Bucky Rising

My favorite sign at game day Saturday was the one that read, "Everyone here hates Iowa".  Hilarious. 

Early in the show, ESPN showed a graphic to demonstrate the proximity of the Wisconsin and Nebraska campuses.  They had a map with the route between the two schools- I-80 east from Lincoln to Highway 151 and north to Madison.  The junction where those two roads meet?   Yep, you guessed it- Iowa City.   So, yeah, we're pretty much in the middle of this fight.  If only the Big 10 had kept Wisconsin in the Central.…i mean Plains .…. er, Rivers .… no. .… it's the Leaders division.   Or is it Legends.  Big 10 commissioner Jim Delany, in defending the worst names for football divisions ever, decided to keep them for a year because he believes we'll get used to them and stop complaining. 

No, Jim, they still suck. 

Every other conference in football and every sport I am aware of names their divisions for geography.  Even Hockey, who used to honor their pioneers of the game with names like the Smythe division, has shifted to geography.  Many alternatives for the Big 10 names have been proposed, made difficult by the intentional mixing of teams from East and West of the time zone border between Indiana and Illinois.   Tough shit.  Get better names.

The marquee game last weekend between Nebraska and Wisconsin was a great way to start conference play.  At least in theory.  I thought Nebraska would be more competitive, but apparent the boys in Madison are serious about winning the first championship game in Indianapolis.   No one else in the Lakes / Eastern / Legends division looks anywhere near their caliber (with the possible exception of comeback kings Illinois- I'm still bitter about missing that Northwestern pick).  Nebraska's division will be competitive, with Michigan, Michigan State, Iowa, and Northwestern looking at least decent.  We may just see a rematch of Saturday's drubbing on the first weekend of December. 

At this early stage, Clemson looks to be in the driver's seat in the ACC. When time last time you could say that?  Alabama and LSU are heads and shoulders above the rest of the SEC. I'll save you the trouble of looking for a calendar- this year's game of the century between them will be on November 5th in Tuscaloosa.  The Big 12 is a mess- any of 5 teams could claw their way out of that one, but Oklahoma and Texas will play the first round of the elimination tournament this Saturday.  And in the PAC - 12 , things are going pretty much as expected- the winner of Oregon at Stanford on November 12th will get to play host to and beat the crap out of ASU for the first ever PAC -12 championship. 

Fight On,

Hans