There was this wonderful idea that was to be had. I would represent the Midwest Power 5 conference team and your one and only B1G, and Alex would represent that peppy upstart MAC with its Gang of 5 goodness. In typical non-con fashion, I waxed #TeamHustle with an efficiency General Sherman would approve of. Since then? Well, after last week’s 100 point loss, there was only room to go up, but it wasn’t that much up. Take a look:
Jesse #TeamEmpire | Alex #TeamHustle | |||||
QB | Jake Rudock, Michigan | 123 yards, 1 TD | 10 | Matt Johnson, BGSU | 433 yards, 41 rush yards, 5 total TD | 47 |
RB | Terrell Newby, Nebraska | 82 rush, 16 rec yards, 4 rec. | 11 | Darian Greene, Ball State | 164 rush, 14 rec yards | 17 |
RB | Ezekiel Elliott, OSU | 108 rush yards, 2 rec. 6 yards | 11 | Shaq Vann, EMU | 25 rush, 8 rec yards, 1 rec | 2.5 |
WR | Geronimo Allison, Illinois | 4 rec, 53 yards | 7 | Gehrig Dieter, BGSU | 1 rec, 13 yards | 1.5 |
WR | Matt VandeBerg, Iowa | 7 rec, 45 yards | 7.5 | Corey Davis, WMU | 6 rec, 139 yards, 2 TD | 22 |
WR | Robert Wheelright, Wisconsin | 2 rec., 50 yards | 6 | Rokeem Williams, Miami | nothing | 0 |
TE | Cethan Carter, Nebraska | 1 rec, 7 yards | 0.5 | Alex Zmolik, Toledo | Fumble rec TD | 6 |
FLEX (Q/R/W/T) | Cardale Jones, OSU | 36 pass, 11 rush yards | 4 | Joe Licata, Buffalo | 105 yards | 10 |
K | Griffin Oakes, Indiana | 5 XP, 27-yard FG | 8 | Jameson Vest, Toledo | 3 FG (30, 19, 42), 3 XP | 13 |
D/ST | Michigan | 27 | Ohio | 3 sacks | 6 | |
Loser | Northern Illinois | CORRECT | 5 | Purdue | CORRECT | 5 |
97 | 130 |
Gross. With pride on the line, it’s time we look at the lineups. We started over at Hustle Belt this week and moved over here. Start with them and then dive in as I put up another losing effort.
Jesse: Well how about that, three weeks down and the B1G is already losing to its little brother. I suppose this was inevitable. Never send a Nebraskan to do the work of a traditional Big Ten power, amirite? But seriously, this is getting ridiculous. I need a bounceback week in the worst way. So who am I going to throw out to defend the honor of the B1G? Not nearly a strong enough team. But before I go there… Alex, tell me why my team is awful.
Alex: In last week’s post, I mentioned that your Week 2 receivers were too busy baking me cookies (thanks again!) while mine were out there just doing the damn thing. I got lucky with Corey Davis rebounding from his dismal performance against Georgia Southern, but that’s really not why your team is awful. Your team is awful because everybody’s all like "Man, Cardale Jones is so good! I should follow him on Twitter!" while Matt Johnson’s on the statistical treadmill and on a steaming-hot pace to break the FBS passing record. And people wonder why we had him as the highest-rated quarterback in the MAC over the summer, despite not playing basically all of last year because of a hip injury.
Jesse: HE SCORED 47 POINTS! MY ENTIRE TEAM SCORED 97 POINTS AND THAT’S WITH 27 DEFENSIVE POINTS FROM MICHIGAN! Whatever, this is just the warmups. When the B1G get going, something something something… I don’t know, I’m pretty sad right now.
