Quickly Moving Along

After what I saw today I can say that I am now a Keith Wenning fan. The BSU QB showed style throwing for 24/30 for 324 yards and 3 tds.

By no means does that exonerate the defense nor forgive the penalties. 


Moving on. To the next challenge.
This season isn't over.

Your Ball State/Army story, stats and highlights.






_

Army Ball State Availability

There's a link up under the Radio tab above, this one has been hit or miss this year, so I'll try to stay astride of a fresh link to Army Ball State.

Lets get it!



_

Army Ball State News and Notes

Ball State hosts the squad Saturday and bring a semi-impressive 2-1 record.

Army's game notes are up on the GoArmySports site.USA Today has some game notes and

It looks like Ball St. is a little dinged up themselves.

Starters Jason Pinkston (cornerback), Austin Holtz (offensive tackle) and nickel defensive back Quinton Cooper likely are out this week. Holtz and Cooper have knee injuries and Pinkston has been hobbled much of the season by a hamstring injury.
Because this week's game is a non-conference outing, those players likely will sit to try to facilitate the healing process.
Receiver Jack Tomlinson (hip), middle linebacker Travis Freeman (ankle) and center Kreg Hunter (ankle) all are hobbled but should play. All three are starters.

Hope for their sake they bring somebody that can tackle.

The game is slated for ESPN3 - I have no idea what that means as far as internet availability, and only time can tell what turns up online.

Hustle Belt has some profound insights into this game:

"The game, to be played in Muncie, also gives Army a showcase for its recruiting targets in Indiana. Yes, you read that correctly. Evidently, the Black Knights are trying to make West Central Indiana a stronghold. They've already offered two Lafayette kids - the town in which I reside: Central Catholic's Danny Anthrop (who, by the way, is an absolute STUD) and McCutcheon's Vince Hunsiker. Army is also pursuing Attica's Jarrett Smart, who hasn't received an offer yet. This entire paragraph may be more "inside football" than necessary, but I find it interesting. Anthrop also holds offers from Hustle Belt members Buffalo and Akron. I would very much like Ball State to offer Anthrop as soon as possible in case Northwestern, Purdue or Notre Dame don't offer (he's either received letters or taken unofficials there)."

Good stuff there, once I have the chance to edit my list of BIG East links you can expect Hustle Belt to be included. 

_

Yearbook: Case Western Reserve

Case Western has a selection of their yearbooks online, and this is another look at a swell set of online yearbooks. These yearbooks all represent years before Case Institute and Western Reserve combined powers to become Case Western Reserve, so some of the years have more than one yearbook. That also explains the variety of names that the Case Western Reserve yearbooks printed; there was Reserve (Western R.), Differential (Case), Nihon (Western), My Diary, Eos (Western R.), Polychronicon, and Lux. There are a few yearbooks for sister schools involved, but this is a great look at Case Western's history.

The years that are available online are, 1913, 1914, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1927, 1933, 1945, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1959, 1962, 1963.


These yearbooks give a nice look at a quaint early football club.

My only beef is the confusing system they use to download and view yearbooks. Each year from the Case Western Reserve yearbook list opens up to the school's online library catalog. That is just fine by me, but the active 856 MARC field only opens up to the expanded detail catalog page.














The link to each PDF is on the right side toolbar which looks something like this.











There shouldn't be any questions about where to find Case Western's online yearbooks nor should there be any doubts about my knowledge of X's and O's after that last photo.


Either way, use that knowledge to set adrift on past memories of Case Western Reserve.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is the mission of The Unbalanced Line Online Library to present important and interesting historical texts to college football fans. Items will be added regularly as blog postings and can be easily indexed in the Yearbooks button on the site bar.

Copyrighted material is used expressly under the fair use guidelines of U.S. Code 17 #107 through #118 stating that the criticism, comment, news reporting, educational use or research of copyrighted material is not held in violation of copyright laws.

_______________ © 2011 The Unbalanced Line _______________

Parting Look at the Big East

Pitt is my alma mater and easily my favorite college football team, so of course the move to their move to the ACC (and the pending breakup of the Big East) is on my mind. If Pitt got screwed like the Big East at large I would probably be losing my hair about the situation. 

It's just now starting to sink in, but the new ACC looks awesome. If they run the divisions like this:


Northeast

Pitt, Syracuse, Maryland, Boston College, Georgia Tech,Virginia Tech and Miami

South
Duke, NC State, Virginia,Wake Forest, UNC, Clemson and FSU.

