SO LONG, SUCKERS

Soon as I find a buyer, I’m cashing in:

Hat tip: Telescreen, who has had quite a week. Beats my FARKalanche.

PICKIN’ ON THE BIG TEN, v05.9

Well, we finally did it. We finally broke the curse of going 4-1 this past week. We had hoped to do it by going 5-0, but instead we got 3-2. It’ll do. For the season, we’re still at a robust 46-12 (79.3%), which is not too bad, considering we’ve been very busy at the job we actually get paid for.

(’We.’ How pretentious are we am I? I’m a lone freak writing in his basement. Crikey, there isn’t even drywall down here. Unless I want to call a couple spiders “my editors,” I’m in this alone.)

Anyway, everybody who had Penn State, Northwestern, and Wisconsin finishing in your top three in the Big Ten, raise your hand.

Liars.

To celebrate my subpar performance in picking the games last week, this week I’m offering a special Regrettable Quotes Edition, in which I will offer the dumbest things I’ve said about each team through the first eight weeks of the season, including the season preview. Especially the season preview. I should just create a category called ‘Dumbth’ and assign my season preview to it every year.

WISCONSIN @ ILLINOIS

A/k/a “The Cheese Shop/Strip Mall Interface.”

“How can you replace the heart of your defense and your offense in the Big Ten and win even six games, let alone nine? I’m pretty sure you can’t.” (Season Preview) I said that about Wisconsin, which probably has a better chance of winning nine games than anybody else in the Big Ten right now.

“I think the Zooker is getting the shaft for his equally rare overtime victory over Rutgers. In all seriousness, that was a great way to start the season for the Illini. Here is a team that has had basically nothing to celebrate or rally around for the past three seasons, and now they’ve got a gutty victory over a team that many people think is actually kind of good. That’s the kind of momentum which can lead to overachievement.” (Week 2) In case you’re wondering, the sky on my planet is a nice tartan plaid.

THE ONLY UW STUDENTS WHO WON’T BE SMASHING WINDOWS SATURDAY NIGHT 45
THE ONLY STUDENTS AT UIUC WHO HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO ON A SATURDAY 21

INDIANA @ MICHIGAN STATE

A/k/a “Only 3 weeks until basketball season”

“IU chartered a flight for Nicholls State, so this game will be played. Pretty sad when you have to fly in hurricane victims to pick up your last victory of the season.” (Week 2) The Hoosiers have won two games since then.

“CFN threw a blanket party for Sparty on Tuesday, stopping just short of saying John L. Smith’s dog is ugly and Duffy Daugherty’s mother made lumpy gravy. Every single one of their writers said something semi-derogatory about either the Spartans themselves or Drew Stanton. So color them unconvinced, I guess; maybe when somebody else in the media says ‘Michigan State is good’ they’ll come around.” (Week 5) Uh, I guess they were right.

HEY HOEPP, CAN YOU COACH BASKETBALL TOO? 24
HEY IZZO, CAN YOU COACH FOOTBALL TOO? 38

OHIO STATE @ MINNESOTA

A/k/a “The Glen Mason Divided Loyalties Bowl”

“Problem is, I’m not buying what the punditocracy is selling. Ted Ginn Jr. is phenomenal, and AJ Hawk is the best linebacker east of the Mississippi, but QB Troy Smith is, in my opinion, badly overrated. He’s too easily rattled, and without much in the way of experience at the RB position, he’s going to be expected to do way too much. He’ll have all the time in the world to throw the ball, but mark my word, Buckeye fans will be cursing his name by mid-season.” (Season Preview) Ginn, of course, has turned into essentially a Johnny-Come-Notly, while Smith has a 145.20 QB rating.

“Minnesota, meanwhile, may–may–not be able to run the ball quite so well this season without their two-pronged rushing attack, and Glen Mason’s teams have never been known for their ability to stop any offense from doing anything. I think the Golden Golfers prevail, but this will be a pretty close game.” (Week 1) The Gophers won that game (against Tulsa) 41-10, and the only single prong around here is the one that’s stuck through my head, apparently.

HAWK A LOOGIE 27
HEY, BIERMAN 13

MICHIGAN @ NORTHWESTERN

A/k/a “This wouldn’t have been a good game 25 years ago”

“Normally I pay no attention to the point spread–that’s gambling, and I don’t go for it. But a number of talking heads have commented on the fact that, despite the fact that Penn State is 6-0 and Michigan is 3-3, the line on this game is Michigan by 3 1/2. This must mean that Vegas knows something the rest of us don’t know, so they’re going with Michigan. What Vegas knows is that the streams are filled with shiny blue fish this week.” (Week 7) Actually, I was sort of right–Michigan won, but didn’t cover.

