Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten gives you the bottom line on the upcoming weekend's games.
Every team now has six games on the books. Well, Illinois doesn't, which is good news/bad news. Illinois fans have only had to watch five games so far; that's good news. They have seven games left to watch, which is not such good news.
This would be a perfect time for mid-term report cards, but letter grades are so one-dimensional, don't you think? There are more meaningful comparisons to be made. Make the jump and see every Big Ten team compared to ... well, just go and look.
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 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?
"Acted" might be a bit of stretch, actually. "Reacted" is closer to the truth, as the Minnesota State Legislature recently enacted a law mandating that if some fans would be able to buy alcohol at University sporting events, all fans of legal age had to be allowed to.
That seems like a silly law until you consider that the U of M planned to sell alcohol to people in TCF Bank Stadium's luxury boxes while making it unavailable in the cheap seats. I'm sure the Board had its reasons, but the Legislature stuck up for the little guy for once.
Of course, all this move does is correct a quirk that made the Metrodome (pictured) doubly unique among Big Ten football stadiums.
College coaches are always looking for an edge. Since the NCAA put limits on the number of phone calls they can make, coaches started texting athletes to get around the phone call limits.
When the NCAA wised up to that behavior, the coaches were again left to find legal ways to communicate with recruits as much as possible. Enter Twitter, which is growing in popularity among college coaches. One of the latest to discover the benefits of Twitter is Minnesota coach Tim Brewster.
It hasn't taken very long, but the University of Minnesota's new on-campus football stadium is taking shape.
TCF Bank Stadium is set to open September 12, as the Gophers host Air Force, an unusually strong non-conference opponent by their standards. The facility is being built near their legendary hockey and basketball facilities, and it will fit in quite nicely.
When Tim Brewster was named Minnesota football coach in 2007, a big goal of athletic director Joel Maturi was to find someone who could improve recruiting. The Gophers were constantly getting beaten to the better players, often by Big Ten rivals. This was even true when Minnesota high school players were the ones being recruited.
From his first day on the job, Brewster talked about building a proverbial fence around the state's borders. In today's highly-competitive recruiting world, you don't get everyone you want from your home area. There will be some kids who want to go experience life somewhere else, no matter how good the home state program may end up being.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking, smart guy. You're thinking this post should be one letter long, and that letter should be 'F.' It's true that the Big Ten did little to advance its reputation during the season, and even less during the postseason. In spite of it all, there are still a few diamonds among the, um, whatever else it is the diamonds are scattered among.
They're scattered among things like 35-3, a 1-6 bowl game record, the fall of the Michigan dynasty, a tragically unwarranted and completely unjustified preseason overrating, several regressions to the mean, and the worst sendoff since the last episode of "Seinfeld."
So we'll go through the league team by team, painful as that is, to build up the successes and try to understand the failures of Big Ten football in 2008. Yes, I used "success" and "Big Ten football" in the same sentence without the connecting phrase "lack of." Deal with it, Buck. Every team gets an overall grade and a quick look at its prognosis for the 2009 season. For you Big Ten fans, I promise you it's not all bad news; for you Big Ten haters, I promise you it's not all good.
The maligned league fell to 0-3 in bowl games Wednesday, as the Minnesota Gophers overcame a good start to get blown out by Kansas in the Insight Bowl. Minnesota led 14-7 after their offense got rolling out of the gates, but lost 42-21 thanks in large part to KU junior quarterback Todd Reesing.
He got help from receivers Dezmond Briscoe (14 catches, 201 yards, three scores) and Kerry Meier (10 catches, 113 yards, one score) in making the Gophers look stupid, but Reesing was his usual steady, accurate self. He missed on only eight of 35 passes, throwing for over 300 yards and four touchdowns.
The Gophers just didn't have an answer for Reesing, Briscoe, and Meier. It started on the game's first play, when Reesing hooked up with Briscoe for a 60-yard catch and run.
Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten gives you the bottom line on the upcoming weekend's games.
Every Thursday, 
Every Thursday, 
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 University of Minnesota's Board of Regents has decided to go dry. 
College coaches are always looking for an edge. Since the NCAA put limits on the number of phone calls they can make, coaches started texting athletes to get around the phone call limits.
It hasn't taken very long, but the University of Minnesota's new on-campus football stadium is taking shape. 
When 
Yeah, I know what you're thinking, smart guy. You're thinking this post should be one letter long, and that letter should be 'F.' It's true that the Big Ten did little to advance its reputation during the season, and even less during the postseason. In spite of it all, there are still a few diamonds among the, um, whatever else it is the diamonds are scattered among. 
FanHouse gathers around the TV to bring you insights from 
