Heading into week four, the Big Ten only has three undefeated teams remaining: Minnesota, Northwestern and Ohio State. Barring a total meltdown (aka losing to Syracuse) these teams should remain undefeated and head into the conference schedule unscathed. However, I highly doubt these teams are going to win out (technically, they all can't). Look into your heart Gophers, Wildcats and Buckeyes, you know it to be true. Yes, the conference schedule is a brutal one and there’s no way everyone makes it out alive. So I pose this question to you: If you knew you had to lose, would you rather lose early in the year or later?

There's positives and negatives to each situation. However, I feel like losing a game early is better. Why? Well, for the following:

• If you're ranked you'll have time to climb the rankings latter.
• Your team will take on a sense of urgency. Unless your team is Wisconsin.
• A barometer is set for the rest of the season.
• There's a chance your team will improve with each week. Unless your team is Iowa, in November.

Naturally, you'd think if you lost a game late in the year it would be a conference game. That's not the question I'm asking. For argument's sake we'll just say it's a later OOC game against Notre Dame or something. So what do you think? Lose now or lose later? It's not a morbid question, is it? It's just asking about the timeliness of an eventuality.

Also, do you want to gamble? Well, here are some odds:

Links after the jump.

Team Links:

• Illinois isn't doing so well on the attendance front and fans don't really care about the program. We knew these things. Also, who is doing well on the attendance front in Illinois? Aside from the Bears?
• Indiana is on a bye week meaning they can't lose to a MAC team. However, they now have an opportunity to talk about basketball. Because they don't have much time to talk about that.
• Central Michigan QB Ryan Radcliff is looking for a bounce back game against Iowa.
• A full rundown of Central Michigan (who is playing Iowa).
• A nice rundown on Iowa linebacker Anthony Hitchens.
• The latest Michigan recruiting news from MGoBlog.
• Brady Hoke compares himself to Chris Farley. I have nothing else to say about this.
• MGoBlog breaks down Michigan's defensive performance against UMass.
• Ron English is worried about his teams weaknesses, not Michigan State's.
• What you can expect to see against Eastern Michigan, from Sparty.
• Wait, Mike Hart is still alive?
• Minnesota freshman wide receiver Andre McDonald has been hospitalized but not much else is known (as of 9PM, Thursday).
• The Corn Nation mailbag.
• Idaho State's video game offense will test Nebraska.
• Corn Nation has everything you need to know about the game against Idaho State.
• Name of the Week: South Dakota Edition (per Sippin').
• Northwestern wants people to care.
• tOSU picks up a huge commit in 4-star defensive end Tyquan Lewis.
• Will tOSU overlook UAB? I highly doubt it. And it honestly doesn't even matter if they do.
• Preview: UAB at Ohio State via Land Grant Holy Land.
• The Situational from 11W isn't something you can really describe...you just have to read it.
• Is Brax more talented than Tim Tebow? ESPN is about to lose their shit.
• Hope surfaces for Penn State after the Navy win.
• Preview: Penn State (1-2 LOL) vs. Temple (1-1)
• The Nittany Lions want to set the game tone early against Temple.
• Hammer and Rails grades the Boilers a quarter-way through the season.
• Redshirt freshman Joel Stave will start for Wisconsin against UTEP. LOL DANNY OBRIEN LOL.
• Why the Badgers will improve as the season goes along.
• 5 things to watch for Wisconsin against UTEP.

Conference Links:

• The Big Ten Thursday mailbag from ESPN's B1G blog.
• MLive's Big Ten picks. Everyone wins...except for Michigan and Louisiana Tech.
• The Big Ten awards race tracker from ESPN's B1G blog.
• BSD's week 4 Big Ten preview.
• IlliniHQ's Big Ten picks. Yes, they have Illinois losing.
• The latest Big Ten mailbag from BTN.

Finally, here's an 8 year old going HAM:

H/T to Kegs n Eggs.