It's back everybody! Your favorite place to pretend to comment on how high or low your team is ranked, but really to just discuss how accurately I portrayed your team using various pop culture references. This year, we even made it more fun by adding two teams to the B1G, forcing even more deep thoughts than ever. Seriously, when researching ideas for this year's topics, I realized a few very important things:
- There are rarely 14 relevant characters to anything. By about character six, you're just making one-off jokes. Purdue is destined to be literally non-existent by the end of the season.
- When you look at the comments sections from the past few years, you realize that comparing the B1G to a circus just wasn't that cool of an idea. I thought it was cool, but you all are haters.
- You will be reminded week after week after week to do things, say you'll think about it, promptly forget, and then reminded to do it again. Yes, we will have a GoT week. Yes, we will most likely have an Americans week. Yes, someone will take over for me midseason to do a Minecraft week because I literally have no idea how that game works. No, we will not do a Beyonce week (that's a lie).
Getting that out of the way, I just wanted to let you know how excited to be doing the Power Poll again. It means football is right around the corner, it means I get to interact with you all in some consistent manner, and it means we get to wildly overrate and underrate teams.
That in mind, a couple new features I'm adding this year. I'm going to put the range of places for each team so you can see exactly where each team is being rated. Rutgers is 1-14? Of course they are! MSU is 1-14? Sure, why not? I'm also going to try and add the previous week ratings so you can kind of see where teams are trending. If there are any other features you'd like to see, let me know.
Other than that, the normal stuff is normal, only now each first place vote is worth 14 points, second is worth 13, etc. I will also include last place vote counts.
Does everyone get it? We're all on the same page? Perfect. So I was thinking about how to launch the new B1G Power Poll. In honor of the fact that the Big Ten is now apparently an East Coast conference, I decided to honor our new friends with some east coast comparisons. Our esteemed colleague Ted Glover recommended this, but then I started thinking about things on the East Coast and all I could come up with were arguably really offensive, and if they weren't, they probably should be. That said, if there's one thing I think we can all appreciate and get behind on the East Coast, it's this. Rappers.
That's right, I'm starting the Power Poll off with rap music again and there is nothing you can do about it. Sure, you might complain about it, but then again, you complained about circuses. CIRCUSES WAS AN AWESOME CATEGORY! I WILL HEAR NOTHING MORE ON THE TOPIC.
There were 16 voters this week.
1. Michigan State - Jay-Z
224 Points || 16 First Place Votes || High 1 Low 1 || LW: 1
You're currently the top of the scene. We all know that you had to work your way to the top, and you probably deserve all the accolades you're getting, but most of us can't help but kind of hate the way that worked out either. I mean, you went from Hard Knock Life to Tom Ford, and now you can't stop talking about #brands. And by #brands, I mean you're obnoxiously good defense and Connor Cook. Can you keep it up? Only time will tell. A lot of people have spoken of your demise, but it hasn't happened yet. I guess we'll see.
2. Ohio State - Notorious B.I.G.
200 Points || High 2 Low 4 || LW 2
You are the face of the scene. You are what people think of when they think of East Coast Rap, or uh, the B1G. You also probably know the feeling of Mo' Money, Mo' Problems better than anyone. You have as much talent as anyone, the brand name to make any song big, and while we know things didn't exactly end so great for you - as it seems to have been lately - we can't really do an East Coast Rap piece without talking about how talented you are. Now just steer clear of the West Coast and if you would not encourage people to shoot you, that would be great.
3. Wisconsin - Wu-Tang Clan
193 Points || High 2 Low 5 || LW T3
If we were to ask most normal people about you, they'd say you're pretty great but not be able to name one thing you ever did. Sadly, you might be the best thing in this whole mess of a conference. More importantly, you are really about the various moving parts you have going on, and those are all pretty great. If they gel together, then this thing will really take off. If not? Well, do you remember Inspectah Deck's album? No? Exactly.
4. Nebraska - Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, Whatever...
170 Points || High 3 Low 7 || LW T3
Hey look, we're going to make a reference to being good in the 90s. Fun. I expect a lot of that. The funny thing is, you are still relevant, and people still kind of care about you because you're more or less talented, but if you really sit down and think about it, your peak is probably over. That doesn't mean you don't get to hang out in the high-rollers clubs, talk about the good ol' days, and maybe even squeak out a Top Ten finish here or there. Will it be this year? Hard to say.
5. Iowa - LL Cool J
165 Points || High 3 Low 7 || LW 5
You are all about establishing cycles. You have the good times where you are going platinum with threats of knocking people out because your mother said so, and you have that time you wrote a strange, strange country track with Brad Paisley. The craziest thing is that these aren't stagnant. You just keep going up and down between these cycles, and for those of us keeping score at home, it's pretty impressive. Will this year be one of those good times? Everything is setup for your success. Now you just got to avoid the crazy stuff.
6. Michigan - Run D.M.C.
137 Points || High 4 Low 8 || LW 8
Remember that time you were a huge part of making the scene what it is today? Then remember that time when the face of your group kept doing the same schtick and ended up on Cooking Channel? Yeah, not so great. Look, nobody is going to debate whether or not you have the history and talent to do big things and attract big opportunities. What we are going to doubt is whether or not you actually still have anything left up your sleeve. It seems your AD - erm, agent - is willing to sell your brand out to the highest bidder. We all just hope you make changes and show off before you crater anymore. Or we'll just hatewatch you and your weird cooking show and laugh about it. Just know, you're basically on the same level as Vanilla Ice now.
7. Penn State - Nas
116 Points || High 5 Low 11 || LW 7
You are a legend, and that can't be easily taken away from you. Unfortunately, you've also had some weird times lately, and it sucks watching some of your contemporaries and rivals doing so well. Hell, you made most of them, so it really hurts. So what do you do? Find some new producers, push some hype together, and work on bringing back the magic of your earlier years. You've gotten the coach part right, but now we'll see if being out of the big game has hurt you at all. We're not counting you out, but we also wouldn't be surprised if you fail either. Note, this seems to be a recurring them with everyone, doesn't it?
8. Minnesota - Public Enemy
113 Points || High 6 Low 12 || LW 6
Similar to a lot of comparisons on this list, you were kings, went through a really really bad period, and then kind of made a good comeback. That pretty much sums up the career arc here. Lucky for you, you're currently in a mostly good stage, with the sneaky potential to be really good. I mean, your mantra should probably be, we're "harder than you think" which will probably hold true. Also, I'm really proud of using a track title in this description. Yay me. We're just a little over halfway done...
9. Northwestern - A$AP Mob
91 Points || High 7 Low 11 || LW 10
The first really newly successful one on the list! You kind of represent that whole new era of football started in 1995 modern East Coast rap scene, and you're really good at it. Sure, your roster doesn't have a lot of depth, and the reality is that the face of the group will eventually leave to brighter pastures despite swearing everlasting allegiance, but that's all relative. For the time being, you'd like to rise to the top of the game so that your name gets put next to everyone else on this list. Or, you just really hope you don't end up irrelevant. That would suck. Just keep doing weird collaborations where you surprise the hell out of everyone, and you should be just fine. I think that's a reference to beating Nebraska and Iowa in some surprising manner. I'm sure there's a Hail Mary joke in there, but I'll let you all have at it. I'm getting loopier as these go along.
10. Maryland - DJ Kool
85 Points || High 7 Low 12 || LW #goacc
I mean, I feel like I kind of have to make this comparison. You are bringing in the DC/Maryland area to the group, and we appreciate that. You might be a one-hit wonder as well, but we're not here to judge. That one hit - or uh, one wide receiver - is way good. Honestly, you're probably best doing things behind the scene and not taking the spotlight, but we're giving you a chance this year. Will that work out for you? Probably not. It's not like we've given you a lot of room for error. But if you do? It will be legendary. So hey, you've got that going for you!
11. Indiana - DMX
78 Points || High 7 Low 12 || LW 9
So as a general rule of thumb, you're really not the first rapper anyone thinks of as the best thing to come out of the conference. In fact, you're probably more often considered a punchline than are you considered a great. That being said, you're really really good at the party song. How many people have enjoyed watching you perform? Everyone? I think so. So what if you can't do anything else great? So long as you score as many points as you can, or uh, write as ridiculous a song as you can and bark a lot, it works out.
12. Rutgers - Ja Rule
46 Points || 2 Last Place Votes || High 7 Low 14 || LW #lolaac
You're here because of that one time Irv Gotti helped make you really popular for some reason, and then we let you hang out and get rich, right? So that's not the whole story, but after some embarrassments - mainly the movies, please stop with the movies - we were wondering what was going on with you. The reality of the situation is that you have the potential to be a juggernaut. You just need to not be nearly as sucky as you have been as of late. Also, sorry if we make fun of you and you get mad about it. It's just... Well, saying someone is your rival when they continuously beat the hell out of you is just funny. 50 Cent thought it was funny, and he kind of won in the end. Just remember that.
13. Illinois - Cam'Ron
44 Points || High 9 Low 13 || LW 11
You just can't have nice things. I mean, technically you've had a few nice things over the years, but it's either really nice things like releasing Oh Boy - an obnoxious but legitimate hit - or really terrible things like pretty much everything you've released ever. Am I being a little too harsh? Should we stop and appreciate all of the great things you've added to society? Like uh, stop snitching? Sure. Or, we could laugh at the fact that you have one conference win in two years and that's a really good analogue to Cam'Ron's career in general. That said, Hey Ma is now stuck in my head and I know it will be stuck there for the foreseeable future.
14. Purdue - MiMS
18 Points || 14 LPV || High 13 Low 14 || LW :(
You had a hit once, and I suppose it was good? Sorta? Let's go to Rap Genius for some takes on that hit single:
To save you all some time: the reason Mims is hot is because he is hot. The reason you are not hot is because you are not hot. -
Rap Genius
Look, this is probably the nicest comparison you're going to get this year Purdue unless you get your act together. Let this be considered the warning shot across the bow. Please don't make me break out the Cow Pie again.