school in the south. It has about the same importance for the schools in the north. Regardless, people in the south speaking about how much they care about the well-being of african-americans and their team cumulative GPA at Florida would be similar to an *insert totally politically incorrect Al Queda & American "caring" comparison here*. This little ditty from the Miami Herald is a good example of slanted reporting at its finest...

"If academics were the measuring stick, the Buckeyes might be considered a two touchdown underdog. UF had an 80% graduation among football players while OSU had a 55% mark. Also, Ohio State's 32% graduation rate among black football players was the next to lowest of all the bowl eleigible teams this year. (Georgia was lowest with 24 percent)

Wouldnt it be nice if these article utilized some relevant numbers (which would be difficult because then the writer might have to spend a few more minutes on research by picking up a phone) like let's say this past quarters numbers for the OSU football team...I'll let the UF fans tell me what it's team academic numbers are for the semester/quarter.

OSU Football Academic Numbers - Fall Quarter 2006

Ohio State had a Football team cumulative GPA of 2.93 with 61 players over 3.0 (BTW Notre Dame had a team cumulative of 3.04 .)

21 Big Ten All-Academic Football players in Fall of 2006. This number led all of the the Big 10 Schools

(HT: Ozone Forum)

I think the most interesting aspect of this whole can of worms is that we go through this with the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News every year. They find a million things wrong with how OSU conducts it's business, but the Ohio newspapers pretty much just focus on the game and people involved in this event. No matter how much people want to dish out crap to the Dispatch and other Ohio newpaper outlets, they are still a professional and classy bunch. I am sure that the OSU backing papers could find plenty of dirt on the Florida program and it's players, but they are taking the high road, which apparently doesnt exist in Florida.