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.
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?
It took more than a half, but eventually Ohio State's Terrelle Pryor proved that he's not all hype. The Buckeyes totally routed Minnesota Saturday 38-7 in Columbus.
Pryor and his coach, Jim Tressel, spent last week under continual assault from all corners. Part of it was just another expression of the college football world's Buckeye Fatigue Syndrome, but most of it was the natural consequence of OSU's dreadful performance last week. The Buckeyes turned the ball over five times in a loss to Purdue.
In 2003, kicker Rhys Lloyd hit a last-second field goal to lift Minnesota over Wisconsin. As soon as the ball went through the uprights, Lloyd high-tailed it to the Wisconsin sideline. He was looking to get his hands on Paul Bunyan's Axe, the trophy that goes to the winner of the Wisconsin-Minnesota game each year. Lloyd was the first one there, with his teammates closely behind.
The next year, Wisconsin beat Minnesota to reclaim the trophy. The Gophers haven't touched it since.
There aren't many superlatives that accurately describe the kind of day California running back Jahvid Best had Saturday. If he wasn't already considered one of the top running backs in the country, he must be now.
Cal needed this game against Minnesota. The Oct. 3 showdown with USC wouldn't mean as much if Cal already had a loss. The Gophers were looking to make a serious statement, playing for just the second time in sparkling new TCF Bank Stadium. Thanks to Best, the Gophers were left wondering what might have been.
MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota head coach Tim Brewster preached it all week. He knew his team had to somehow maintain its focus, despite the festivities planned to celebrate the dawn of a new era for Gopher football. The opening game of TCF Bank Stadium Saturday night did come with much celebration. For some time, the Gophers were caught up in the moment.
Thanks in part to some ill-timed penalties, Air Force took a 10-3 lead in the third quarter. The Gophers finally turned it on after that, scoring 17 straight points en route to a 20-10 win.
Okay, it was a long shot anyway. The Minnesota Golden Gophers would have needed Ohio State to lose one more game down the stretch. Then they had to hope that the Rose Bowl committee would continue to favor tradition over justice by picking a two-loss Big Ten team over a one-loss team from some other conference. The latter is likely (they took a three-loss Illinois team last year, didn't they?); the former, quite unlikely.
Still, how could you not root for them? On a day when Michigan's plus-size bowl streak came to an end, Minnesota's Rose Bowl drought is now guaranteed to continue. How long has it been since the Gophers played in Pasadena? Here's a clue: The last time the Gophers played in a Rose Bowl, it was the first time a nationally-broadcast college football game was shown in color. That would be January 1, 1962. Current Gopher coach Tim Brewster was just a little over a year old.
Then again, it's pretty obvious the Gophers are about a year away from contending for a title. Today Minnesota blitzed early and often, gambling that Northwestern's backup QB Mike Kafka wasn't quite ready for a big game. That proved to be a bad bet.
If the Minnesota Golden Gophers aren't the most improved team in college football this season, who is? Through seven weeks of play, Tim Brewster's squad is enjoying the sort of success that always seemed to elude his predecessor Glen Mason. The Gophers are now 6-1 with a signature road win over Illinois and their sole loss coming in Columbus.
Nobody was complaining about the Gopher offense last season. They just weren't up to the task of bailing out the nation's worst defense week after week. Statistically this season's Gopher offense is mid-pack by almost any measure. The difference is on the other side of the ball.
It's not that the Gophers have moved way, way up. It's that the Gophers had nowhere to go but up. Their defensive statistics this year aren't the stuff of dreams, but the Gophers are allowing, on average, about 130 fewer yards and 19 fewer points per game than they were a year ago. New defensive coordinator Ted Roof didn't work out as a head coach at Duke. Both Duke and Minnesota are happy for that.
Anybody can post good results against a squishy schedule, however. The Gophers hung in against their most challenging opponent to date (Ohio State) but failed to win. That raises the question of whether the Gophers can stand up against the other challengers in the Big Ten.
While college football fans across the country await the start of the new season with a drooling fervor there are also some fans who dread it. Why? Because they know their season is already over before it's even started. Oh sure, their boys are still going to go out there every Saturday and play hard for 60 minutes, but it's not going to make a bit of difference.
They're going to lose, and they're going to lose a lot.
No conference can escape from having teams like this, it's just a part of the game. They still serve their purpose because the good teams in the conference need a breather once in a while, and they also need six wins to qualify for a bowl game.
These teams are the conferences dirty little secret. They're the red-headed step child that's told to stay in their room when company comes over. They are the dregs of Big Ten, and they're here to play another set of 12 games whether we want them to or not.
Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten previews the upcoming weekend's games and issues random taunts to overconfident fan bases.
Every Thursday, 
It took more than a half, but eventually Ohio State's 
In 2003, kicker Rhys Lloyd hit a last-second field goal to lift Minnesota over Wisconsin. As soon as the ball went through the uprights, Lloyd high-tailed it to the Wisconsin sideline. He was looking to get his hands on Paul Bunyan's Axe, the trophy that goes to the winner of the Wisconsin-Minnesota game each year. Lloyd was the first one there, with his teammates closely behind.
There aren't many superlatives that accurately describe the kind of day California running back 
MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota head coach Tim Brewster preached it all week. He knew his team had to somehow maintain its focus, despite the festivities planned to celebrate the dawn of a new era for Gopher football. The opening game of TCF Bank Stadium Saturday night did come with much celebration. For some time, the Gophers were caught up in the moment.
Okay, it was a long shot anyway. The Minnesota Golden Gophers would have needed Ohio State to lose one more game down the stretch. Then they had to hope that the Rose Bowl committee would continue to favor tradition over justice by picking a two-loss Big Ten team over a one-loss team from some other conference. The latter is likely (they took a three-loss Illinois team last year, didn't they?); the former, quite unlikely.
If the Minnesota Golden Gophers aren't the most improved team in college football this season, who is? Through seven weeks of play, 
While college football fans across the country await the start of the new season with a drooling fervor there are also some fans who dread it. Why? Because they know their season is already over before it's even started. Oh sure, their boys are still going to go out there every Saturday and play hard for 60 minutes, but it's not going to make a bit of difference.