That is a nice eastern football league, it's Joe Paterno's All-Eastern-Sports-League without Penn State. It's a dream scenario. Likewise, Rutgers, UConn, USF, Louisville, Cincinnati: need not apply.

Especially UConn's pandering ass.

"UConn, and probably Rutgers, would complete an eight-team Northern Division that would keep the school in a cluster or East Coast and Northeast teams, so travel costs and time away from classes would be easier across all sports. The ACC would provide major upgrades in competition and national profile in some sports, especially football and baseball. 

What a revamped 16-team ACC would look like: 

 and goes on to place  Uconn and Rutgers in a Northern Division with the Old Big East.

UConn, Syracuse, Boston College, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Maryland, Virginia, VirginiaTech

UConn,& Rutgers, yinz ever feel like dead weight?

Pitt Blather has been a pretty good gauge of the situation over the months, but now that Pitt are party to the defections it kind of seems like other teams and blogs will have a vested interest in the expansion fallout. I used to be in that boat, so it is tough to watch old conference-mates squirm. The new ones? ok... that's a bit more fun.


Understandably there is bitterness all around, at the departing teams, at the conference head and at the ACC.

As far as the Big East football schools go, it's been real. We all had our differences, but at the end of the day, everybody each shared the same common goal, the same collective chip on their shoulder. They had a good run, and it doesn't matter what some yahoo sitting in a cornfield thinks. They proved that they belonged beyond a shadow of the doubt, and if not for internal, self-inflicted sabotage, Eastern football would be a force to be reckoned with to this very day instead of being about to enter hospice care. Those bastards killed it, and the remaining Big East football refugees should spare no act of spite or retribution to make them pay for their multitude of crimes. Enjoy playing in the new Atlantic Ten. You've earned it.

But taking cheap shots after the door slams in your face gains nothing,

It's not that Syracuse and Pittsburgh are irreplaceable on the gridiron. They're not, and Big XII remnants like Missouri could easily pick up the slack in that respect.

THAT is hysterical.

To Pitt and Syracuse's conference mates; I can only wish yinz the best of luck if that is the direction you choose to go.





_

Moving on Past Army Northwestern

 Army's offense is humming along now, and if this is Trent Steelman dinged up, a healthy Steelman would be superhuman.

#8 had a game high 28 rushes for 108 yards, but more importantly showed a command of the offense that speaks to his experience under center. The offense turned in a very sharp performance and not only iced the game on defense, but scored late when they needed to. It was just about as good a showing as you could hope for.

Northwestern fans seem to be taking the loss alright, throwing in the towel considering the team had a ton of self-inflicted wounds.  

Danny Wild has a truckload of pictures from the game; looking at those pics is already the highlight of my week.

21-14 is a great way to get 2011's first win. Next up is Ball State and a chance to even the record on the road.

Here's your Army/Northwestern Story, Stats and Highlights.




_

Blogpoll Top 25 Week 4

I feel pretty good about this week's ballot.

I might have switched the likes of Washington State for an Iowa State, but I'm pretty sure I'll have the chance to add Washington St. next week.

The Unbalanced Line Ballot - Week 4

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oklahoma Sooners	3
2	Alabama Crimson Tide	-1
3	LSU Tigers	2
4	Stanford Cardinal	-2
5	Boise St. Broncos	-2
6	Nebraska Cornhuskers	1
7	Wisconsin Badgers	7
8	Florida Gators	1
9	Arkansas Razorbacks	-1
10	Virginia Tech Hokies	1
11	South Florida Bulls	-1
12	West Virginia Mountaineers	10
13	Oregon Ducks	-1
14	Texas A&M Aggies	-1
15	South Carolina Gamecocks	2
16	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	--
17	Clemson Tigers	--
18	Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets	--
19	Maryland Terrapins	--
20	Florida St. Seminoles	-14
21	Miami Hurricanes	--
22	North Carolina Tar Heels	--
23	Iowa St. Cyclones	--
24	Fla. International Golden Panthers	--
25	California Golden Bears	--
Dropouts: Texas Longhorns, Ohio St. Buckeyes, Tennessee Volunteers, Penn St. Nittany Lions, Mississippi St. Bulldogs, Washington St. Cougars, Central Florida Knights, Georgia Bulldogs, Auburn Tigers

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »