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What this is, what it will be. Some Q's answered.

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Clarity

Clarity

Will Bryant
Staff member
For about 2 years, perhaps a little longer, I've had a picture in the back of my head of a resource that I want as an OSU fan. I get a lot out of the existing communities, and really what I wanted was something to compliment the news, info and opinion you can get from Bucknuts, BSB/Rivals and the O-Zone.

BuckeyePlanet aims to fill two needs. Perhaps they're important to me (and some likeminded people) alone, perhaps it's something everyone will love. Only time will tell.

First and foremost, we intend to put online a statistical resource unlike any available for any I-A program. At least as it is envisioned, a tool that would allow you to queue data based on any argument you wish to present. Want to know how our RBs have fared all-time against Big 12 schools? Or who wore #13 and how they did during games in November? Or what our all time PF and PA are against Big Ten schools? The point here is that I want a tool that would effectively be a reporters (and fans for that matter) wet dream. All available historical data entered and completely open to manipulation. The questions are (1) how much data is openly available, and how much does the university have, and (2) how close to that vision from a programming/back-end approach can we meet? That's all being looked into, and to some degree being worked on. Worst case scenario is that we have in some sort of semi-dynamic format, all the stats fit to present. Either way, it's something that's not out there, at least not the degree I want.

Secondly, I like player opinion and perspective. As nice as it is to hear what a Mark Rea, John Porentas or Dave Biddle thinks (and I respect them all and what they bring to the table), I really want to know what this player or that player has to say on a different subject. We already have interest from a few guys on the football and basketball teams, and we're in the process of touching base with the university NCAA compliance office to make absolute certain that their voluntary and uncompensated participation won't be a problem. We will also make an effort to touch base with the coaching staff about the same issue, either directly, or through the interested players. Either way you look at it, as a fan, I get excited about the prospect of player "diaries" or articles. Opinion and perspective from the people who actually take the field.

About 18 months ago, I started talking with a few other folks on BNuts about this, and found a few people equally interested and excited about a project like this. Not much moved on it because of an unfortunate event my server suffered, coupled with external obligations many of us had. But a month or two ago now, things picked up again, and here we are. The forum is up and running because that's easy, and it gives us the foundation to build the rest around. The rest will come, I can't say when for sure, because some of that (programming for example -- anyone with free time good at web programming?) is out of my hands. But it will come.

I don't have any grand plans for the site, I just really want access to the tools. I don't have any grand plans for the forums, I just felt like I wouldn't hate to have another place to talk that afforded a slightly different philosophy and approach than some of the venues already out there. It's very important in my opinion to point out that in no way is this site being pointed in a direction where it means to compete with what's already out there, rather it's meant to compliment all of that, and offer a whole new angle.

I consider this a community project of sorts, so anyone interested in participating in any way you can imagine (from programming to simply helping build and moderate one of the forum communities), I'd love to hear from you.

Those who have been "in the loop" with my thoughts on this for some time now. Thanks for all the patience, we're going to see this through.
 
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How about an archive file for threads, sorts of like a "sticky" thread, but without it always appearing on the main menu, and containing multiple threads? That way, we can save some threads such as "What will be our record?", "Who will be All American?", "Who will be the starting QB?" (don't laugh, there was a thread like this over on Bucknuts), etc. That way, as the season progresses we can all see who was right and wrong. Maybe instead of an archive folder, have a new forum area called "Predictions", to go along with the others ("General Discussion", etc.).
 
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Hubs, what I mean is having a central repository for certain threads that we could check throughout the season or at the end of the season without having to search back 6-8 months. For example, and thread about predicting the season record could be put in a "predictions" forum, and we could go right there easily without having to search for it. Hopefully, there would be few enough threads there that a search wouldn't be needed there. Then again, as small as our forum is now, we may not have 20 pages of threads by the end of the season...or if the search function works better than the one at Bucknuts (which sucks badly), then we may not need a special folder for such threads.
 
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i know that it would take a tremendous amount of time, but nearly all the info that you would like to have is in Jack Park's Ohio State Encyclopedia. you would probably have to get his permission to use the info, seeing that i'm not sure how you could footnote it, but that book has every game that the Buckeyes have ever played. it doesn't have box scores, per se, but it does have yards for, yards against, etc. it would just be a matter of going through the book and adding up the stats to see, say for instance, how many turnovers Illinois has had against the Buckeyes all time. for other schools, this could be very difficult, seeing that i am not aware of ANY resource for any other school that is as vast as the Encyclopedia.
 
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The encyclopedia is wonderful, I have a copy myself. But it doesn't come close to scratching the surface when it comes to raw stats and data. Every carry. Every player. Every throw, fumble, point and penalty. As possible.

Unofficially, I've received preliminary word that I can have access to the school's archival information. All-time rosters, stats, boxscores -- basically every relevant number in regards to the Buckeye football program. Once the data is in place, it's just a matter of presenting it in the best way possible, and adding new information as seasons progress.

What we won't be are the terrific stories that the encyclopedia offers. It's a great read, and a great look into our history, especially for someone like me who wasn't born into it. But it can't tell you what Eddie George's YPC was on 3rd downs only against Big Ten school while in the Shoe. Or tell you who has the 3rd most INTs in post season play. Nor can it tell you who wore what number, what years, and offer profiles and performance data for each.

This site intends to. Maybe we'll be able to meet the vision, perhaps we'll only be able to create part of it. That's what we're working on now. What the encyclopedia does well, I don't think anyone needs to replicate. Likewise, we intend to try and steer clear of overlap with other OSU sites as well.

I'm a stats monkey, I love the numbers, and I like being able to have any question answered. Others may not be as interested, I guess we'll find out when vision gets translated to something tangible, and we can all play around with it a bit.
 
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Clarity - that is a GREAT idea. I, too, am a numbers junkie and I applaud your efforts! I am very excited about this board. This board has, whom I consider, the "cream of the crop" posters. I was going to mention some names of the posters that I really enjoy, but it wouldn't be fair to the ones that I would forget to include.

Although I do not get a chance to post alot, I promise that I will try to contribute to the board to the best of my ability. I am also getting tired of all the flaming and meaningless threads that have been discussed thousands of times. I can already tell that this site will have some great discussions.

Only 18 days, 8 hours and 20 minutes until kickoff!!!!!
 
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I know that the data on individual games is just a tiny bit of what you want to do here. I'm curious though if you have entered that into a spreadsheet or anything yet. I have entered the score of each Buckeye game, the location, and the date, into a spreadsheet which can be found at the link below. If you already have this finished yourself, great, but if you don't, feel free to use what I have if you can:
http://gosu02.tripod.com/osusaber/id27.html
 
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I have compiled some data, and soon will be sending someone in to start figuring out how to convert over the loads of info the school itself has into something we can use.

I love your spreadsheets and other info on that site though, and if you ever want to get it off Tripod, I'd be more than happy to give you a directory to host it from.

Also, I still see this as a community project, so if and as you want to help on the efforts here (and this goes for everyone), just let me know.
 
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Thanks for the kind words. You already have a great message board here and if you can get done just 5 or 10% of what you are hoping to, this will easily be the most comprehensive site for historical Buckeye info. And if you get more than that....WOW! Good luck.
 
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