A press conference held today by the Big Heads at Michigan has led to a series of reactions to the possible NCAA punishment that looms after they may or may not have committed a couple of "major infractions."

Mgo was demanding an answer to the age-old question "where's the beef?" MnB thinks minor punishment but admits "we're just guessing."  Mgo drops the full report later and reports "It sounds a lot worse in this format than it did coming from Brandon," which of course it sounds worse than the way your AD sugar-coated it.

DocSat jumped in right away, calling the issues "barely spilt milk," and adds this wide-sweeping conclusion:

Know also that every program in the country -- and I'm pretty confident when I say every program -- would run afoul of at least one of those infractions (or similar ones; it's a big manual) on a somewhat regular basis...

Now, if we peel back the ramped qualifications in there, is Hinton right?  I don't know.  He probably doesn't know.  Isn't the whole point of this story that no one has any idea (1) what the rules are, and (2) how many people are following them?

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After the Pitt fiasco a few weeks ago I promised myself we weren't going to chase any more Big Ten expansion rumors until something definitive was reported. So while hints and quotes from anonymous sources may not be a bastion of credibility, at least this is coming from a legitimate news source not named "twitter" or "Bleacher Report".

A source with ties to the Big Ten said that while most people’s attention has been trained on the conference stealing Missouri, the Big Ten has engaged in “preliminary exchanges” with a much bigger fish from the Big 12.

“There have been preliminary exchanges between the Big Ten and Texas,” the source told the Journal-World on Wednesday. “People will deny that, but it’s accurate.”

So what to make of this? Maybe something, maybe nothing. I'm sure the Big Ten is going to reach out to a lot of schools over the next year to gauge their interest in joining the conference. We will probably hear rumors leak out from discussions with Pitt and Missouri as well. Jim Delany will want to know who is interested before he goes to the league presidents with suggestions, and he's not going to tender an offer to a school without feeling them out first. So let's not get too excited or outraged over this.

But since it's a slow news day in the early stages of a boring offseason, let's discuss the merits of this idea. Would I like to see Texas in the Big Ten? As a Penn State fan living 90 miles from Austin, you betcha. Y'all are welcome to come tailgate in the grotto with me if that happens. But I'm not getting my hopes up.

Opening up the state of Texas to the Big Ten Network would generate millions in revenue for the conference. While the attraction of epic battles between Texas and the members of the Big Ten sure do look appealing, let's peel back the dollar signs for a minute. How practical would this be for other sports? Getting from Austin to places like Happy Valley and Ann Arbor isn't easy. You're talking a four hour plane ride each way. Jumping in for a weeknight basketball or volleyball game is going to create some hardships for the student athletes. I also think the Big Ten university presidents may have some heartburn over Texas, who doesn't exactly light up the scoreboard in graduation rates when compared to Penn State and other Big Ten Schools.

Ultimately, I would love to see it happen, but I doubt it will. I think geography is going to be a stumbling block for the university presidents who actually worry about things like student athlete well being and graduation rates.

Obligatory Yellow Out photo and now obligatory discussion about things I've been reading in the internets that claim Pitt is a signed, sealed, delivered member of the Big Ten.

I've dug up everything I can find in actual information here, attempting to cancel out the noise, and this, my friends, is the rock this rumor is founded upon:

Here is what popped up on Bleacherreport.com, normally a pretty reliable outlet, just a few hours ago:

Wait...

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There's a movie I watched a lot as a kid called Babar.  It was based off of a TV show, although I just learned that five minutes ago.  The one thing I remember most about that movie, other than the shot of the rhino army preparing to decimate the elephant city, is a song called The Committee.  It exists nowhere on the internet except in languages I don't understand.  Here is one of them:

That song is all I could think about during the non-news that swept the entire college football blogosphere into a frenzy this week.  Jim Delany basically translated and rewrote the above youtube video into this press release that shouldn't have been blockquoted on any website anywhere:

The COP/C believes that the timing is right for the conference to once again conduct a thorough evaluation of options for conference structure and expansion. As a result, the commissioner was asked to provide recommendations for consideration by the COP/C over the next 12 to 18 months.

Am I the only one actually reading what that says?  If your boss told you he would "conduct a thorough evaluation" of the prospects of giving you a raise in the "next 12 to 18 months," would you punch him?  If you asked a girl out and she gave the same answer, would you really run to a computer start blogging about it?

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Come gather 'round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
They you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin'

What started out as an off the cuff remark by Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez...

Speaking to Wisconsin's athletic board on Friday, Alvarez, the former longtime Badgers football coach, said the conference already has investigated possibilities for expansion "from all over the country." And though he places no timetable on the search, Alvarez thinks conference commissioner Jim Delany will respond to a group of athletic directors and coaches who want expansion.

"I have a sense he is going to take this year to really be more aggressive about it," Alvarez told the board. "I just think everybody feels [expansion] is the direction to go, coaches and administrators."

Is starting to pick up steam...

Later today, the Big Ten will issue a statement acknowledging that the expansion issue has moved from the back burner to the front burner. Nothing is imminent, but the chances of expansion are stronger now than they were six months ago.

