FanHouse John Cooper

Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten previews the upcoming weekend's games and issues random taunts to overconfident fan bases.

Be careful what you ask for, college football fan. The very same Iowa team that so many of you desperately wanted to see lose lest the Big Ten get another team into the title game is now the only thing standing between Ohio State and the BCS. If the Hawkeyes can't pull off a ginormous upset in Columbus behind a quarterback making his first college start, you're going to get the Scarlet and Grey facing some honked-off Pac 10 team.

1-5, with one game to go. One chance left to raise the conference's winning percentage to a mighty .285. And that chance rests on the less-than-broad shoulders of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Expecting the Buckeyes to show up in a big nonconference game is like expecting a bridge made out of meringue to hold up underneath a couple SUVs. It's just not something a sensible person would ever do.

It's not like anybody expected more of the Big Ten in this year's bowl games. Most folk expected the conference would be lucky to win one game and not only were they right, they were right about which game that would be. Iowa's 31-10 slashing of South Carolina is about the only thing the conference can be proud of.

Yes, Penn State had a good second half against USC. Wahoo! They almost came back against college football's laziest elite program! There's something to hang your hat on. Look at the rest of the games, if you dare. You can be a little proud of Northwestern for giving Missouri more fight than anyone expected, but there's a big fat load of Florida State 42, Wisconsin 13 festering out back, waiting for you. Crimony.

If there's a tougher job in the Big 12 than being the head football coach at Iowa State, I'd sure like to know what it is. Gene Chizik just finished his second season in Ames, and it wasn't a good one. The Cyclones won but a single game over a Division 1-A Football Bowl Subdivision opponent, and didn't win at all after September 6.

That's the sort of outcome that could lead a coach, even a relatively new one, to make some drastic changes, and that's what Chizik did yesterday. Chizik fired two coaches and demoted both his coordinators. Gone are quarterbacks coach Tony Petersen and secondary coach Shawn Raney; offensive coordinator Robert McFarland will now coach the offensive line and serve as associate head coach, while defensive coordinator Wayne Bolt will coach ISU's linebackers.

it's not like the Cyclones got blown out in every game. They took Kansas and Colorado down to the wire but couldn't finish them off. Of course, Kansas finished 7-5 and the Buffs wound up 5-7. The Clones also lost to Baylor and Nebraska by four touchdowns. They lost to Oklahoma State and Missouri by, uh, more than that. Clearly. something drastic needed to be done.

FanHouse is counting down the 10 best, 10 worst, and 10 weirdest moments in Big Ten football history.

Howard Stern could take over for Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News. Your cat could win the Nobel Prize in physics. Guns 'N Roses could actually release Chinese Democracy. Those are three things which seem as unlikely now as Northwestern's 1995 Rose Bowl run seemed at the time.

Northwestern had occupied a certain niche in the Big Ten's ecosystem, that of the perennial homecoming date. The Wildcats could be counted on to show up sometime between late September and late October to provide an all but guaranteed W for the returning alumni. And as long as they still played football in Evanston, every Big Ten team knew that no matter what other outrageous fortune befell them, they wouldn't go winless in the conference unless it was one of those years Northwestern just wasn't on the schedule.

A lot of coaches sacrificed large parts of their careers coaching in Evanston, trying to face up to the challenge of turning around a football team that hadn't won a conference title since 1949. But not even legitimately good coaches like Lou Saban, Ara Parseghian, and Dennis Green could accomplish anything with the Wildcats. So how did Gary Barnett do it?

The old dogs may be retired, but Ohio State coach Jim Tressel is keeping them nearby this year. He's given them an office to share within the Ohio State Athletic Department. What will they do? I have no idea but it's a nice gesture and a way to connect with the recent Buckeye past.

This article's author suggests it's also a way to cover for Tressel's perceived shortcomings.

t's obvious, isn't it? Cover your weaknesses with strengths.

Against Florida in the national championship game, Ohio State played like someone spiked its Gatorade with NyQuil. The Buckeyes displayed all the emotion of a Maytag repairman.

So Tress solves the problem by hiring Bruce, the fiery former Ohio State coach who never met a topic he couldn't turn into a motivational testimony...

...Across the room, John Cooper will be watching game film. If Tress is smart, it will be high school game film.

Coop couldn't beat Michigan, but he could beat the pants off most coaches when it came to evaluating and recruiting high school talent. And after the non-top 10 recruiting class that Ohio State coaches just brought in, the Buckeyes could use a guy like Coop to win over future blue chippers.

So you have to hand it to Tress. Problem: motivation. Solution: Bruce. Problem: recruiting. Solution: Coop.

That's a little much, but obviously he's nailed the strengths of both coaches. Tressel's managed quite well on his own winning one championship and playing in another.

That said, Bruce's influence is particularly interesting given his fiery, rambunctious demeanor. As noted in the story, he shares a connection to Florida coach Urban Meyer. He also mentored a young Pete Carroll (1978-1979 at Iowa State). It's not a stretch to say Bruce had a lasting influence on Carroll given Carroll's well documented charisma and energy, meaning Bruce has had a meaningful impact on three of the last four college football championship teams.

Not bad for an old dog.

H/T: The Wiz