In the first installment of the end-of-season report card on the Big Ten, we looked at the schools in the first half of the alphabet. Know what letter is in the first half of the alphabet? That's right. F. But then, all the other grade letters are in the first half of the alphabet too.
Even though it wasn't a great year overall for the conference, there were plenty of bright points and hopeful signs and "wait until next year" moments which should have Big Ten fans excited for next season. Either that, or we'll all look like Charlie Brown did five seconds after Lucy teed up the football. But I digress. Let's take a look at the teams in the second drawer of the Big Ten file cabinet, shall we?
Every Thursday, Pickin' On the Big Ten tries to describe football action in the conference everyone else calls "overrated."
RIGHT: The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, which won't be missed by very many people in the Big Ten.
And so it has come to this, the ultimate weekend of the penultimate season when Big Ten football ends before Thanksgiving. Starting in 2010, the Turkey Day tables will be a little less crowded as everyone's season extends to the last weekend of November. But that's two years from now. This weekend we say goodbye to the conference's second-longest serving coach, and bid a fond farewell to its least-loved stadium. Along the way we sort out who's going where when, and how all the teams will be positioned for next year.
Before we get on to the games, a note about the Big Ten's bowl selection process. The conference does not require bowls to select teams in order of their finish, but requires that a selected team have no more than one fewer win than the remaining team with the best record. Thus, a seven-win team can be picked before an eight-win team, but not a nine-win team. Oh, and if the league gets two teams into the BCS, some of the non-BCS bowls get to ignore all the rules.
RIGHT: A typical offensive gameplan dreamed up by Woody Hayes.
So now there's one. One team all alone in first place, controlling its destiny. But hey, they have the week off.
The question is, "Has anything really changed in the Big Ten?" and the answer is a qualified "Maybe." The road to the Big Ten championship has run from Ann Arbor to Columbus ever since Murray Warmath hung up his whistle in Minnesota. In eight of the last ten seasons, either Michigan or Ohio State has won at least a share of the conference title; the last time anybody else won an outright title was 2001.
A shakeup in the conference might lead to a change in philosophy. If you can't win the Big Ten without a vertical passing game and the ability to defend same, we've seen the last of "three yards and a cloud of dust." Good riddance. The old-school power running game is ill-suited for the kind of football played in the other BCS conferences. Ball control works great in a game where neither team scores 30 points, but if you're down by ten with five minutes to play, you don't want to (and probably can't) start throwing the ball.
So, while I know Buckeye fans are in pain right now, it's a necessary pain. College football has reinvented itself in the past decade and, as usual, the Big Ten was the last to get the memo.
RIGHT: One of these is the alpha cub. But which one is it?
They're 6 and 1. They've lost to the only good team they've played. Their signature win thus far is over a team that, in retrospect, may not really be that good. They're solid on one side of the ball but they have issues on the other. Quick, which 6-1 Big Ten team am I talking about?
Answer? All of them. Ohio State, Minnesota, Michigan State, Northwestern ... on some level, they're all the same team. You know about OSU. Lost to USC, has a gutty win over Wisconsin which seemed huge at the time, solid defense but an offense that suddenly isn't doing so hot. Minnesota lost to the Buckeyes but beat Illinois. So have two other teams. The Gopher defense is much improved but still isn't great. No complaints about the offense.
Northwestern has seen tremendous improvement in its defense. coupled with an inexplicable drop in its offensive production. The Cats' biggest win is over ... who? 3-2 Duke? Or 4-3 Iowa? 3-2 Southern Illinois? Those are the only teams NU has defeated who currently have winning records, and SIU doesn't really count, being a 1-AA Football Championship Subdivision squad. When the Fightin' Fitzgeralds went up against Michigan State, a team with a pulse, they got flounced.
Oh, and what about Sparty? Does Mark Dantonio's team break the pattern?
Joe Tiller is, of course, retiring at the end of the year. Either that or he's transplanting his brain into Danny Hope's unsuspecting body, as Hope was clearly cloned from one of Tiller's jowls and set upon this earth to perpetuate Purdue's manifset destiny to go 8-5 every year. But either way ol' walrus eyes won't be prowling the sidelines at Ross-Ade any more, and that's a little sad.
Purdue has switched quarterbacks in the fourth quarter of its matchup with Penn State (the Boilermakers are down 20-6), pulling record-setter Curtis Painter in favor of Joey Elliott. Head coach Joe Tiller threatened to make this move two weeks ago against Central Michigan before Painter responded nicely in a victory.
Painter joins a long line of Purdue benchees from Brandon Kirsch to Kyle Orton to whoever the poor sap was in Tiller's first year in West Lafayette. This presumably ends his Heisman campaign, too.
