Spring training has started for Major League Baseball, which means that NCAA Baseball has started as well.  The Ohio State Buckeyes are looking for a strong season from starting pitcher, Brad Goldberg.  So far this season, he has lived up to expectations.

In three games so far, Goldberg is 2-0 with a 0.47 ERA in 19 innings.  He has only allowed 7 hits, and 2 runs with only one of them being earned.  Opposing hitters are hitting .119 against him.  He has struck out 22 batters that he has faced and walked 9.

Walks and high pitch count have been a concern for Goldberg in the past but so far this season he has improved in both of those stat categories.  It is still early in the season, and therefore the 19 innings probably could be higher, but there isn’t a need to leave him out there in a game to accumulate statistics.

This is why at the beginning of the season major leaguers will often be pulled even with a no hitter going.  Conference play is going to matter much more than these beginning of the season games that have no real effect on the outcome of the whole year.

Goldberg has been getting draft buzz for quite some time now, and if he can keep it up this season, it will only increase his stock.  He features a fastball (sinker), change up, cutter, and curve ball.

He was elected Big Ten Pitcher of the Week 2 consecutive weeks to start the season giving up no earned runs in 13.1 innings of work while striking out 17 batters.  If he stays strong throughout the season he will get serious consideration as Big Ten Pitcher of the Year.

Indiana is slated as the favorite to win the Big Ten this year, but Ohio State’s recruits from head coach Greg Beals are going to be major contributors.  The team is fairly young, but they have veterans and leaders in the right places.

Obviously Kent State stole the show last year qualifying for the College World Series, and will get the bulk of attention for Ohio college baseball teams.  However, the Buckeyes can certainly do damage in the Big Ten this year, and as we saw with Kent State last year, anyone can make a run.

The Buckeyes will head to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for the long weekend during Ohio State’s spring break.  This could pose a potential matchup with Goldberg on the mound against a dangerous Coastal Carolina squad, in which he his very familiar with, having transferred to Ohio State from Coastal following his sophomore season.

Another matchup to watch is against Ball State, which is where coach Beals was head coach before accepting the Ohio State job.  The Buckeyes home opener is scheduled for March 15 against Bryant University.  Big Ten play opens up at Purdue March 22.

This should be a fun season to watch for the Buckeyes, and it will be especially fun to watch what Goldberg can accomplish on the mound, and going forward in the MLB draft process.

The recent penalties handed down to Penn State will have a huge impact on the upcoming Big Ten season.  Penn State was expected to be a competitive team before this disaster struck, and now it will most likely not be that way for quite a while.

A number of players are expected to transfer at no penalty, and a number of them could potentially stay in the Big Ten.  The real loser in this situation besides the victims of child abuse is the Big Ten Conference.

Wisconsin can punch their ticket to the Big Ten Championship game with Penn State and Ohio State both being ineligible for post season play.  Wisconsin only has to beat out Illinois, Indiana, and Purdue to lock themselves into the Championship game.

Those three teams were not expected to be very good anyway, which makes this season even that much more boring for the Big Ten on the Leaders Division side.  The Legends Division should be exciting, but that won’t make up for the lost cause on the other side.

However, with Ohio State and Penn State both under the microscope it could generate short term media attention to head their direction to see how they attempt to overcome the recent situations.  This could potentially be very beneficial to the Big Ten.

The winners in this situation are the other schools in the Big Ten.  They now have a chance to not only swoop in and take current players off the Penn State roster, but for the next four or five seasons they are going to have their chance to get their hands on a number of recruits that will now be looking elsewhere.

There won’t be any special recruiting tools needed to lure a player away from Penn State.  All a coach has to attack is the chance to play in a bowl game and the lack of exposure Penn State will get due to the decline in the quality of their football and the poor reputation that has now been established.

Time will tell how if the penalties will be worse than the death penalty for Penn State.  However, the immediate impact will gear more towards the Big Ten and how the other football programs will be able to take advantage of the punishments handed down to Penn State.

Switching gears for a bit, it is time to take another look at college baseball. As the 2012 season rolls on, the top 25 stays relatively consistent, but teams shuffle around within each week.

Per usual, most of the teams we see in the top 25 are from the South or out west, where warmer weather makes it easier to practice. But I was excited to see Purdue ranked 15^th with a 31-6 record. They went 3-1 last weekend and were previously ranked 16^th.

In the past, Purdue baseball has not found much success. They have only won one Big Ten Championship and have only made it to the Big Ten Tournament once, so this year is already quite the accomplishment for the Boilermakers.

But what does it say about college baseball if a team like Purdue moves even further up in the top 25?

Sure, they may break the tradition of the classic southern/western team being reigning champions (and it may make a lot of their fans angry), but as I said before, who isn’t opposed to a little change in college sports?

The Big Ten is due for some encouragement anyway, so Purdue baseball could be the perfect way to bring them back into the chatter.

