Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten previews the weekend's games so Big Ten haters can get even more nervous.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the rest of the college football universe is sort of obsessed right now. They have a deep, lingering fear of Iowa winding up in the BCS Championship Game. That, to them, could only mean one of two things. The Hawkeyes could get blown out in a total snoozer. That would be bad. They could also win, which would be worse. Now what conference would they have to say is overrated? Their own?
Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten answers the questions, questions the answers, and looks ahead to Saturday's games.
It's now indisputably late October. The leaves here in Wisconsin went from being Monet-like things of beauty to being a soggy ground-based nuisance in less time than it takes for a new Jim Tressel criticism to appear on the internet. It feels like the season just started but after this weekend it's two-thirds over.
There are so many questions yet to answer, however. I've already explored the various Big Ten title scenarios, so let's look at some of the other burning issues.
The Purdue Boilermakers were long overdue for a victory. They got one today, and it was huge. Purdue defeated No. 7 Ohio State 26-18 in West Lafayette in a game that wasn't as close as the score indicated.
Boilermaker quarterback Joey Elliott sharpened his claws on Ohio State's secondary, going 31-of-50 for 281 yards and two touchdowns. Purdue's defense kept Ohio State's sputtering offense in check, with Terrelle Pryor looking particularly ineffective until a fourth quarter drive which pulled the Buckeyes within eight.
Every Thursday, Pickin' On the Big Ten tries to make sense out of the upcoming weekend's games.
It was not supposed to be like this for Mark Dantonio and the Michigan State Spartans. Sure, they lost in the Capital One Bowl last season, but not by much, which is why many people tagged them as the Big Ten's third-best team going into this year. It was going to be hard to replace Brian Hoyer and Javon Ringer, but at long last things were looking up for Sparty.
Now, after a heart-shattering 1-3 start, things are still looking up, if only because "up" is the only direction left. Now it's time to pull the wreckage of this season out of the ditch to see what can be salvaged.
Every Thursday, Pickin' On the Big Ten previews the upcoming weekend's action in The Conference Everybody Loves to Hate.
Oh, it's here. It's finally, finally, finally here. No more depth-chart speculation, no more arguing about who is the best SAM in the conference, and only one more week until the game that will either restore the Big Ten's swagger or send it sobbing into the bathroom. The teams are ready, the stadiums are ready (well, except for Minnesota's), the cheerleaders and bands are ready, the vast charcoal forests of northern Michigan have been shaved to the ground, the beer cows of Wisconsin have been "milked" into millions of brown glass bottles ... it's time for some football, y'all.
So, grab a beverage, throw some cheddarwurst on the grill, and let's take a look at this weekend's action-packed slate of games, shall we?
The other day a commenter asked me what I thought the Big Ten needed to do to get back on track. Well, I've only thought about that question every day since the end of last season, so as you might suspect, I have a few ideas.
First off, let's put all the cards on the table. What is "broken" in the Big Ten? The league suffers under the perception/reality that, while its teams look very good against each other, they fold up in competition with teams from other conferences, specifically the Big 12, SEC and Pac 10.
Why? Because the Big Ten has become synonymous with a slow, plodding, and most of all boring style of football. Does this sound familiar to some of you? It should.
By now you've likely heard the reports about Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor's speed in the 40 yard dash during spring practice.
Center Mike Webster told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Pryor ran the fastest 40 of any Buckeye: 4.33 seconds. That number, if true, would make Pryor not just the fastest Buckeye, but potentially the fastest quarterback ever. At this spring's NFL scouting combine, Pryor would have tied for the second-fastest overall time, right behind wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey's 4.30. Pryor would have finished more than two-tenths of a second ahead of the fastest quarterback at the combine, West Virginia's Pat White, who ran a 4.55.
The college football season is fast approaching, with many fall camps set to open this week. Thus it's time to lay aside our interregional bickering and turn our thoughts to, you know, what might actually happen on the field.
The big question in the Big Ten this season is whether Penn State's conference championship was just a momentary burp in the conference's Buckeye-dominated food chain, or whether things might actually be shifting just a bit in the conference. Do the Buckeyes claim the title again? Will the Nittany Lions defend last year's crown and make a run at the national title? Will there be some giant, world-rocking surprise team that comes in and knocks them both out of the BCS?
Big Ten Media Days are now under way in Chicago, hot on the heels of the goat auction that was SEC Media Days last week. This is sort of like chasing a shot of Glenfiddich with a can of room temperature Diet Squirt, but we press on regardless. The Big Ten's fortunes are muddled and murky, but the conference still matters, and not just in the Midwest, either.
Thus, it behooves us to look at some of the bigger questions surrounding The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight Big Ten football in 2009. Can anybody from the conference make a run at a national title? Are there any dark-horse Heisman candidates out there? And aren't these awfully heady questions to be asking of a conference that went 1-6 in bowl games last season? Make the jump and find out.
Losing to your most hated rival is tough, very tough. Especially in college football where you have to spend the next 364 days marinating in the bitter stew of your defeat. The only thing worse than losing to your rival is losing to your rival in consecutive years. Three years in a row is worse than that and so on and so forth. Worst of all? When your bitter rival does something so debilitating that you don't even know how to respond.
Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten previews the weekend's games so Big Ten haters can get even more nervous.
Every Thursday, 
The Purdue Boilermakers were long overdue for a victory. They got one today, and it was huge. Purdue defeated No. 7 Ohio State 
Every Thursday, 
Every Thursday, 
The other day a commenter asked me what I thought the 
By now you've likely heard the reports about Ohio State quarterback 
The college football season is fast approaching, with many fall camps set to open this week. Thus it's time to lay aside our interregional bickering and turn our thoughts to, you know, what might actually happen on the field..jpg)
Losing to your most hated rival is tough, very tough. Especially in college football where you have to spend the next 364 days marinating in the bitter stew of your defeat. The only thing worse than losing to your rival is losing to your rival in consecutive years. Three years in a row is worse than that and so on and so forth. Worst of all? When your bitter rival does something so debilitating that you don't even know how to respond.
