Mailbag - Who Ya Got in the B1G Championship Edition

Great job on the mailbag questions this week! Without further ado:

Q: What’s your ideal finish for the potential B1G contenders in each Division? ChrisHarrells’_stache5

Townie: I think Iowa wins out and goes to the conference championship game. Michigan will lose to OSU. Michigan State/OSU will determine the East...and MSU will take it this year.

Speth- Iowa gets upset by Indiana and Nebraska. Wisconsin wins out. I laugh maniacally all the way to a 4 TD loss to OSU in Indy.

MNW: Iowa and Wisconsin both get hit by meteors, Northwestern swoops in. I don’t even care if we lose by 50 to Ohio State.

LPW: What MNW said.

WSR: tOSU rolls through the East, Iowa gets through the West with a single loss, Sparty loses a close one to the Buckeyes, wisconsin, Michigan, and Nebraska lose out causing mass hysteria amongst their fanbases. Northwestern forfeits the Illinois game to study for finals while Illinois forfeits the Northwestern game because the football team takes a cue from the fans and refuses to show up.

Jesse: Football is dumb.

Creighton: Iowa wins out in the west. Northwestern beats Wisconsin so the Badger fans stop crying about all the "Iowa didn’t win, Stave lost" stuff (There are like 40 other guys that get playing time. Stop using a scapegoat to validate yourselves). Nebraska loses out because they haven’t been nationally relevant in over a decade. In the East: Sparty beats Ohio State and in the postgame Dantonio makes a distasteful remark about how Urban Meyer is a hypocrite for complaining about Florida State’s discipline like a week before barely punishing JTB (making a future NFL player pay for his own summer school once isn’t fooling anyone). Ohio State pounds Michigan to avenge Jerry Kill and fill our comment section with Wolverine tears (the refs cost us the game!)

GF3: Ohio State wins a down-to-the-wire game for the ages against MSU in which both teams look like world-beaters. OSU stomps Michigan out of their own stadium by four scores. Iowa wins out in the West and literally becomes this year’s Wisconsin, losing 59-0 to OSU in Indy. OSU and possibly MSU make the playoff, and Iowa beats an SEC team in a quality bowl.

Stew:  Iowa wins out 100-0 in all of their games.  OSU beats MSU, loses to everyone else.  MSU beats UNL, loses to PSU and MD.  PSU beats MSU and MI, but loses to jNW.  MI beats OSU, but loses to Buttgers, Indiana, and PSU.  UNL loses all of their games.  MN beats WI, but loses all of their other games.  WI loses the rest of their games.  jNW beats WI and PSU, loses to IL and Purdue.  Don’t care about any of the other games.  Fuck all of you.

Q: Who is John Gait? - SpartanHT

Townie: I thought you went to an Ag School, not a Liberal Arts school.

Speth- John Gait is John Gait.

MNW: Stop asking stupid fucking questions.

C4B: No idea who John Gait is, but I’ve heard John Galt is somebody worth knowing. No one’s seen him in a while, though.

WSR: He’s the Williams Fellow in Ceramic Petrology at the British School in Athens.

Creighton: Who are you? Who am I? Is any of this real? How do we know our entire universe doesn’t exist completely within the dreaming mind of a conscious gas cloud floating through space? Or perhaps on the pages of some nerd kid named Bastian’s book?

GF3: Sigh. Can we just not?

Stew:  There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. (this is an old joke).

Q: Which current B1G Interim HC sticks through next season?

Which 1G team is going to faceplant worst over the final few weeks of the season?

Which OTE "Writer" is the biggest gardner? - waw

Townie: Tracy Claeys will definitely stay for Minnesota. I don’t think we’ll see any of the other interim coaches hold on to their positions. The biggest faceplant over the last three games could be Penn State. After going 7-2 so far, they face Northwestern, Michigan, and MSU. I thought we’d get to eight wins, which would mean beating Northwestern, most likely. Finally, I’m a pretty avid gardner, but I can’t compete with the farmers out in the mid-west.

Speth- Claeys should stay at Minnesota irregardless (Hi Stew!) of what happens the rest of the year. I don't see Locksley or Cubit doing enough to keep the job.

Iowa. I spelled it out in the last question. This is still the Big Ten Wisconsin Division.

Probably Townie for avoiding that question. He said gardner not gardener. Just kidding, love you.

MNW: I think Claeys stays. I think, like Townie, that Penn State could faceplant. I don’t see better than 2-1, and I think 0-3 is more likely than that.