The last time a Big Ten team, or a team from anywhere above the Mason-Dixon line, for that matter, won the College World Series was in 1966, when the Ohio State Buckeyes took home the title. But ever since, it has just been the same story, such as when Southern Cal took five straight titles from 1970-1974 – exciting! (Not so much.)

If Purdue can pull through, it will certainly say a lot for them and even the teams up North yearning for just a shot at the playoffs and the College World Series. It will be a surprise for sure, but change is a good thing. Go Boilermakers!

Last season and many seasons before that the Buckeye’s have lost to Wisconsin when playing at Wisconsin, this season however is different; the Buckeye’s defeated Wisconsin by 6 points at this past Saturday’s game. This is hopefully a look at what will happen when Ohio State welcomes Wisconsin at the end of the month. The season is drawing closer and closer to the end and the Buckeye’s have nothing but conference games left. They will be hosting Purdue tonight and Michigan State on Saturday. Last season, the Buckeye’s lost to Purdue when playing at Purdue but defeated Purdue when playing at home. The game is favored towards Ohio State winning seeing as how Purdue isn’t ranked this season and Ohio State is ranked number three. Students are excited for tonight’s game because it is a conference game and it’s a nice way to break up the week and celebrate the fact that midterms are over.

The Michigan State game is going to be one of the most populated and watched games for Buckeye fans according to students. Many students are saying that the game could go either way seeing as how both teams are doing so well this year. Students are already preparing for the game. Because the game is on a Saturday students are saying that there will be a lot more students at the game or watching the game at various locations around campus, because there is no class the next day. Some students have even said that it’s games like this that there should be tailgating similar to football games.

The tailgating they have said should be for the big games such as the Michigan State game, the past Michigan game, and the upcoming Wisconsin game. The Wisconsin game is something that all students are looking forward to. It’s going to be “a huge game” according to one student. There is a slight rivalry forming between Wisconsin and Ohio State, mainly because both teams do so well in sports and compete against each other. The basketball game is predicted to be a very close game. Many students have said that they don’t want a complete blowout win, but they also don’t want it to come down to the last second. The Wisconsin game at the end of the month is the last home game of the season, so students want to “end the home game season with a bang!”

For the elite high school quarterbacks in the country, the opportunity to play quarterback at one of the bigtime college football programs is a dream come true.  One major factor in making the final decision on which program gets the signature on the letter of intent is the degree to which that individual player will be prepared for the next level (the NFL).

The high-powered programs like Florida, Oklahoma, Miami and USC are just a few of the major BSC schools that elite high school quarterbacks consider, and why not?  These teams are known for their juggernaut offenses, and they are consistently in the hunt for a national championship.  College FootBlog takes a deeper look into the progress of the top performing quarterbacks from the NFL and where those QBs played their college ball.

Drew Brees has continued to relish the underdog role in the NFL, much like he did when he played QB at Purdue (google images)

If you are a coach or a parent of an elite QB, the you may want to take a hard look at the numbers because you’ll probably be very surprised.  For a number of reasons, which we will cover later, the major programs typically do not groom their top-tier signal callers for the NFL.  Let’s take a look at the passer ratings from the last season.

Of the top ten quarterback ratings, only two, Peyton Manning (Tennessee) and Tom Brady (Michigan) went to perineal BCS power houses, and Manning was ranked sixth, with Brady at #9. 

Purdue’s Drew Brees was the Superbowl MVP and the top-rated QB in the NFL last year, with a QB Rating of 109.6.  Brett Favre was a close second and is a sure-fire, first ballot Hall of Famer, and he played at Southern Miss.  

Phillip Rivers was the 3rd-ranked QB last year and has been a dominant player since his arrival in 2004, but NC State is not exactly known as Quarterback-U.  Aaron Rodgers was #4 and played at Cal, which doesn’t have the glamor of USC, but he outperformed his former rivals from LA last season.  Matt Schaub was ranked seventh and hails from the University of Virginia. 

The other three QBs in the top ten really dispel the idea that you have to go to a bigtime program to prepare for the NFL.   Fifth-ranked Ben Roethlisberger went to Miami–no, not that ‘Miami’…Miami of Ohio.  Eighth-ranked Tony Romo and 10th-ranked Kurt Warner played Division IAA (or FCS for those who are up on the new abbreviations) at Eastern Illinois and Northern Iowa, respectively.

Now, let’s take a look at the lowest ranked QBs from last year’s NFL season.  Five of the worst eight QBs in the NFL last season were from major programs, including #32 (the worst) first-round bust JaMarcus Russell from LSU.  Former USC quarterbacks Matt Cassel and Mark Sanchez were numbers 25 and 28.

Former Notre Dame star Brady Quinn came in at #27 and rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford struggled in his first season out of the University of Georgia, ranking 29th.

