After years of being the punching bag for college football fans and pundits, the Big Ten is riding high off the momentum of Ohio State’s National Championship victory in the first ever College Football Playoff.  The conference seems to finally be on the rebound after almost a decade of mediocrity, disappointment, and loss after loss on the national stage.  Not only has Urban Meyer brought Ohio State back to the top, but Mark Dantonio has turned Michigan State into a perennial Top 10 team and Jim Harbaugh has given Michigan fans hope he can do the same.  It’s never been better to be a part of the Big Ten and you bet the conference and the league’s network are going to take full advantage of it.

Heading into the new football season, Big Ten Network will be launching a new program following the defending national champion Buckeyes.  The network will be offering a Hard Knocks style behind-the-scenes look at Ohio State training camp this August.  BTN has quite a bit of experience with all-access programming with The Journey (which routinely does an excellent job) being shown throughout the season, but going in-depth with preseason practice is a new field of endeavor.

Via BTN:

The Big Ten Network will debut an original program in August with an exclusive, behind-the-scenes series featuring the Ohio State Buckeyes training camp as they prepare for the 2015 football season. The in-depth, documentary style show will follow the reigning national champions over a portion of pre-season practice. 

One of the nation’s premier programs, Ohio State marches toward Week 1 at the forefront of the college football conversation. On the heels of defeating the Oregon Ducks in the first College Football Playoff National Championship Game, OSU will begin its title defense by seeking a win in their opening game against Virginia Tech, the team responsible for the Buckeyes’ lone loss in 2014.

[…]

“Over our nearly eight-year history, BTN has consistently demonstrated an ability to tell the story of our conference, schools and athletes via original programming,” said BTN President Mark Silverman. “As a testament to our track record, Ohio State is trusting us to do just that as the Buckeyes embark on yet another potentially historic season.”

Forget the national championship defense, I don’t know if there’s a college football team that has had as much intrigue for their pre-season practices as the 2015 Ohio State Buckeyes.  Not only is there the quarterback battle between J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones, but former Heisman contender Braxton Miller is going to be changing positions between quarterback and wide receiver.  And if that wasn’t enough, Miller is going to be even further relied upon in his new role right away with the suspension of four Buckeyes for the opening game against Virginia Tech – another storyline for BTN to perhaps embrace.

The one question for BTN might just be what stories they’ll be able to unearth during Buckeye practices.  Will the network be able to unearth anything hard-hitting or challenging for Ohio State (like the aforementioned suspensions), or since this is the conference network we’re talking about, will this just be a series of recruiting videos?  The latter would be disappointing because there’s so many opportunities going inside a college camp.  The network could highlight a number of different storylines from positional battles to what it’s like to be a walk-on to the daily struggle of the student athlete.  There are more avenues to go down here than maybe even in Hard Knocks itself.  This has the chance to be excellent if BTN can explore some of that space and go beyond the single-minded positive coverage we might expect from a conference network.

This is a dream for BTN to be able to go inside Buckeye practices given Ohio State’s huge fanbase and the appetite for these kind of all-access programs.  (For the record, Ohio State and Meyer allowed ESPNU into training camp for a similar series back in 2012.)  And given the nationwide intrigue for the #1 team in the country, BTN may accomplish a rare feat for a conference network and produce compelling programming that may bring in viewers outside the conference footprint.

[BTN]