Well, Saturday happened and I definitely don’t have a positive spin on this weeks Michigan loss to Minnesota, so let’s not talk about it! I thought about writing a post about the Red Wings organization and how the more the patheticism* is brought to light, the more benefit of the doubt I give Larkin for potentially politely suggesting that he would like to get the fuck out while he still has a career left in him… But since this is a football blog, let’s go with the topic I alluded to last week.
After the curse of Frames Janklin** knocked out reader Matt and a handful of other Big Ten Eliminatees, Matt referenced “The most boring coach in college football.” To this I responded “Lol, who is the most boring coach in college football***” and then immediately “WAIT! Don’t tell me!! CONTENT!!!” So let’s do some good old fashioned investigative journalism, see if we can figure out to whom he was referring, and crown a true “MOST BORING COACH IN THE BIG TEN!!!” Let’s get into it.
Illinois – Brett Bielema
With Frames Janklin out of the league, Bert Bartholemieux Bielema may be in the running for most entertaining coach in the Big Ten. Former long-time head coach of the Wisconsin badgers from back when they were successful, he is now the coach of Illinois and has brought that program back to at least watchable. His name is hilarious. He looks like he’d be on Detective Greenly’s (Boondock Saints) list of suspected serial crushers. He has a self proclaimed grudge/rivalry with the University of Michigan, to which Michigan’s response seems to largely be “… alright”. He is not the most boring coach in the Big Ten.
Indiana – Curt Cignetti. Cignetti gets some points out of spite for taking a wonderfully entertaining Chaos Indiana and turning them into an actual football team. What a jerk. But he just won the National Championship with <checks notes again> Indiana, so he’s not boring.
Iowa – Kirk Ferentz. Kirk is an interesting candidate. He’s only 10 years younger than Lloyd Carr and is still coaching almost 20 years after Lloyd retired. But using that as an excuse to call him boring is ageism and as someone who finds increasing satisfaction from yelling at clouds, I can’t condone that. You could argue that Iowa does play a rather boring brand of football, but in today’s world, running an old school “punting is winning” program that hasn’t changed since the 90’s AND keeping them relevant is unique and interesting. Plus he fired his own son. It’s not Kirk.
Maryland – Mike Locksley. After seasons of September (good) vs all other months (terrible) football, Maryland was anything but boring. It appears like this may no longer be the case… If Locksley still has a job and Maryland continues to be irrelevant, we could have a candidate here, but for now, let’s move on.
Michigan State – Pat Fitzgerald. Logic would put Pat as a candidate for “Who was Matt talking about” if for no other reason than he’s an MSU fan and one of the coaches on his mind would obviously be his own. There’s also the fact that MSU fans can’t be super excited about the state of their football program right now, so that’s another probability point for Matt saying something unflattering about his own program… But he’s a coach who was recently fired by Northwestern during scandal, hired by MSU who recently fired their coach for a scandal, whose biggest rival is a school whose previous coach was fired and then thrown in jail during an even bigger scandal. Not boring.
Minnesota – PJ Fleck. PJ Fleck just rubbed the blood of his linebacker on his own face. He’s crazy. Next candidate.
This post is getting too long and we’re not even half way through… Part 2 to come next time. Also, this is the first post to the new host. Let’s hope everything still works.
*It’s a perfectly cromulent word!
**Matt, you should get “The Curse of Frames Janklin” trademarked. Maybe make some t-shirts.
***I know, I’m a real Billy Spearshake in my text threads…