Hey! It isn’t plagiarism* if you can’t tell which of the many possible sources I stole it from!** Anyway… I hope you all enjoyed last week’s new content type! Sorry it took so long… I had to re-learn how to use Photoshop (actually Gimp because I’m cheap… Donate more money and I’ll be able to afford the real thing!) Also I had to learn how to draw. I’ve got some more ideas for comics and/or comic related t-shirts so stay tuned for that! But for now: let’s return to your regularly scheduled rant!
So what do I mean by that title? Well… I mean how did the Big Ten get to it’s current state? This is a topic with multiple aspects, theories and categories. There is no chance this doesn’t end up longer than the MLB Rulebook’s section on Obstruction and Interference… Even without the author*** inevitably going off suddenly on seemingly semi-related tangents****… like the MLB Rulebook. Anyway: For this section let’s focus just on strictly on the field football things.
What the hell happened to the Big Ten?!? I believe I’ve already covered this but 11 months ago the Big Ten was the best conference in the country. It was a joke that none of the teams made it to the playoffs and I think the Big Ten proved that in the Bowl Games. You cannot convince me that any one of Wisconsin, Penn State, or Ohio State wouldn’t have had a shot in the playoffs. Maybe they get killed, or maybe the SEC sucked and Alabama wasn’t that good (For the record, this year I think they ARE that good). This year… not so much.
11 months ago if you asked me why the Big Ten was great the answer was simple: Coaches. Harbaugh, Meyer, Dantonio, Franklin, and Chryst were, I thought, 5 of the top… 8? 10? college coaches in the country. On top of that you had Pat Fitzgerald being the most Pat Fitzgeraldy coach that Northwestern could ever hope for. PJ “I made people say ‘Western Michigan’ and ‘Playoffs’ in the same paragraph” Fleck was trying to turn around Minnesota. Illinois had former NFL coach Lovie Smith who couldn’t make Illinois suck any more right? Nebraska got their Jim Harbaugh in Scott Frost.
Fast Forward to now… Urban Meyer’s football performance and painful grimaces on the sideline make ‘Pete’ Finebaum’s insane prediction that it’s his last season seem less insane (more on that later). Maybe he should have tried harder to keep the guy (Ed Warinner) who turned Michigan’s “What’s an offensive tackle?” line into “Dammit Patterson! There’s no pressure, stop running around like scared Grandpa Simps… oh you threw for 15 yards anyway… fine” and less hard to keep shitty wife beaty WR coach who sucks at marriage and also is bad at football related things.
Dantonio’s team doesn’t look good this year but I wouldn’t write him off as a coach… They’ve got a duct taped together O-Line, gimpy running QB, and injuries to multiple star WR and they still only have losses to teams that I don’t think get enough credit… Maybe he regresses a bit… Maybe double digit wins most years are too much to expect for a team in the tough division of potentially the toughest conference… Or maybe he builds up enough disrespekt this year to make another trip to Indy in 2019.
Scott Frost started 0-6… then almost beat Ohio State… and not lucky almost beat but “put up 450 total yards” almost beat Ohio State… and this was their lowest total in the last 3 weeks.. I said OSU isn’t that good this year… but I think Scott Frost will be fine.
PJ Fleck’s Minnesota team hasn’t gotten better… Their only B10 win is against Indiana because #chaosteam still shows up once a season… Remember those 3 450+ yard Scott Frost games I mentioned? The first one was a 659 yard victory against Minnesota. Remember how I said Lovie Smith couldn’t make Illinois any worse? Well Illinois’s only Big Ten Win* is against Minnesota. I hope PJ fleck turns it around because I like a decent Minnesota.. but right now, both he and Lovie Smith aren’t looking too comfortable job security wise…
Well it’s late and as I expected this is going long even with minimal rabbit hole interruptions. Let’s pause for now and tune in soon to discuss my favorite two of the bunch.. James Franklin and Paul Chryst!
*I’m pretty sure it still is, but I’m not a lawyer
**Red vs Blue… also that sentence should say ‘from which of the many possible sources I stole it’.
***Ahem: Author slash illustrator Oh shut up. Aren’t you just stealing more stuff from Mgoblog? Yeah because they’re the first ones to come up with bolded alter egos in prose texts… Also mine are italicized. See! inevitable tangents! Oh wait.. depending on how you read these you may not have gotten to that part of the article yet…
****That’s alliteration Holmes. Aaand now *** makes sense! That’s some Dr. Who time isn’t linear sh*t right there!