Mmm, yes. Liver and onions. You're a kid. Your mom puts a plate consisting of a slab of strangely colored meat and foul-smelling vegetables in front of you. You look up slowly. Her expectant eyes bore into your very soul. She made this meal. For you. Because she loves you. You take a nervous, obligated bite.
The one time I could relate to DougAlmost immediately your mouth begins to reject what you've put in your mouth. The slimy texture of the liver combined with the smell of the onions almost immediately makes you gag and brings you close to tears. "How could anyone enjoy eating this?" you wonder. "This is completely, utterly awful."
Okay, now replace: Liver and onions and any description thereof with "B1G football," a kid with "college football fan," your mom with "Jim Delany," eating with "watching," and loves you with "is glad your cable carrier somehow got cowed by a fledgling regional college sports network."
BIG TEN FOOTBALL!
MICHIGAN STATE 16, WISCONSIN 13
It was all falling apart for Bret Bielema. A nearly naked, beglittered Barry Alvarez had begun a deadly dance with death he called the "Badger Frenzy." Bret has only seen it twice before. Once was at his wedding. Then it had it been fun. The other time had been in a shared jail cell in Oshkosh after they had been rung up on public exposure charges. That was less fun.
Alvarez began pinballing from one bar mitzvah guest to another, screaming "HIGH FIVE ME IF YOU THINK I'M SEXY" before sending guests flying with an unsolicited belly bump that sent them flying, glittered, and incapacitated. Per Berry's orders, escort Kandi was throwing assorted pocket change in the air and yelling lyrics from Poison's "Nuthin But A Good Time." The scales fell from Bret's eyes, just as they would've if Wisconsin had lost to Michigan State in overtime and Montee Ball had only accounted for 46 rushing yards in a weak, facile effort.
"...I'm not gonna see any bar mitzvah boob, am I?" thought Bielema sadly.
INDIANA 31, ILLINOIS 17
Haha oh man, how funny is it going to be this week to listen to the Ohio State coaching staff call Illinois "a good team" that "plays real hard" and is "coached well"??? Because none of those things are true! At all! Even a little bit! Let me put it this way: Indiana had lost 11 Big Ten games in a row until yesterday, and most of those losses had been on the order of a war crime. Instead Illinois is this years Indiana, which is unfortunate because Indiana is still basically this year's Indiana. Stat of the game? Illinois scored exactly 3 points in the second half against Indiana. Three. A team of asthmatic Computer Camp nerds (OH YOU MEAN NORTHWESTERN AHAHA) could top that.
MINNESOTA 44, PURDUE 28
See, this is why the Transitive Property of Football is a sham and makes no sense, because as often as it can make you feel good about your team, it can also make you feel very, very bad about your team. So let's just ignore that a team coached by a literal chicken egg with a mustache racked up more points, first downs, passing yards, rushing yards, and sexy ladies against Purdue than a team coached by Urban Meyer did. It's...depressing.
I feel ya, pumpkin broNORTHWESTERN 28, IOWA 17
Once again, Iowa proves that they pretty much have checked out mentally, like a late night grocery store cashier whose money for his flippin' sweet bass system had just been stolen/blown on candy and weed. Not to take anything away from Northwestern, which is playing with their usual "nerdy kid about to take a standardized test" enthusiasm.
Northwestern QB Kain Colter is pretty much a rich man's poor man's (because he's from Northwestern you see) Braxton Miller, and took over the game on the ground, gashing Iowa for 166 yards on the ground and adding another 80 through the air on uhhh 9 attempts? Look, B1G, you don't have to call them "quarterbacks" just because they yell at guys and occasionally throw the football. RB, QB, HB...it's all pretty much the same thing at this point.
NEBRASKA 23, MICHIGAN 9
Denard, predictably, got hurt during this game, so his backup Russell Bellomy came in and had one of the most horrifically heroic displays of quarterbacking I have ever seen in my entire life. 3/16. 38 yards. 3 interceptions. Somewhere deep in the Canadian wilderness, in a remote wood cabin, a flanneled figure strokes his gingery beard. "Yessss!" intones Joe Bauserman. "Yeeeeeesssss!"
Oh also this game was just awful. At one point there were six straight field goals. God.
...
BIG TEN FOOTBALL! Seriously guys, I hope you're enjoying being fans of one of the two semi-entertaining teams in this conference. It's almost like everyone else is the Doodletown Pipers and we're AC/DC. That's kinda cool?
See ya next week.