When digging into the numbers it really should not come as a huge surprise.  Afterall, the quarterbacks at the major programs typically have a bigtime advantage with their receiving corps versus the opposing secondaries.  For example, in Stafford’s last season at Georgia, he had 6’2″ and 2nd round pick Mohamed Massaquoi and soon to be first rounder AJ Green, who is 6’4″ and could be the best wideout in the country this year.

Even in the SEC, which is widely known for being the best conference in college football, the dominant programs have bigger, faster and stronger WRs, creating bigger windows to throw into and much more room for error. 

In the NFL, it is typically the cornerbacks that are the fastest players on the field, and while they may be at a disadvantage in size, the talent pool is much smaller, and those large windows to complete passes are not only smaller, but they also close very quickly.  In the NFL, a ball delivered a split-second too early or too late is the difference between a completion and a pick-six for the defense.

The QBs at the lesser-known programs have to deal with a more balanced and level playing field and often do not have this colossal advantage with their receivers, forcing them to make better reads and to thread the needle, instead of throwing to an area.

In the end, there are a few low-ranked QBs that could easily turn things around.  After all, Mark Sanchez and Matthew Stafford were only rookies last season, but the trend is quite staggering when you take away all the glamor and simply look at production on the field.  For the time being (and seemingly for the immediate future), it is the underdogs that continue to lead the way.

With Spring Football officially in the books and summer workouts right around the corner, College FootBlog is taking a conference by conference look at the upcoming 2010 football season.  In last week’s edition, we provided a breakdown and power ranking for each division of the ACC (see links for Atlantic and Coastal).

In this week’s two-part article, we take a look at the Big Ten, giving insight and analysis from last season, what we learned from the spring and what the outlook will be for this fall.  In Part I of the Big Ten breakdown, we rank the preseason #6-#11 teams, which will be immediately followed by our top five.

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald coaches with the same emotion with which he played (google images)

6:  Northwestern: Pat Fitzgerald does more with little than any coach in the FBS.  His Wildcats will once again be counted out by most pollsters, but don’t be surprised if they exceed expectations again in 2010 (even in our poll).  NU loses seven wideouts from last year’s team and must also replace quarterback Mike Kafka.  Filling the role of trigger man for the NU offense will be Dan Persa, who had a solid spring and has more running ability than Kafka.  The defense should be decent, led by a couple of senior linebackers, Quentin Davie and Nate Williams.  Regardless of depth and overall talent, Coach Fitzgerald will have his team playing hard and smart, and that should be enough to get them to another bowl game this fall.

7.  Purdue: The Boilermakers should be an interesting team in 2010.  This year, former Miami Hurricanes’ quarterback Robert Marve is eligible and will get his opportunity to be the starter.  If they are going to keep this power ranking, they must improve on their defense against the run, which gave up more than 170 yards on the ground per game.  The Boilermakers proved to Ohio State last year that they can play well in West Lafayette, and with visits from Minnesota, Michigan and Indiana, Purdue will have a great opportunity to finish above those programs at season’s end.

8.  Michigan: Rich Rodriguez is going to be coaching for his job this fall.  After a 4-0 start last season, the Wolverines dropped seven of their last eight games, and the defense was…well…not good, ranking 82nd nationally in a conference that did was not known last season for having explosive offenses.  Tate Forcier is a very exciting player at QB, and Denard Robinson gives defenses a change of pace, but all the offense in the world will not be enough unless the defense improves dramatically this season.

9.  Indiana: Quarterback Ben Chappell returns for his senior season and despite throwing for nearly 3,000 yards last season, he must improve his TD/Int ratio, which was 17/15 last fall.  The Hoosiers travel to Ohio State and Wisconsin this year and play host to Iowa and Penn State.  Barring a huge upset, they will be 0-4 in those games, and it will be all they can do to escape the cellar of the conference.  IU ranked 88th in total defense last year, and unless something changes in a big way, they will have a similar defense this time around.  A bad defense and an offense that turns the ball over will make it difficult to stay above water in the Big Ten in 2010.

10:  Minnesota: After a solid 2008 season, quarterback Adam Weber took a step backwards last season, throwing more picks (15) than he did touchdowns (13).  The Gophers sported the Big Ten’s worst offense, and only managed 13 rushing touchdowns all season.  They now have their third offensive coordinator in three years, which makes it hard to believe things will change for the better in 2010.  Defensively, the entire front seven from last year’s middle-of-the-pack defense is gone.  Final verdict–things are not looking good for the 2010 campaign in Minneapolis.

11.  Illinois: The Ron Zook experiment will likely come to an end this season.  Zook has always been an elite recruiter, but he has once again proven that he cannot put a championship football team together, despite having enough talent to compete with anyone in his conference.  The departure of Arrelious Benn takes away the Illini’s only legitimate playmaker from last year’s team.

Look for our Top 5 Preseason Teams from the Big Ten tomorrow!