It's Thursday, so let's take a look around the Big Ten blogosphere to see what's going on.
Ohio State
Let's start right in with the red meat with Buckeye Battle Cry, who says Penn State is overrated.
And if you want a little hint about whose schedule to question….try Penn State. They’ve played 11 ranked teams (26 percent of their total games) in the same time frame, and they’re only 6-5 in those games. Now there’s your overrated team.
I'm glad to see some commenters point out that Syracuse was coming off a 10-3 season when we signed that contract in 2002. It's not Penn State's fault Greg Robinson ran that program into the ground. And while Oregon State's loss to Stanford certainly took some luster off of our blowout win over the Beavers, let's keep in mind that OSU won nine games last year and ten games the year before. Last week they throttled Hawaii, who played in a BCS bowl last year if I remember correctly. Stanford is going to be pretty respectable this year, so perhaps we should let the season play out before we slap the "cupcake" label on the Beavers just yet.
Iowa
Good God, Iowa. Way to represent the conference. It's bad enough you lost an out of conference game, but did you have to lose to a Big East team? And why did it have to be Pitt? Black Heart Gold Pants examines what went wrong.
Minnesota
The Daily Gopher is feeling pretty good about Minnesota's 4-0 start.
Managing expectations becomes tricky now, but this team is much better than a year ago. The offense is effecient and is playing with a killer instinct. The defense isn't going to be confused with the 2007 Ohio State D, but we now have players who are Big Ten caliber, are able to break on the ball, are tackling better and are in position to make plays. The Big Ten will be different than Bowling Green and Montana State, nobody is predicting 12-0. But many of us thought 3-1 would have made for a successful non-conference portion of the schedule. 4-0 and improving is where we sit. Bring on the Big Ten so we can continue to show that this team is different and things are changing in coach Brewster's Gopher Nation.
Michigan
The college football blogosphere weeped when Yost hung up The M Zone for good this summer. Thankfully, an equally funny Michigan Blog came into its own around the same time. Do yourself a favor and go check out Wolverine Liberation Army. Bookmark it. Go there every day and enjoy reading stuff like this.
The truth, comrades, is that the enemy Irish committed suicide at the walls of our offensive and defensive lines. When we attacked, they retreated, when we pounded the ball with Grady and threw the ball with Threet, they retreated even deeper. As we called off the dogs and allowed them to escape the field intact, the evil liar Charlie Weis, showing the wounds of battle himself, took to the press microphones for propaganda purposes.
Indiana
The poor Hoosiers. They had high hopes of building on their first bowl game in a hundred years last season. But then they fell to Ball State this weekend, and now reality is setting in.
One one level, I and most IU fans knew that this Hoosier team was unproven, with James Hardy gone on the offensive side and without Tracy Porter and Leslie Majors on the defensive side (obviously those guys really were missed against Ball State). On the other hand, I think most suspected that IU would be about on par with last year's team, at least in terms of record. Now, we have to face the possibility that after the fun of last year and all the promise it presented, we could be taking a huge step back, or at least hitting a big pothole. We can't beat a single Big Ten opponent with an effort like the Hoosiers produced last night.
Purdue
The guys at Boiled Sports really hate Notre Dame. I mean they really really REALLY hate Notre Dame. See for yourself.