Prop Bets for the College Football Junkie is a weekly post that cares not for your silly point spreads. If you have the money and the gumption, we'll lay down a weekly gauntlet of propositions that'll take you from the penthouse to the outhouse faster than you can guess the number of times Lee Corso will say "not so fast my friend." As always, this is for entertainment purposes only.
-When Penn State travels to Purdue, the combined age of the coaches will involve a lot of zeros and one of those to the power of 10 thingies. This poses a serious problem for the sideline reporter, because older people can't hear so good. Given that, we put the number of times the two coaches will say, "huh?" at +/-10 during their halftime interviews. Also, we'll give a straight up bet on if either says, "you know, women didn't dress like that in my day."
-Auburn visits Vanderbilt this weekend, and the College GameDay crew will be there. Vanderbilt is considered the "smart" school in the SEC. So, we'll put the over/under on the number of signs with a series of ones and zeros followed by "LOLZ!!!" at 10.
-Speaking of smart schools, Duke faces Georgia Tech this weekend. Pocket protectors will be out in force! Georgia Tech is averaging about 46,000 fans at home games, so naturally we put the number of pocket protectors at +/-45,999. Hey, some engineers still do it with a slide ruler.
As FanHouse previews each BCS conference, the college football songbook will cast an unflattering light on each conference in the only way we know how. First up, the Big 10.
Ah, mediocre football. The annual rite of late summer where fans of middling programs congregate and tell each other things like "if our offensive line is solid then I don't see why we can't go to a New Year's Day Bowl." Soon, of course, love and hopes are, well, amended.
By "amended," of course, we mean "discarded in favor of bloodthirsty savages on sports talk radio complaining about the coordinators and accusing the team of not wanting to win." It's a strange reaction to a 7- or 8-win season, of course, one that ends up in a warm climate in late December (grisly exception: Motor City Bowl, war-torn Bosnia Detroit). The fans never seem to get it: it could be so, so much worse. Look at Minnesota last season.
While Michigan, Ohio State, and (usually) Penn State represent the perennial powerhouse typification for the Big Ten, the conference usually hosts quite a few more mediocre programs. 2008 is no exception. Let's look at some of the programs that, let's be honest, don't stand a prayer of taking the Big Ten crown this season.
The Fanhouse is at Big Ten Media Days providing a slanted and enchanted view of the proceedings. Here's the main post.
Joe Tiller is, as promised, in a polo shirt. Doesn't know much about the team, it's ironic that the last year is the most unusual spring he's been around. [Must be the Alanis Morrissette sort of irony in which irony ironically means "not ironic" -ed] 15 players they were counting on being starters missed all or most of spring practice(!). A quarterback who will leave Purdue a 3.5 year starter is pretty good. Big rebound from the kicker.
What's his legacy? He brought Purdue from "the depths," they might be 3rd or 4th in the Big Ten during his tenure after 12 non-bowl seasons, 11 losing; now they're competitive and "will be once again this year... probably." Reassuring!
Succession plan adjusts his last year "not at all." Hope's been around since the Wyoming days and they're very familiar. Head coach is "more managerial" than an actual coaching role -- think Rodriguez would disagree -- Hope's a family friend and all that.
Now that the Big Ten Network and Comcast cable have finally come to an agreement that will actually allow the majority of Big Ten fans to see the network, it's time to figure out what exactly they're going to be showing to fill all that dead air between Iowa/Indiana lacrosse matches and Minnesota/Penn State tennis.
Last season the BTN did a series called "The Journey" in which they followed Tubby Smith and the Minnesota basketball team around during the season and chronicled the changes taking place under Smith. The series was a success, and the network will be doing it again this season, with the focus of the show being on Ron Zook and Illinois' football program.
BTN officials plan to announce Thursday the Illini will be featured in Season 2. Minnesota and its first-year basketball coach, Tubby Smith, were the series' guinea pigs.
"I talked with Tubby and he was impressed with their professionalism," Zook said. "He had the same fears in the beginning as I do."
Chief among those fears?
"This will be like having someone in your bedroom," Zook said.
In the first installment of the end-of-season report card on the Big Ten, we looked at the schools in the first half of the alphabet. Know what letter is in the first half of the alphabet? That's right. F. But then, all the other grade letters are in the first half of the alphabet too.
Every Thursday, 
Every Thursday, 
Every Thursday, 
Joe Tiller is, of course, retiring at the end of the year. Either that or he's transplanting his brain into Danny Hope's unsuspecting body, as Hope was clearly 
Joe Tiller is, as promised, in a polo shirt. Doesn't know much about the team, it's ironic that the last year is the most unusual spring he's been around. [Must be the Alanis Morrissette sort of irony in which irony ironically means "not ironic" -ed] 15 players they were counting on being starters missed all or most of spring practice(!). A quarterback who will leave Purdue a 3.5 year starter is pretty good. Big rebound from the kicker. 
Now that the Big Ten Network and Comcast cable have finally 