Jesse: First off, I’m the best gardener. I have no context for why i’m the best gardener, but it’s true. As for who will faceplant the most, it has to be Nebraska, right? Like, we are totally going to end this thing horrifically, and fans are going to freak out. Awesome. Oh, and I think Claeys is it. I think he gets the job before too long as HC without the interim label.

WSR: Claeys will stick because of the overall precarious situation of the U of M athletic department.  It also won’t hurt his cause that he’ll be wielding a giant bronze pig in one arm and a giant axe in the other.  Neither of the other interim coaches are worth anything, so I doubt they’ll be retained.  Illinois needs to get busy hiring Tim Brewster, and Maryland needs to hire...I dunno, somebody? I still have no idea why Maryland is in the B1G.  Best faceplant? It’s going to be hilarious when wisconsin loses to justNorthwestern and Minnesota to end a season they should have gone 11-1 with that weak ass schedule.

LPW: Claeys, no doubt.

I think Wisconsin is going to faceplant, (Nebraska can’t faceplant because they’re already up shit creek), and I don’t have a garden, but my father does, and I might’ve picked up a few tricks over the years.

Creighton: I would have told you Cubit for sure a couple of weeks ago. Now, I’m positive it will just be Claeys. I don’t predict any major faceplanting, but for some reason I could see Wisconsin tripping on either Minnesota or Northwestern. Nebraska’s whole season has been one giant faceplant, however, so they win this question by default. As for gardening: I grow basil and jalapeno peppers on my deck. Hardly a garden, but whatever...who has time for that?

GF3: I have to agree with the Claeys call. He’s the only one who makes sense to stay, because he’s not part of a poison coaching tree. Jerry left on great terms. Beckman and Edsall were run out of town on a rail, and neither of their replacements has done anything to warrant faith. Illinois and Maryland fight over table scraps. The biggest faceplant overall? Or among teams who have not faceplanted? For the former, gotta feel good about Penn State’s chances. For the latter, it could easily be an OSU team that can’t seem to get out of its own way. The Buckeyes could drop both end-of-season games.

Stew:  The Claeys have it.  PSU, OSU, and MSU have the most opportunity to face plant playing pretty difficult schedules down the stretch.  Iowa can fall the furthest, though.

Q: Could TCU and Baylor both make the playoff? - TeamX

DJ: Uh, no.  #TeamChaos is Baylor derping a game with a true freshman QB but finding a way to beat TCU.

Townie: Not a fucking chance.

Speth- Yeah and Purdue could go bowling and I could quit drinking. I'm far more likely to quit drinking than either of the first two things.

MNW: #OneTrueChampion

C4B: Well, they actually play each other this year, so no.

WSR: No. But TCU could probably going to win the whole damn thing. If Trevone Boykin doesn’t either win or come in 2nd for the Heisman, it’s a disgrace.

Jesse: No, but I am going to admit something. I really enjoy watching both of them play. I think that defense is firmly voluntary in the Big XII, but those offenses are gorgeous things to behold.

LPW: No way

Creighton: Hahaha….no. The winner of their head-to-head has a decent chance if they win out. Personally, I think it would be funny if they both missed out again just so we could see Bowlsby scramble to add Boise State or whoever in the next couple of years so they can go back to having a championship game.

GF3: I’ll be the contrarian and say they both could, but very likely won’t. I mostly stick to that because of the 2007 BCS. It’s possible for them to play a 4OT barn-burner and for the other top contenders to dick-trip so hard that it opens a path. So it’s probably possible, though about as likely as Cardale Jones suddenly learning how to run the read-option well.

Stew: LOLNOPE

Q: What happens first - Nebraska, under Mike Riley wins the Big Ten or Youngstown State under Bo Pelini wins the 1-AA Championship? - KetteringLex

Townie: Bo Pelini wins the 1-AA Championship...probably before Mike Riley puts together a winning season.

Speth- Neither. Riley just got a vote of confidence from the AD today. Bo’s a far better coach than Riley, but he's not winning an FCS title this year. I like Chattanooga to win it all this year. As a side note, Nebraska please don't fire Riley. The more job openings, the more Dave Aranda is as good as gone.

DJ: Votes of confidence from the AD generally lead to you getting fired sometime in the near future.  So I’m guessing Riley doesn’t have long to win the Big Ten and Pelini probably has much more time at Youngstown State if he wants it.

WSR: If you really want us to pick one, it’s Pelini. It’s not easy to win the B1G when you finish 4+ games back from the division champions.  Only Bret Bielema has been able to pull that off.

Jesse: Um, this is a false dichotomy… In that neither are probably happening. Oh, and if we’re being completely honest, you all realize that Riley has a much better chance at winning a Conference Championship than does Bo have at winning the entire championship at 1AA. Now, if we’re asking who wins a conference championship first? That’s up for debate. I mean, Bo has such a good track record at those, right?