“Northwestern is devious and crafty, but in the end, that Michigan State offense is just too much for the Cats’ still-squishy defense.” (Week Eight) The Cats defense, while admittedly squishy, held Sparty to 14–ten points fewer than Ohio State did.

NEITHER AS GOOD NOR AS BAD AS YOU OR WE THINK WE ARE 16
ALL THIS, PLUS YOU’LL PROBABLY WORK FOR US SOME DAY 31

PURDUE @ PENN STATE

A/k/a “ESPN Instant Classic”

“They won’t forget this year, especially not on defense. Every starter is back. And there’s enough returning talent on the other side of the ball to keep Purdue fans’ hopes up. Factor in what may be the greatest scheduling assist in Big Ten history (no Michigan or Ohio State, and Iowa’s coming to West Lafayette), and there seems to be no reason why this team can’t contend for the conference title.” (Season Preview) Apparently, the fact that every starter returned on defense is the primary reason why Purdue may not even contend for a single conference victory this season.

“I may have underestimated Penn State, but I still can’t see the Nits with more than five wins total.” (Week 4) The Nits have won seven games and, of course, play Purdue this week.

NORTHWESTERN INDIANA TRAVELING BYE-WEEK SQUAD 0
EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ROSES TOSTITOS 56

Next week:

• Minnesota @ Indiana: This is the one the Hoosiers will get
• Iowa @ Northwestern: If Sparty couldn’t outscore NU . . .
• Illinois @ Ohio State: Disgusting
• Wisconsin @ Penn State: Big Ten Championship Game, a couple weeks early
• Michigan State @ Purdue: Does the Ross-Ade scoreboard go into triple digits?

BLOGPOLL BALLOT, WEEK 9

Little snarky commentary this week, as I haven’t the time for it. Only game I watched was Michigan @ Iowa.

1. Virginia Tech
2. Texas
3. Southern Cal
4. Georgia
5. Alabama
6. Penn State
7. Notre Dame
8. Louisiana State
9. Florida State
10. UCLA
11. Miami (Florida)
12. Boston College
13. Northwestern
14. TCU
15. Wisconsin
16. Ohio State
17. Oregon
18. West Virginia
19. Texas Tech
20. Florida
21. Auburn
22. Missouri
23. Fresno State
24. Minnesota
25. Rutgers

ON BEAGLE’S WINGS

For the last three and a half years, I’ve driven a four-door Ford Focus. It is, by far, the coolest car I’ve ever owned, which should tell you something about my dull and miserable life. But you can’t tell me my car isn’t cool. It has to be. How do I know?

My car has a wing on the back. Ergo, it’s cool.

It’s not like I ordered it with a wing. First of all, I bought it used, so I didn’t technically order it at all. Secondly, the presence of the wing did nothing to sway me towards my purchase. I don’t even think it looks very good. In fact, I’d gladly remove it, except doing so would leave me with four gaping holes in my trunk lid. So there it sits, day after day, doing . . . well, what is it doing back there, anyway? After semi-exhaustive research, I’ve learned that the only thing it’s doing is making my car look “cool” while worsening my gas mileage just a tiny little bit.

There are circumstances in which having an airfoil on the back of your car serves some detectable purpose, maybe. Certain high-performance rear-wheel-drive cars need the downforce created by a wing to improve their handling and acceleration at very high speeds. My Focus, being front-drive, doesn’t have that problem. I’m no engineer (I failed Calc I twice, which put the kibosh on any engineering dream I might’ve had), but I think you could make the case that a rear wing would make the handling and acceleration of a front-wheel-drive car worse. Traction is a function of weight over the driving wheels, after all; if you push down on the back of the car, aren’t you simultaneously pushing up on the front? There’s something Newtonian in that, right? Well, if you transfer weight from the front to the back of a front-drive car, that should reduce the traction available to the drive wheels. (Enough readers of this page have enough of a technical background that somebody is bound to tell me if I’m all washed up. Remember, the science classes I took in college were Man’s Geologic Environment and Cultural Physics.)

The only other benefit bestowed by slapping an airplane part on the back of your car is that, again at very high speeds, the wing/spoiler will create enough turbulence to improve stability and reduce body lift. If it even works at all. Which, on most winged cars, it probably doesn’t. About the only thing most wings do is increase weight and drag, both of which hurt fuel economy.

