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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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More photos » by Al Goldis - AP

James Vandenberg whispering sweet nothings to Ricky Stanzi. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)

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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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via BHGP: The Pictures

Iowa 30, Michigan 28

A first drive Stanziball, good for six Michigan points, set the tone early in this one, but Iowa made up for it by harassing Tate and ended his Disneyland start to the season.

Forcier finished 8/19 for just 94 yards, zero TDs and one pick. Denard Robinson entered in relief and led Michigan on a late scoring drive. The eventual pick by the more mobile of the two freshman quarterbacks sent the Mgofans into civil war over RichRod's decision.

But, like, look at Forcier's numbers? They're frickin' awful, and although Robinson is more of a runner and perhaps not fit for a hurried drive, he was averaging a half yard more per rush than Tate was putting up per pass.

And the turnovers: Michigan had five of them, but as BHGP points out:

Team A: 367 yards, 2/3 RZ opportunities for 10 points, 6 points scored off 5 TOs
Team B: 319 yards, 3/3 RZ opportunities for 21 points, 7 points scored off 1 TOs

Ohio State 31, Wisconsin 13

Ohio State is getting a lot of credit for beating Wisconsin so badly without actually have to do much, but I'm surprised there isn't more of a "dodge a bullet" reaction to this one.

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More photos » by Terry Gilliam - AP

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All the other nightmarish games around the league...

Ohio St. 30, Illinois 0

Bad Juice is not an anomaly, or even a worn-out joke, Bad Juice is a very real person and he was doing what he does best in Columbus last Saturday.

He completed 13 of 25 for 77 yards, that's just 18 more than the total return yardage from the three interceptions McGee and Juice combined for.

Juice knows how bad this is:

"It's like a nightmare," Williams said of the offensive woes. "A nightmare from which you can't wake up."

Pryor doubled the Illinois average per attempt but still put up mediocre yardage: 8/13, 82 yards and a touchdown. It's hard to make any judgments, though, when the team is running the ball 78% of the time like they did against the Zooker.

Illinois is a complete train wreck right now on offense and has one of the worst defenses in the league. Ohio State seems to be comfortable with their usual approach: absolutely suffocating on defense and grinding on offense. They'll take care of every lower level team on the schedule this year, and as a Penn State fan you should be terrified of their defensive line right now.

Notre Dame 24, Purdue 21

Hey look, another overdramatic Notre Dame game against not-as-good-as-it-seems competition.  Purdue took the lead with 3:41 left but somehow couldn't stop Jimmy Clauson's winning drive because, well, basketball on grass also includes playing NBA defense on grass.

Even with Danny Hope, Purdue is sticking to the tried and true strategy of playing no defense, throwing as much as possible, and relying on a talented but erratic string of quarterbacks that may or may not actually be an ongoing set of sons from the same family.

Joey Elliott is currently listed as the next brother QB in line, he's sporting a 126 rating but a 7/6 ratio. It's Purdue, so they have losing record but a QB on pace for around 3,000 yards passing.

Notre Dame is now 3-1 with a comfortable win against 0-3 Nevada and two absolute squeakers against 1-3 Big Ten teams. So naturally it's time for this:

Don't go changin' Notre Dame.

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More photos » by Charlie Neibergall - AP

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Iowa 27, Arizona 17

Iowa rebounded nicely from their week one near-disaster with a shellacking of "rival" ISU and quality win against Arizona. The defense was solid for the Hawekeyes; they gave up just 94 second half yards, 8 first downs all game, and held Arizona 2-12 on 3rd downs.

The offense was competent enough to take it from there. Stanzi turned in his worst performance so far but managed semi-acceptable 6.4 YPA. Non-sack rushing put up 4.3 per carry. They were methodical, picking up 19 first downs along the way.  Frankly, I'm more concerned about the upcoming night game than I was at any point during the summer.

Cal 35, Minnesota 21

With USC looking about as mediocre as anyone can remember the last two weeks, I'd hope that Cal can capitalize on an opportunity to be the elite team in the conference for the first time since the 50s.

Jahvid Best is being mentioned as a darkhorse Heisman contender in this, the year of the Unwavering Preconceived Notions, which speaks to just how impressive he's been. Best finished the game with a 5 yard average and 5 touchdowns. Or, put another way: all of Cal's points touchdowns if you want to be technical about it.

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More photos » by Carolyn Kaster - AP

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So the Big Ten meetings came and went in Chicago this week. There was nothing Earth shattering that came out of them. Basically the coaches, athletic directors, and Big Ten executives got together to complain about their problems. They came to the consensus that these are very difficult problems and agreed to meet again next year to discuss them again. It's basically like every office meeting I ever attend. But let's rehash it anyway.