LPW: Pelini wins big at YSU.

Creighton: Neither will happen, but Riley wins by default because Bo will be back in the FBS long before Nebraska finally gets around to firing Riley. I want Bo back in the B1G because ever since Illinois canned Beckman, we have been without a resident clown. Every conference needs one, and Fitz can only do so much as interim clown.

GF3: Door number three...the sun becomes a red giant and swallows the earth, ending life as we know it. That’s about a 5 billion year timeline, so....

Stew:  Probably neither because Pelini is totally going to Illinois after the Paul Rhoads tenure.

Q: Which rematch of a non-con game would you most like to see this season? - waw

• Wisconsin/Alabama

• MSU/Oregon

• Iowa/Pitt

• NW/Stanford

• Michigan/Utah

• Other…

Townie: I’m not a huge fan of revisionist history. The whole ESPN narrative that "Stanford doesn’t lose that game to Northwestern if they play today", is total bullshit. You played, you lost. Shut the fuck up and move on. Try again next year. I heard Miami fans bitch for years that if they played that 1987 Fiesta Bowl game again, Miami would win nine times out of ten. It was a team loaded with NFL talent...blah, fucking blah. We played, you lost, suck it "U".

Speth- Bama/Wisconsin obviously. I want our best defensive and offensive player actually healthy this time. DON’T TACKLE PEOPLE WITH YOUR FACE CAPUTO. I’d like to see Michigan/Utah again too. I feel like both those games could have different results.

MNW: Stanford/Northwestern. I think we can score on the Cardinal (still! Seriously!), and I would give our defense a shot. We’d lose 8 out of 10, but I would take our odds.

WSR: Bama/wisconsin.  I didn’t laugh hard enough at the first bludgeoning, so I could use another 60 minutes of wisconsin starring in a college football snuff film.

Jesse: Michigan vs. Utah seems entertaining again. I still think Utah wins, but a rematch at the end of the season would be really entertaining as it would show progression in general.

LPW: Michigan - Utah.

Creighton: Northwestern/Stanford I guess? Honestly, I kind of want to see Minnesota get another shot at Nebraska or Michigan.

GF3: None of those. I think the B1G stands to look far worse if most of those are replayed. I’d like to see MSU play Air Force again. The Falcons have really hit their stride. Also, all the thug cut blocks, etc. Better yet, I want to see Wisconsin at full strength against Iowa. With Clement, the Badgers win that guy 8 out of 10 times.

Stew:  Iowa/ISU because I want to beat them again.  Also, GF3, Iowa was also pretty damn banged up in that game, but whatever.  They were at about equal strength.

Q: Can Iowa go undefeated in the regular season? - MT Buck

Townie: Yep.

Speth- Yes. They play a bunch of hot garbage. Will they? No. GO HOOSIERS!

DJ: Regular Season? Most definitely, although weirdly enough I think Nebraska gives them their hardest game of the remaining.  I think they are rooting hard for MSU or Michigan, or both, to take out OSU.  They stand a much better chance against either of those teams than they do against OSU.

C4B: Can, yes. Will? I’m not so sure. #ChaosTeam

WSR: Can? Yes. Will?  **dismissive snort**

Jesse: NOPE BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO PLAY NEBRASKA. (uh, yes, yes Iowa can go undefeated in the regular season.)

LPW: Probably not.

Creighton: Well they got through the more difficult first half of their schedule unscathed, so obviously 12-0 is a distinct possibility. The last few years have taught us Hawkeye fans to be cautious with our optimism, so not as many people are straight up calling 12-0 as the internet would have you believe. Indiana is a possible "trap game", Minnesota has shown that they are by no means an easy out, and Nebraska is fully capable of focusing an energy of pure spite on Black Friday to make things interesting. The attitude I’m seeing a lot is that we at least expect to make the CCG. Other than that, each victory brings more and more of us to say "Holy shit, they might actually be able to pull this off!"

GF3: Absolutely. As much as we find some of the reactions about our Iowa opinions to be unsavory, they’re the most complete team in the West right now. Indiana’s staunch refusal to play defense will keep the Hawkeyes alive, and Minnesota without the emotion of Jerry’s departure and post Ohio State drubbing won’t topple them. I’d say Iowa just about has it wrapped up, barring stupidity. Like, say, the QB getting behind the wheel drunk or something…

Stew:  WOOO!!!  GO IOWA AWESOME!!!

Thanks for the great questions...and make sure you leave us some new ones in the comments below...or else I'll defile the lounge again!

Your Friends,

Townie and the OTE "Writers"