Nittany White Out recently offered a nice breakdown of Big Ten venues and their attending advantages. According to their formula, Ohio Stadium is the top venue in the Big Ten. The best part? They did not have to appear on Bravo to win it.

As faithful Buckeye Commentary readers know, we love graphs and charts, and we think Ohio Stadium is the best venue in the country, so reading this post was music to our occipital cortex.

Still, we were a little puzzled at the scoring and breakdowns in a few categories. The one that jumped out the most was the “fans” category listed in the first chart. I think Penn State has great fans and we know a few. But white t-shirts does not a great crowd make. The “White Out” is a cute idea and takes all the thinking out of the pressured-filled gameday outfit decisions, but its advantages end about there.

I suppose NWO is entitled to a little bias, as we would certainly tout Ohio State fans as the tops. Perhaps they should have broken the fan category down into smaller slices. For example, fans most likely to throw urine and batteries at you? Wisconsin. Fans most likely to pick a fight with a pregnant woman? Wisconsin (we have seen it). Fans most likely to get black out drunk and vomit a partially digested cheese product? Wisconsin (we have not seen but, come on, you know it happens).

Despite our informal questioning of the efficacy of this post, we graciously accept the award on behalf of Ohio Stadium.

Award Circuit: Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith and former U.S. Senator John Glenn will be honored at the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony.  Smith will receive the John L. Toner Award given to a top athletic director.  Glenn will be honored with the foundation’s Gold Medal, the foundation’s highest honor. 

Ugh!

Decisions like this bother me, at least right now. No color contrast between the stadium and the field level. It now has this weird ice-rink look to it. Others have mentioned this could be only prep for the new surface coming tomorrow or Monday. Even so, that new surface is still supposed to be gray. Maybe it will be a magically 'better gray'. I dunno. Whatever the color, it will be visible during gamedays.

This all brings up an old, unanswered question. Why wasn't the FieldTurf extended to the interior stadium walls? That would have been the correct decision. Uniform surface, surrounding field level replaced, no downside and much rejoicing in Buckeye nation. But, alas...