The Big Ten released its annual media guide today, including the all-time coaching records. Thanks to scandals at Ohio State (and now Penn State) we know that the recognized W-records of a couple of the big name coaches have been in flux. Some history for context: In 2010 I lobbied the Big Ten to change Yost’s all-time conference record wrong because they had included the years 1907-1916…when Michigan was not a member of the conference. The B1G media brass conferred and then agreed. They made the change and thus bumped Yost’s #1 overall conference record from an .833 winning percentage to .888 (to #2 Tressel’s .828). In 2011, after the Ohio State scandal sent Tressel packing and vacated the entire 2010 season, I put the question out there of how the conference would treat Tressel’s all-time record on the official books given the scandal. I suggested five potential scenarios: Based on today’s media guide (and if they published this previously I haven’t seen it)…we know that they went with option #2 above. Tressel drops to .810: So they simply removed the 2010 wins, kept the Wisconsin loss, dropped the win % to .810 and kept Tressel on the list saying he met the 10-year minimum threshold. Sure, it would have been nice to see him drop off behind Bo or…
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Poof Goes the Vest?
The saga continues on the Big Ten all-time coaching statistics. Readers of this site know that at the urging of a pesky blogger, the Big Ten officials updated their records last season to reflect the time Michigan left the conference from 1907-1916. The result was a boost to Fielding Yost’s lead over Jim Tressel in conference win percentage by coaches from .833 to .888 (here are the current numbers, through last year’s bowls): Mark Snyder discussed the ramifications of the Ohio State self-imposed vacated wins on the all-time records in this recent piece, & note Mark corrected Yost’s official win pct last night ;) As Snyder points out, I think we can assume nothing is official until the NCAA/Big Ten complete their investigations. I asked the Big Ten offices to confirm and I’m guessing they will say it be resolved when the investigation is completed. [Update July 11] I got the expected response from the Big Ten’s Scott Chipman: My question: Scott, is there an official ruling from the Big Ten on how the Ohio State sanctions/vacated wins affect Tressel’s conference win percentage? Or is this all pending the final NCAA/B10 rulings on the sanctions? Chipman’s reply: Greg, As of right now, that’s all TBD. I see a few possible outcomes that could impact these records once again: Final Punishment…
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The Yost Gap Widens!
In this post last week I mentioned that I contacted the Big Ten about their listing of the all-time conference coach rankings by winning percentage. I noticed that Jim Tressel (.823) was on the right on the heels of Fielding Yost (.833): But Yost’s record included all 25 years that he was a coach but we know that Michigan wasn’t in the conference for a big chunk of his tenure. I reran the numbers after removing the years the athletic department lists as out of conference (1907-1918), and the Yost’s winning percentage jumped to .888—a tad out of reach of The Sweatervest. I shot an email to the Big Ten and was told they would look into it. This afternoon Scott Chipman, Assistant Commissioner of Communications, got back to me: We made the change in the weekly release and for next year’s media guide. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. My pleasure! The new weekly release is out and here’s the updated listing: Much better, no? Side note: my pal, writer & historian John Kryk (Natural Enemies) knows his history and argues that Michigan didn’t officially leave the conference until January 1908 (and thus the 1907 should be considered as in conference). The athletic department and the Bentley Library list 1907 as out of conference. I asked Greg…
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Conference Records and The Yost Gap
Jeff Arnold of AnnArbor.com mentioned this in his game notes from Saturday: The 132 points that Michigan and Illinois combined for set a record for a Big Ten conference game. The previous mark was set in 1902 when Michigan and then-Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State) scored 119 points in a 119-0 Wolverines victory. I read that in the paper Sunday but missed this error that MVictors reader "jmblue" points out: By the way, we’ve been told repeatedly that the "highest-scoring Big Ten game" before this was our 119-0 win over Michigan Agricultural College, but that’s not accurate since M.A.C. wasn’t in the conference at the time. Any idea what the highest-scoring actual conference game was? Yes, according to the Big Ten weekly release it was this game: Last Saturday at Michigan Stadium, Illinois and Michigan went to triple overtime and piled up 132 points to shatter the record for combined scoring in a conference game. … The previous Big Ten record for combined scoring in a conference games was 115 points when Minnesota defeated Purdue, 59-56, on Oct. 9, 1993. Other Stuff While browsing through that release I stubbed my toe on a few other items of note. Check these out starting on Page 7 at the bottom under "Current Players Amount Or Nearing Single-Season Leaders". You knew that…