So why, then, have these wings and spoilers proliferated like mosquitoes, bunnies, and webpages with the prefix ‘my’? At first, I’m tempted to call it the Gran Turismo factor. Young people (especially males), smitten by the popular road-racing video game series, want cars that look as much like their cybersiblings as possible. That explains the wing on my Focus, which is a low-cost car aimed primarily at young buyers.

It does not, however, explain wings on Chevy Impalas. Or Mitubishi Galants. And it especially doesn’t explain wings on Toyota Camrys.

I have a half-hour rural commute. On my way home this afternoon, since I was stuck behind an unending parade of farm implements, I decided to watch the cars going the other direction. I wanted to know how many of them had wings or spoilers. (Technical jargon: if air can flow under it, it’s a wing; if not, it’s a spoiler.) About one-third of the cars I saw had something affixed to the trunklid. I saw only one spoiler, on an Olds Achieva, a car many people would say came from the factory already spoiled. But there were lots and lots of wings.

Pontiac is the King of Wings. I saw close to 40 Pontiacs, and only three didn’t have some sort of airflow-management device (a Bonneville, a Sunfire, and a 6000 which look like it may have dated back to the time before man discovered the secrets of flight). But scarcely a manufacturer out there has been able to resist the temptation to smite the butts of their cars with a wing of some sort. Chrysler, for example started out with a demure wing on the first-generation Neon; the second-generation cars look like they have tabletop ironing boards glued to their trunks. I saw a wing on a Dodge Intrepid. On several Ford Tauri. Even, like I said, on multiple Camrys, and if there’s a Camry out there that’s ever been driven over 50 MPH, or in the right lane of a freeway, I’d like to hear about it.

I mean, seriously. What’s the point of slapping Formula 1-inspired wings on cars that are about as sporting as “The MacNeil-Lehrer Report”? I realize that all cars these days basically look alike, and if I owned, say, a silver Taurus (which I do), I’d want something to make it stand out from the 73 other silver Tauri in the mall parking lot. But how does a factory-installed wing make that happen? Do we all honestly think that putting a slightly aerodynamic piece of lowest-bidder plastic on our cars turns us from solid-citizen commuters into Speed Racer? “I know this looks like a rental car, but trust me, I could take the pole at Daytona if only those nitpickers from Accounting would stop bugging me for the fourth-quarter sales estimates.”

Cars today are better than they ever have been, that much is certain. In fact, cars today are so nearly perfect that they’re starting to get a little dull. If screw-on gizmos make us all feel like we’re being wild individualists who don’t play by society’s rules, it’s time to remember Hasty’s Law of Automotive Selection: What you drive says nothing about who you are–but it says a lot about who you wish you were.

GOOGLIN’ THE BIG TEN

The following search-engine phrases have appeared in my referral logs since the weekend’s games:

• fire joe tiller (Ed.: Actually, this has shown up 11 times in the past month)
• wisconsin bowl possibilities
• iowa michigan the fix was in (Ed: Well, Witvoet was the ref)
• penn state illinois score (Ed.: NASA isn’t done calculating it yet)
• basanez nfl
• moroney for heisman shirt
• chad greenway engaged
• michigan state zubaz
• illini football did this team ever have a winning season
• zooker lift ya leg up
• who are those goons in uniform at beaver stadium

PICKIN’ ON THE BIG TEN, v05.8

Crushed. Crushed we all are to learn that, barring a total meltdown amongst the leaders of other conferences, no Big Ten team will be losing to U$C in the Rose Bowl. All because of Penn State’s silly, last-second loss in The Big House. No, instead, our conference champion will be forced to play a bowl game they might actually, y’know, win. Though I must admit that I’m not very excited about that pending Penn State-West Virginia Fiesta Bowl. This goofy contretemps is just one of many reasons why I hate the (A)BCS(PN), and you should, too.

Anyway, it appears to be my destiny to go 4-1 with my picks every week. POTBT is now 43-10 (81.1%) for the season. I have my usual bad feeling about this week’s picks, though, but it may just be something I ate.

PENN STATE @ ILLINOIS

Getting a paper cut on your tongue. Buying a Powerball ticket and finding out the computer randomly assigned you last week’s winning numbers. Running out of Claritin right before the start of your town’s Ragweed Festival. Mistaking the Nair for your shampoo. Finding out your girlfriend is leaving you for a one-armed, illiterate rodeo clown. There’s five things that probably hurt worse than what happened to Penn State last week.

Fortunately, there’s a sure cure for whatever ails you in the Big Ten, and if it were not so, why does “Illinois” start with “Ill”?