Big Ten expansion is back on the table. Frankly, I think it's past due. If you conducted a poll a year ago of the coaches and athletic directors of the league I think you could have found a slim majority. But for years the talk has been of two players opposing league expansion: Ohio State and Michigan. Today, it sounds like one of those players is on board.

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In typical classless Sparty fashion, they can't just congratulate a good player for winning an award. They have to be outraged that their player didn't get it. This morning The Only Colors, SBNation's Michigan State blog, takes exception with the coaches' decision to award Jared Odrick the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year by listing him three times on his top five errors made by the coaches.

5. Jared Odrick, Coaches' Defensive Player of the Year.There's no doubt that Odrick was one of the top five or six defensive linemen in the conference.  However, here were the other All-Big ten first team defensive linemen named by the coaches:  Adrian Clayborn, Brandon Graham, and O'Brien Schofield.  If I gave you those names, where would you rank Odrick?  Third?  Fourth?  And he's the one the coaches named defensive player of the year?

Then there's this...

3. Seriously, Jared Odrick?  I mean, Pat Angerer can't get some love?  Tyler Sash?  If you were asking me, "Name two players on the same team who deserved the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year award", those would've been the first two names out of my mouth.

And finally...

1. JARED ODRICK?  I don't want to bash Odrick, he's been a great player for Penn State all season.  I'm happy that Greg Jones got the honor from the media, but I would've understood if he didn't receive the award.  After all, I'm pretty sure Graham Zugscored again on a wheel route, and the failures of the MSU secondary drags the whole defense down, fair or unfair.  However, I would've named Schofield, Graham, Angerer, Sash, Amari Speivey, Navarro Bowman, or Sean LeeDPOY before Odrick.  Once again, Odrick deserved the honors he received as All-Big Ten, but there were several more deserving players this year in the Big Ten to be defensive player of the year.

In his comments TOC shows they either didn't watch Penn State this year or they understand nothing about football. A lot of people are pointing out that Odrick didn't even make the media's First Team All-Big Ten, but let's remember these are the same people that voted Terrelle Pryor the preseason player of the year. They don't know squat about football and can't evaluate a player unless they have a stat sheet and their Rivals recruiting ranking in front of them.

The coaches, on the other hand, watch hours of film. They know everyone's defense and they know who gave them the most fits this year, and they said that player was Jared Odrick. Sure, his stats may not be as flashy as Greg Jones, but then Greg Jones didn't have two 300 lb. linemen smashing him in the face on every play. Odrick had to fight double teams all season long, and teams still couldn't stop him. He got six sacks, and he repeatedly collapsed the pocket and flushed the quarterback into the arms of Jack Crawford or Eric Latimore or a blitzing linebacker. And most teams didn't even bother trying to run up the middle on Penn State, because Odrick was there to either tackle the ball carrier for a loss or shove the guard back in his face as soon as he got the handoff. There was no player that kept offensive coordinators up at night planning more than Jared Odrick, and when he gets drafted next April before any other Big Ten defensive player maybe it will make more sense to the Spartans.

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Ohio State 45, New Mexico State 0

I would normally leave this game out, but seeing as it's Hate Week (BSD: Where It's Always Hate Week (R)), this seems like a good place to start.

The Vegas outcome of this game is hilarious: OSU was favored by 44 points with the total set at 48.5.  Any time the spread is 70-80% of the total, you're going to get a lot of parlays.  This was over 90%.  Yet the strategy would have failed miserable.

Defense continues to prove Ohio State's strength.  They gave up just 62 yards of offense and 2 first downs, although to a team that hasn't scored over 20 points all season even against WAC defenses.  The Buckeyes rank 2nd in just about every major defensive category, right behind Penn State.

Even for a blowout, some Buckeye fans weren't feeling the kind of comfort these types of games are supposed to provide:

Truth is it is difficult to get any kind of feel from this game because there was really no offensive rhythm established. Ohio State made lots of big plays due to their superior athleticism, but didn't look that efficient on offense, despite winding up with 559 yards. Pryor was able to turn some broken plays into long runs in the first half, but hit less than 50% of his passes, and nearly threw a couple pick sixes.

And then there is this little bit of research from G-M in the fanposts:

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Iowa 15, Michigan State 13

Penn State's chances of sole possession of the Big Ten crown (or as we've been calling it since 2005: actually winning the conference) fell well below 1% last night when Ricky Stanzi threw a game winning touchdown pass with just 2 seconds on the clock.

It was a true defensive slugfest for over 50 minutes. Up until the drive that gave Iowa a 9-6 lead, the two teams combined for just one drive over 70 yards, just two drives over 50 yards.

And I can't find out why this happened: after Iowa scored the winning touchdown with no time on the clock, they were forced to "attempt" the extra point.  They did the obvious thing and took a knee, but since when do they require this? The only thing I can think of, and I'm all speculation here (none of the beat stories I've found address this): Dantonio demanded it. Score another one for the sore loser?

Iowa will finish with Indiana, Northwestern, Ohio State and Minnesota. The chances of them falling twice in those four games is low; Iowa fans can officially begin to worry about being shut out if Texas and Floribama win out.

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