First, every reporter was dying to stick a microphone in Joe Paterno's face hoping to get him to throw Jim Delany under the bus on the topic of expansion and a playoff game. Predictably, Paterno had nothing to say.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno backed off Tuesday from calling for the expansion of the Big Ten to include a 12th team that would open the door for a conference championship game in football. Paterno had been quoted in recent reports as an advocate for both.

Paterno said the remarks were off-handed, "without any deliberate intent."

"You're wasting your time talking to me about it, honestly," Paterno said during a break from meetings of Big Ten coaches, athletic directors and league administrators.

Everyone is saying Paterno "backed off" from his comments a week or two ago as if Paterno was directly challenging Delany back then. But you have to understand the context of Paterno's comments. He was speaking at a private dinner to alumni. There weren't supposed to be any reporters in the audience, but as is always the case, a few of them pony up the $100 for a meal and a chance at a good story. So I'm not surprised that in an environment like the Big Ten meetings with reporters crawling all over that Paterno would clam up.

In other news, Jim Delany had this to say about Barack Obama pushing for a college football playoff.

The president initially voiced his wish for a football playoff last fall while campaigning and has remained an advocate. "He probably has an interest as a fan," Delany said. "He's a scholar and a lawyer and a great politician, but I don't think he really understands the complexity of the issue."

Of course. A college football playoff system would be incredibly difficult to organize and put together. If only we had a model we could base it off of, like, I don't know, maybe the Div. IAA otherwise knows as the Football Championship Subdivision?

TNL has a much lengthier tirade that you simply must read.

One item that came up that seems to be getting some traction is playing nine conference games starting in 2012.

Big Ten athletic directors have discussed ways to play a nine-game league schedule for several years, and while nothing is imminent, the plan appears to have a good deal of support. League members currently play eight games and have two conference byes that change every two years. 

"We talk about that at every meeting," said Michigan athletic director Bill Martin, who added that the drive for nine is getting more support. "As the guarantees [for nonconference games] go up and up and up and the fans want to play our sister institutions in the conference, to me it's a no-brainer. Play 'em."

As we've pointed out before, the logistics of every team playing nine games doesn't work. You will always have an odd team that only gets to play eight games. This makes the Michigan and Ohio State blogs go into a panic because they are terrified that some year a team like Indiana or Purdue is going to avoid playing both of them and end up winning the conference with a 7-1 record over their 7-2 record.

I say so what. If you arranged it so the last place team loses the extra conference game you're only setting yourself up for the once a century worst-to-first scenario. It can't be any worse than the ugly mess the Big XII South created last year.

But the benefits would far outweigh the occassional embarrassment. The cost of scheduling out of conference competition is going up exponentially. It's so bad that teams are dipping more and more into the FCS teams. Why not keep that money in the conference? And fans would benefit from having more games on the schedule that actually mean something.

And ultimately maybe this conference needs a little controversy. Like the current administration says, "Never let a crisis go to waste." What better opportunity to push for expansion and change than to have a dispute over who is champion. But of course that would require getting rid of the whole "Co-Champion" label and hurting someone's feelings I guess.

In Scores of Other Games

• Ron Zook explains his bizarre twittering habits.
• The 7th Annual Lift for Life is scheduled for July 10.
• Joe Paterno drinks alone. Yeaaaaah with nobody else. And you know when he drinks alone, he prefers to be by himself.

I'm generally okay with the shift in media from the musky newsrooms to, as they say, "the people, man". That's not to say I'm 100% happy about "the man" getting more attention, though. I'm talking about news and analysis from the very last place in the world you want it: the public relations department. Everything, by definition, is spin. And that means everything is probably a waste of time.

The problem is that not everyone is aware of what is going on here. The MLB probably gets the prize for most seamless transition; a large amount of beat reporting in baseball is now coming from writers who are paid by the league.

GoPSUSports is another example of the same concept, and along those lines we get hawkeyesports.com.

So H/T to the BHGP reader who found this chart and spin interesting:

CONSISTENCY IS KING

The following provides evidence of the importance of continuity at the top of the coaching staff for the football programs in the Big Ten Conference.