STILL FEEL GONE 24
ANODYNE 3

OHIO STATE @ INDIANA

A trip to Bloomington, on the other hand, is no longer the hanging curveball every Big Ten team hopes for. IU has gotten a lot better in a big hurry under Terry Hoeppner and, while they’re not quite ready to beat Ohio State, this will probably be more of a game than the Buckeyes would like. The Hoosiers still need to stiffen up more on defense, but they’re gonna get somebody this year. Just not this week.

DOUBLE NICKELS ON THE DIME 38
IF’N 13

MICHIGAN @ IOWA

It’s sad when you don’t know whether to be afraid of Michigan or not. This game is at Kinnick, and the Revenge Factor for the Hawkeyes is pretty high, so I’m leaning towards “not.” I just hope I’m right.

BED 24
BECOME WHAT YOU ARE 31

NORTHWESTERN @ MICHIGAN STATE.

“Basketball on grass.” Northwestern is devious and crafty, but in the end, that Michigan State offense is just too much for the Cats’ still-squishy defense. It’ll be close (I think), but if you’re watching this game, be ready to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner in front of it.

SUPERUNKNOWN 56
ULTRAMEGA OK 66

PURDUE @ WISCONSIN

The only interesting thing left involving Purdue football is just how many assistants Joe Tiller will have to let go if he plans on keeping his job for next season. Currently the over/under is 2, and I’m not sure which way to go with it.

MURMUR 17
GREEN 28

Next week:

• Wisconsin @ Illinois: The Badgers will win, but they’ll get 36 speeding tickets on the way home
• Indiana @ Michigan State: Sparty should run away with this one, so I’m going with IU
• Ohio State @ Minnesota: Will Glen Mason get his revenge on Jim Tressel for taking his dream job?
• Michigan @ Northwestern: Vaunted Michigan academics will keep NU from outsmarting the ‘Rines
• Purdue @ Penn State: Look away, look FAR away

FOR THE WOLVERINE FANS

I have no idea why they’d decide to do this this week. Do you?

ONE

Happy birthday, Precious Tiny Girl.

DASHED HOPES

Normally I’ve got a lot of respect for ESPN.com’s football columnist Pat Forde, but what self-respecting Hawkeye fan could look at Forde’s bowl projections (his are the ones on the right) without getting a little worked up? He has the Hawks at home for the holidays. All the holidays. As in, not even going to Detroit for the Motor City Bowl.

Near as I can figure, Forde must be assuming the Hawks will go 0-for-the rest of the season, because that is the only way they would wind up finishing worse than 6-5 (they’re 5-2 now with four games to play). Pat, I’m sure you have your reasons, but picking the Hawkeyes to lose twice at Kinnick when they haven’t lost there in three seasons? That’s just . . . well, that’s just beyond words. At least Ivan Maisel believes in Kinnick Magic. And the improvement of a team everybody left for dead after the Ohio State game.

PICKIN’ ON THE BIG TEN, v05.7

History is bunk.–Henry Ford

Clearly, the recent history of the Big Ten is bunk, at least from the prognosticator’s point of view. The conference is starting to resemble one giant game of Calvinball, with the rules changing every other minute depending upon wind speed, moon phase, and what Joe Paterno had for lunch. A person can fracture a skull (maybe even their own) trying to figure out which Big Ten teams are clearly on their way up or down, who’s waiting to be found out, who’s been found out, and which fans should start surfing now for those cheap tickets to Nashville. It’s the old Bruce Almighty problem of everybody winning the lottery at once: When every team plays like they could wind up 9-2, it’s inevitable that everybody’s going to wind up 6-5 or something like it.

Still, despite all the historical debunking that’s gone on this season, there’s a bunch of flapdoodle passing for punditry out there, so let’s take a moment to make sloppy joes out of the sacred cows of Big Ten conventional wisdom, 2005 version:

• The Buckeyes need to do a better job of getting the ball to Ted Ginn Jr.: Yes, I’m certain Jim Tressel has forgotten that Ginn is on his roster. The Buckeyes do not need to do a better job of getting the ball to Ginn; Ginn needs to do a better job of getting open. Or else Troy Smith was a little oversold as a QB, but that would mean I was right, and those OSU bulletistas were wrong about me being wrong about their national-championship caliber team.
• Penn State doesn’t have enough offense to win in the Big House.: What, they can’t score fourteen points?
• Okay, well, they don’t have enough offense to win the Big Ten.: Oh, I love this one. Here’s who the Nits have left: Michigan, Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Michigan State. Of those, only Michigan State is a consistent threat to score more than three touchdowns. This is a defense which has passed two of its three toughest tests–Northwestern and Ohio State, with Sparty still looming–and could probably win with Illinois’ offense.
• Wisconsin got exposed by Northwestern last week.: No, Wisconsin got exposed by Bowling Green in week one, in the sense that their defense was shown not to be able to handle a spread-option offense with misdirection. What did get exposed last week is that Randy Walker spent a lot of time studying that game film.
• This is the year Minnesota finally breaks through to the big time: Wrong. It is far from inconcievable that the Gophers might not make a bowl this year. I could even see them losing to Indiana in Bloomington on Nov. 5. Penn State gave everybody the plan to beat the Gophers: stack eight in the box and dare Cupito to throw (more likely, dare Glen Mason to let Cupito throw). Don’t go elevating Goldy just because Lloyd Carr insisted on doing it his way.
• Illinois is terrible: I don’t think so. I just think they’re the least good of the improving teams. They could probably beat Purdue, because at least the Illini know how to tackle and don’t approach opposing ball carriers as if they might have girl germs or something.

