Iggy’s Ravens Report – November 21, 2012

News & Commentary

News and Personal Thoughts:
In a surprise move, bucking 60 years of history, Maryland announced that they will be moving to the Big 10 for the 2014. This will be beneficial for Football Basketball, Baseball and Soccer, but detrimental to Lacrosse. The Big 10 will reported pay the $51M ACC separation fee, and Maryland stands to make $24.7M in broadcasting revenues (as opposed to the ACC’s $17M), with an anticipated increase to somewhere in the mid-$40M within 5 years. Lacrosse will suffer, no longer belong to the ACC. The Big 10 has no organized lacrosse league with only a handful of schools fielding teams, insufficient to hold a conference tournament and well short of the requirements to establish an automatic NCAA bid. Maryland could join an associate league, like the ECAC (Loyola) in Men’s lacrosse, or just play independent. Most notably, Maryland may suffer on the recruiting front without their ACC alliance with perennial powerhouses such as Duke, Virgina, and North Carolina. And, of course, leaving ACC buys local law enforcement about 10 years of riot-free route 1 traffic, without the twice a years Duke basketball games!

Ravens:
The Ravens did not win on Sunday night as much as pittsburgh gave the game away. The stealers failed to run the ball, left in an obviously injured Leftwich, failed to manage the clock, and lost the turnover battle. The Ravens, on the other hand, failed to produce any semblance of offense. Granted pittsburgh has the number 1 ranked D in the NFL, we still had no game plan AGAIN. The stealers made our defense look good. An injured 2nd string QB was rather ineffective, and the return of Suggs had the stealer O-line so confused, they didn’t know how to stop Kruger from breaking free. That pressure covered for the holes in the secondary, although the reserve players covered the field well. This week, the Ravens will need to do more against a better offensive team that isn’t running around like a chicken with it’s head chopped, as pittsburgh was doing on Sunday. Rivers will dissect us given the chance, and these west coast trips also seem to revive the twilight zone (No, not the cheesy teenage vampire books/flicks… we’re talking the realm where anything can happen.)