?

This one is for the football pundits who are (reasonably) trashing the Big Ten and (unreasonably) talking up Northwestern: Do you honestly believe the Wildcats are going to be in the B10 Championship Game come November? Or is pointing out the B10's inadequacies so easy that you just have to tack on some really stupid comment?

Thoughts on Saturday

- Are Wolverine fans feeling a little déjà vu? I don't think this team will crash as thoroughly as last year's (I can hope though!), but it still has to be an awful feeling.

- Is Denard Robinson still a Heisman contender?

- I really didn't expect Wisconsin to beat OSU. I was hoping for it, but I'm surprised it happened.

- I'm having a hard time accepting that MSU is likely considered the favorite to win the Big Ten title by many. Sure, I think it's a possibility, I'm just not used to others agreeing.

- It is mind-boggling that winning that title would put them in the hunt for the national title. I don't think MSU is that good, but I think they'll have to run the table to win the Big Ten, and if you do that your BCS ranking has to be pretty good.

- The Illinois game felt a lot closer than it was.

- MSU often has trouble with Northwestern. They need to start fast next week.

- Things are going to start getting a lot more heated with all these Iowa fans.

Wildcats 17, Hawkeyes 10

Sooner or later your mistakes will catch up with you, and that happened to Iowa this afternoon. I shed no tears for the Hawkeyes, even though the loss will knock them from the #4 spot and pretty well confirm the conventional wisdom about the Big Ten. How much do Iowa fans hate the Wildcats right now?

Shameful

The Spartans did the unthinkable Saturday and lost to the Northwestern Wildcats. That's right, the same NU team that lost to Duke. Duke. Let that sink in for a moment. This was a loss that goes right up there with last year's loss to ND as far as sheer embarassment. It's a good thing it was on the Big Ten Network and no one saw it. So, what went wrong?

1. Defensive Secondary: Just a sec... okay, I'm back. I had to go throw up just remembering MSU's pass defense yesterday. It was the single worst display of pass coverage I've seen in my entire life, including high school football. In fact, they looked like a bad high school team trying to defend the pass. They played soft coverage, 5-10 yds of the WRs, all day and waved at the ball carriers instead of trying to tackle them. They gave up 520 yards passing and 5 TDs to a QB who hadn't thrown a TD pass in 3 games. I'd say they played like a bunch of little girls, but I've coached powder puff football and those girls played with more ferocity and enthusiasm for tackling than the Spartans did yesterday. "Spartans! What is your profession?"

"Knitting?"
"Playing with paper dolls?"
"I like kittens."

Pathetic.

The Spartans also dropped at least 4 possible interceptions.

2. Offense: Sure, they scored 41 pts, but it wasn't enough. They could score to tie the game, but every time they had a chance to take the lead they couldn't get it done. That pretty much describes the QB, Hoyer, too. He makes some good plays, but comes up short when it matters.

3. Play-calling in OT: The coaching staff has been clear that they wanted to establish a run-first identity for this team. So what did they do in OT? Four-straight long passes, zero points, one big L.

4. Refs: Hopefully the refs never make too much of a difference in the game and the Spartans had plenty of chances to win this one. However, the refs missed at least two very obvious holding calls, despite 67,000 people pointing them out. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, but as hard as defensive stops were to come by, maybe it would have.

Homecoming against Indiana is now a gut-check game. NU and IU should have been guaranteed wins that would have put MSU well on their way to a bowl game, now the Spartans are going to struggle to not be a laughingstock.