As for the recent history of POTBT, last week was yet another 4-1 outing, making our season record 39-9 (81.3%). And this week? Probably not that good. But let’s give it a try anyway.

INDIANA @ IOWA

Well, there’s little question who gets the “most improved” title in the Big Ten this year. Terry Hoeppner has done a fantastic job starting with nothing and coming up with a good offense and enough defense to keep his team competitive. Only problem is, IU’s strength (the passing game) plays right into the best part of Iowa’s defense (the linebackers and secondary), meaning it could be a long afternoon for all sixteen Hoosier fans.

But I think IU can hang around long enough in this game to give the Hawks fits, even if I think eventually the Iowa offense will overpower them. Indiana is still a year away from winning games like this, I think. I hope.

TO THE FIRST POWERS 24
THE RIGHT WAY, THE WRONG WAY, THE GREENWAY 38

PENN STATE @ MICHIGAN

Normally I pay no attention to the point spread–that’s gambling, and I don’t go for it. But a number of talking heads have commented on the fact that, despite the fact that Penn State is 6-0 and Michigan is 3-3, the line on this game is Michigan by 3 1/2. This must mean that Vegas knows something the rest of us don’t know, so they’re going with Michigan.

What Vegas knows is that the streams are filled with shiny blue fish this week.

NO, I’M NOT RETIRING 24
SO STOP ASKING ME THAT QUESTION 20

WISCONSIN @ MINNESOTA

Here’s another game with the rank odor of lutefisk about it. Not that it won’t be a great game, but if you think that there was anything the Gophers could take away from Northwestern’s dismantling of Wisconsin last week, you deserve a big steaming plate of fish-flavored Jello. In the face. Because, while Minnesota’s offense puts up gaudier numbers, Northwestern’s scheme is infinitely more sophisticated. Brent Basanez can make NFL-type “thread the needle” passes. Bryan Cupito can’t. (They can both miss wide-open receivers equally well.) Besides, like I said, Penn State showed how to contain Minnesota. Stack the line and dare ‘em to pass. That’s how you get the Glen Mason Face. I owe TBP reader Jon a buck for this, but Wisconsin can shut down any team that tries to overpower them. Northwestern won on sheer subterfuge. Minnesota doesn’t do ninja football. That’s why the axe will hang in Madison this year.

MIFFLIN STREET CHOP-BLOCK PARTY 31
DINKYTOWN PITY PARTY 27

MICHIGAN STATE @ OHIO STATE

Woof. This’ll be at least half of a good football game, when Sparty has the ball. Otherwise, it’s all Resistable Force meets Movable Object. I think the Horseshoe factor helps Ohio State get the season back in the lunchbox.

I’M SO HAPPY ‘CUZ TODAY I FOUND MY FRIENDS 34
HEY, WAIT, I’VE GOT A NEW COMPLAINT 35

NORTHWESTERN @ PURDUE

Iowa played the spread some of the time last week and dropped 34 on the Beer-And-A-Bumps in West Lafayette. Northwestern pretty much plays the spread all the time and has a more credible running game. Granted, Iowa’s defense is just a little better than Northwestern’s defense (and by “a little” I mean “a lot”), but still, man, why does that Purdue defense refuse to get better?

WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD 41
THE GRAVEYARD YOU’RE WHISTLING PAST 28

Next week:

• Penn State @ Illinois: Like the Nits need a date with the Traveling Bye-Week Squad
• Ohio State @ Indiana: I’m tempted to slap this one with an Upset Alert
• Michigan @ Iowa: So lllllong, Llllloyd?
• Northwestern @ Michigan State: Ever wanted to see a 70-63 football game? Here ya go!
• Purdue @ Wisconsin: Will Tiller’s nightmare ever end? Yes, in four more weeks.