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More photos » by Carolyn Kaster - AP

6 months ago: Penn State coach Joe Paterno laughs during a news conference before the Blue and White spring college football scrimmage at Penn State in State College, Pa., Saturday, April, 25, 2009. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Spring practice is over so Joe Paterno has been hitting the alumni circuit lately. Dubbed "An Evening with Joe Paterno", these are supposed to be intimate settings where Joe can speak to big donors giving them an inside look at the program. But of course reporters work their way in there in hopes of getting a sound bite in a rare moment when Joe lets his guard down. Then they publish Joe's comments as if the elder statesman has spoken from high atop the mountain to enlighten the masses.

I'm a little late to the party here, but earlier in the week Joe made a splash when he offered his comments on Big Ten expansion, a topic for which the media has been pushing for years.

"We go into hiding for six weeks," Paterno said, referring to the hiatus between the end of the Big Ten regular season and the BCS bowls. The other major FBS conferences play into the first weekend of December.

"Everybody else is playing playoffs on television," Paterno said. "You never see a Big Ten team mentioned. So I think that's a handicap.

"I've tried to talk to the Big Ten people about, 'Let's get a 12th team -- Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt -- we could have a little bit of a playoff.'"

I think it would be great to bring in Pitt, Rutgers, or Syracuse into the conference to give Penn State a more natural rivalry. But I'm sure the rest of the Big Ten would not agree. We're still the guy that barely made the guest list to the party as a favor to someone. Bringing in one of our former eastern rivals would be like bringing an uninvited guest to the country club. I can already hear the Michigan fans complaining about having to travel to New Jersey.

Of course Paterno knew these comments would get out, and he knew they would be readily dismissed. So he preemptively got in front of those who would discredit him and his ideas.

Asked what sort of response he had received, Paterno raised his eyebrows in a facial shrug.

"You know, it's a conference that's dominated by a couple of people," Paterno said. "If I start talking, they're polite, but they snicker.

"They don't know I know they're snickering, but they're polite. ...I wish I were younger and going to be around [another] 20 years."

So people are polite, but they snicker. Keep this in mind. Now let's read Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany's response.

Delany responded to Paterno's comments Monday, saying that while a league championship game has its benefits, particularly from a marketing perspective, expansion requires much more.

"It's not the reason you would expand," Delany told ESPN.com. He also said Paterno isn't the only Big Ten coach who has stumped for expansion in recent years.

That's a very polite answer. But am I the only one that can envision Delany snickering when he makes that comment?

But that's petty and beside the point. Let's look at Delany's reasoning for not expanding.

"The issue has come up with our football coaches a couple times -- with the extra week and if we did expand, would we be more competitive?" Delany said. "I would say in some years they might be right. But has it enhanced the competitiveness of the ACC in football? Has it enhanced the competitiveness of the WAC? I don't know.

"Just because you have a championship doesn't make you more competitive. It's about coaching the players. The SEC game has been a marketing bonanza. I wouldn't discount that. But others have struggled with it."

So championship games don't work as well in the ACC and WAC, so we shouldn't take a chance on them? I fail to see this short-sighted logic. The SEC game is a marketing bonanza because it usually features two teams ranked in the top ten in with the winner going to the national championship game. Plus they have Vern Lundquist and all of CBS hyping the game like it's the Super Bowl and talking about Tim Tebow like the kid can walk on water. Marketing determines the success of the game, and that is Jim Delany's job. Get the deal with Conseco Field and ESPN to broadcast the game on prime time television and it will be just as successful as the SEC game.

But Delany is correct that more has to be taken into consideration than just a football playoff. There are dozens of other sports that have to be taken into account. Forcing teams like Iowa, Indiana, and Illinois to send their swimming, field hockey, and wrestling teams to Syracuse or Rutgers would be more of a burden on their athletic department budgets when they are replacing local games those teams can usually bus to. And academics have to be considered as well. The Big Ten should not lower their academic standards just to get a football playoff game.

I applaud Delany for being selective. I don't want to pluck someone like Eastern Michigan or Akron just to get 12 teams, but I get the impression  Delany is playing hard ball and holding out for Notre Dame. While the Irish would make a perfect fit, they clearly have another agenda...money. Their fat television contract has them sitting pretty. And the BCS pays them $1 million per year whether they go to a BCS game or not. They are in no way interested in giving up that money or sharing it with Delany.

So it's time for the Big Ten to move on. There are plenty of good schools out there that would make a good fit geographically and academically with the Big Ten. The fact is not having a conference championship game is a huge disadvantage. A one loss SEC team will always leapfrog a one loss Big Ten team due to the extra feather in their cap that the SEC championship game brings. The day may be coming when a one loss SEC team may leapfrog an undefeated Big Ten team. The media was already pushing for that last season when it appeared Penn State could go undefeated.

If and when that happens, we'll see who will be snickering then, Mr. Delany.