Every Thursday, Pickin' On the Big Ten previews the weekend's action, settling the scores before the scores are settled.
Penn State has declared that Saturday night's game with Iowa will be a "whiteout" game. That distinction is usually reserved for games of the utmost importance, and if you don't know why this game is so important to the Nittany Lions, you must not remember what happened last year in Iowa City. A Daniel Murray field goal put the Hawkeyes on top and ended any hopes Penn State had of getting blown out by Florida playing in the BCS National Championship Game. It's time for revenge.
Penn State, however, is not the only Big Ten team with a little revenge on its mind this weekend.
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.
The 2010 NFL draft is still 51 weeks away, and yes, a whole lot will change during the 2009 college football season. But millions of us are obsessed with the NFL draft, so with the 2009 draft now behind us, let's take a very early look ahead at potential No. 1 overall pick Sam Bradford of Oklahoma, as well as the other top players in the Class of 2010.
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.
The Fighting Illini were quite the surprise in college football last season, going 9-4 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten a year after finishing 2-10. The quick turnaround in Champaign resulted in the first Rose Bowl berth for the Illini since 1983, and the team celebrated by getting their butts kicked 49-17 by USC.
Still, despite the embarrassment handed them by the Trojans, the 2007 season can't be considered anything less than a raging success at Illinois.
The question is, will the Illini be able to carry that success into the 2008 season? History suggests they won't as they've generally followed every winning season with a losing season in Champaign, but that was before the recruiting machine that is Ron Zook came to town.
So will the Illini continue their climb to becoming a Big Ten powerhouse, or will they return to the back of the pack?
Illinois coach Ron Zook won the Liberty Mutual coach of the year award Saturday for leading one of the best turnarounds in college football this season.
"It's very satisfying because we accomplished some of our goals and got the program going in the right direction," Zook said in a phone interview earlier this week as he prepared for the Rose Bowl against Southern California on Jan. 1.
It wasn't that long ago that Zook was labeled as a great recruiter and a bad coach. Now he's winning the coach of the year award.
It really has been a wonderful season for Illinois football fans in 2007. While it was expected that the team would improve this season, and maybe win enough games for bowl eligibility, nobody thought the Illini would finish the season in the Rose Bowl against USC.
Of course, nobody really expects Illinois to beat USC in the Rose Bowl, which if recent history has taught us anything, means the Illini will win in a romp.
There's quite a lovefest going on in the world of college football surrounding Ron Zook and the Fighting Illini. The Illini are ranked for the first time in six years, and are tied atop the Big Ten standings with Ohio State. There's legitimate talk of a conference title and trip to the Rose Bowl going on in Champaign. Even running back Rashard Mendenhall is having his name mentioned when it comes to talk of the Heisman.
It seems that Illinois is on the verge of becoming an actual football program. The only thing that could make it official would be if the Gameday crew came to town. Wait a second, what's that you said? Oh, no way!
While Zook, his staff and his players try to stay focused on this week's opponent, some university officials have no choice but to look ahead to the following game, Oct. 20 at home against Michigan.
ESPN already has contacted Illinois about the possibility of bringing its popular GameDay show to Champaign. And while nothing is certain, a visit from hosts Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard would bring a rock-show atmosphere to Memorial Stadium.
First Erin Andrews comes to town for the Wisconsin game, and now Lee Corso could be coming!? Oh what a joyous time to be alive and living in Champaign, Illinois!
This would be huge for Illinois as a program. Ron Zook and his staff are already fantastic recruiters, but now the school is going to start getting national exposure, which will only make Zook's job easier. If he can convince players like Arrelious Benn to pass up big time programs to come to a school that only won two games the previous season, just imagine what he can do with a winning program.
One of the benefits of spurning teams with actual success at their football programs, like heavily hyped DC-area wide Arrelious Benn did when he stiffarmed Notre Dame and everyone else to attend Illinois, is that you tend to get shoved into the starting lineup the moment you step on campus. This is the case for Benn, who will give the lacking Illini receiving corps some downfield punch. He lit up the Illinois spring game, catching deep pass after deep pass.
The only question is: how relevant will Benn be? If Juice Williams (@ right) -- guys with goofy nicknames love Zook -- doesn't improve vastly, Benn's going to be a spectator.
2. Donovan Warren, CB, Michigan
Warren did pick an actual team with actual success when he shocked Southern Cal fans by committing to Michigan in January (Ronald Johnson would return the favor days later when he shocked Michigan fans by committing to Southern Cal), but figures to see heavy playing time from day one anyway in Michigan's tattered, Leon-Hall-free secondary. Starters Morgan Trent and Johnny Sears have been shaky in spring practices; meanwhile Warren is the highest rated cornerback recruit to hit campus since Colts first-rounder Marlin Jackson, who was starting by the end of his freshman year. Expect a similar progression from Warren, who was a three year starter at legendary Long Beach Poly. The list of three-year starters at Poly is brief and full of NFL-caliber names like Mark Carrier and Willie McGinest; Michigan's banking on Warren joining them.
Someone alert Les Miles so he can drop an f-bomb: LSU recruit Terrance Toliver, a Texan who is one of the top wide receivers in the country, was apparently the subject of frequent negative recruiting from the Florida Gators:
"Every time (Florida recruiters) came, they just said LSU doesn't qualify their players," Toliver told FOX 26's Mark Berman Wednesday. "About (how) their academics are not all that. It kind of had me confused."
Eventually a bewildered Toliver asked his football coach Rick Sargent and Hempstead instructional coordinator Tina Johnson to go to Baton Rouge to find out the truth about LSU. The two went last weekend. "They went and checked (LSU'S) academics out and their facilities," Toliver said. "They just came back and told me whatever Florida was saying about the academics wasn't true."
I'm shocked, shocked that there's negative recruiting going on in the SEC, but what is interesting is that recruits are becoming more open about it. The Toliver accusations were preceded by a Washington Post article on Illinois recruit Arrelious Benn, who received a series of insulting text messages from then Notre Dame QB coach Peter Vaas:
"FYI, ILL is telling Robert Hughes that they will build their offense around him? Didn't they tell you that? Coach Vaas," Vaas wrote Benn on Dec. 17.
Earlier that month, Vaas left this voice message on Benn's phone: "You don't want to do anything except bury your head in the sand. . . . I guess you're not tough enough to compete at the big level."
...against all the service academies instead of, you know, Michigan and Ohio State.
Moral of the story: be prepared to have kids rat you out if you're a poopyhead.
Every Thursday, Pickin' On the Big Ten previews the weekend's action, settling the scores before the scores are settled.
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)
If the Minnesota Golden Gophers aren't the most improved team in college football this season, who is? Through seven weeks of play, 
And the postseason rewards continue to roll in for the Illini. After 
There's quite a lovefest going on in the world of college football surrounding 
One of the benefits of spurning teams with actual success at their football programs, like heavily hyped DC-area wide Arrelious Benn did when he stiffarmed Notre Dame and everyone else to attend Illinois, is that you tend to get shoved into the starting lineup the moment you step on campus. This is the case for Benn, who will give the lacking Illini receiving corps some downfield punch. He lit up the Illinois spring game, catching deep pass after deep pass.
Someone alert Les Miles so he can 
