This is not news.
As a Big Ten president who has benefited greatly from the current setup, you wouldn't expect anything less. Gee has to look out for Ohio State, and while the Buckeyes could benefit both financially and competitively from a system that would bring playoff games to The Horseshoe, the current setup has served them well.
What Ohio State didn't need from Gee was this:
In an interview with The Associated Press, the president at the university with the largest athletic program in the country said that TCU and Boise State do not face a difficult enough schedule to play in the national championship game.
"Well, I don't know enough about the X's and O's of college football," said Gee, formerly the president at West Virginia, Colorado, Brown and Vanderbilt universities. "I do know, having been both a Southeastern Conference president and a Big Ten president, that it's like murderer's row every week for these schools. We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor. We play very fine schools on any given day. So I think until a university runs through that gantlet that there's some reason to believe that they not be the best teams to [be] in the big ballgame."
Ugh. It's just not cool for Goliath to pick on David when Goliath's forehead keeps filling up with welts.
But that's beside the point. The Big Ten is a very tough conference this season. Would Boise State or TCU make it through a Big Ten schedule unscathed? It'd be tough, but it's also possible.
The bigger issue is that Ohio State has a tough time making the strength of schedule argument in 2010. Although the Buckeyes take more scheduling risks than many of their Big Ten brethren, they still face the Eastern Michigans of the world too often.
From The Cleveland Plain Dealer:
It's tough for anyone at Ohio State to make a strength of schedule argument this year, when according to Jeff Sagarin's strength of schedule ratings, for instance, Ohio State has the 59th-ranked schedule in the country, while TCU is No. 68 and Boise State 73. In the Massey ratings, Ohio State is No. 34 in schedule strength, Boise State is 47 and TCU 57. In the Colley Matrix, Ohio State's schedule is No. 60, TCU is 72 and Boise State 79. That's not much to argue about.
No, it's not.
One thing several Ohio State fans pointed out on my chat is that Gee has just given Boise State or TCU some bulletin-board material if it should face the Buckeyes in a BCS bowl. Ohio State has had a hard enough time beating SEC schools in bowls. Now the Broncos, who have been brilliant in BCS games, or TCU have some extra incentive to beat the Scarlet and Gray.
It's fine for Gee to support a system that is set up to benefit his school. But singling out Boise State and TCU does nothing to help Ohio State.
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