I guess I’ll lead with my new team captain for the week. At QB, none other than sunshine himself, Iowa’s CJ Beathard, aka the guy that forced Jake Rudock to sunnier pastures in Ann Arbor. He is bound to score a TD this week, right? They’re playing North Texas. North. Texas. Iowa is undefeated and their fans are excited. Nothing can go wrong! NOTHING! (He’s totally getting injured in a freak scooter accident and I’m scoring a zero here. It’s basically written). He will be handing the ball off to Minnesota’s Rodney Smith who has been less productive than Gopher fans would have hoped for so far. Still, he has the yards and needs to convert them into paydirt. Maybe the Fighting Frankies will be so kind as to throw me a bone? How about #TeamHustle? Who will be running for 1000 yards this week?
Alex:
Alex probably cheats
Alex probably cheats
I’m not sure if he’ll run for 1,000, but Travis Greene from Bowling Green should reach between 800-900 rushing yards against Purpoo. The Boilermakers have the worst rushing defense in the Big Ten, so I’m hoping Greene has a couple of 30+ rushes in this game. If not, he should start getting more involved in the passing game for the Falcons. Only six catches for 24 yards so far, but even if he catches two or three this week, I’ll be content.
I know it was tough for you to see your Huskers catch up and then drop a shoulda-been comeback win against Miami last week, but who will be trying to catch up and drop passes for #TeamEmpire this week?
Jesse: Drop passes you say? We’re good at that in Nebraska… and pretty much across the conference sadly. Have you watched Illinois play football? I think they have about 1000 drops already. Anyways, I’m going to hope for good things from my man Alonzo Moore (Nebraska). He’s not getting a ton of targets, but they seem to result in TDs. Since that’s something sorely missing from my fantasy repertoire, I figured it would be helpful to score a few points, right?
Oh, and it’s only fitting that I start a receiver from the most MAC team in the B1G… Indiana. Which, don’t look now, but they are 3-0 and… #iufb4gameday is a thing. Oh, who am I starting? Ricky Jones. Similar to Moore, all he does is catch TDs, which leads me to my FLEX player of the week. Since I can use anyone, and there is gameday on the line, I’m throwing out Nate Sudfeld. He’s probably my best chance at points and I’ve gotta get that chemistry thing going. A vital element missing from #TeamEmpire. Bottom line, I really need to start getting something on the board. So how about you, do you have a deadly pass catching WR/TE duo? I bet you do. I hate this game…
Alex: /pulls duo out of buttocks
YES I DO! Ronnie Moore is the receiver I’ll cycle through this week from Bowling Green (do you smell my strategy, or is that my butt again?). He’s averaging nearly 80 yards per game, but he’s yet to catch a touchdown for some reason. OH well, he’ll find the end zone sooner or later. UMass’ Rodney Mills will be my tight end, which I don’t think I’m expecting a whole lot in return from because it’s not like there’s a huge group of reliable tight ends to pick from in the MAC, which makes me gets the sads. Maybe he’ll surprise me? Maybe he won’t? #iufb4gameday anyways?
Also, I’ve got a kicker. A kicker made you look good when Northwestern took down Stanford in the first game of the season, so I’m hoping Morgan Hagee is going to help me out here this week. If Neal doesn’t get the Cardinals into the end zone, he should at least be able to get Hagee within field goal range a few times. Who do you have for D/ST this week?
Jesse: I have zero faith in my defense… And yet, I’m picking Nebraska because I think they are going to throttle the life out of Southern Mississippi. They may not be good at defending the pass, but they can sure as hell stop the run, and I think they’re going to get defensive TDs for me this week. Do you sense a theme? All I care about are TDs! ALL I CARE ABOUT ARE TDS!
I guess you have the last pick here. What is your B1G Loser of the week? You finally got one right? Can you make it two?
Alex: Man, I better. I wanted to pick Minnesota to lose this week, but I just couldn’t get myself to doing it. Then I was like "Michigan will totally lose at home to BYU" and now I’m like "ehhhh, I have to wait to pick them." Good time to remind our readers that we can’t re-pick the conference losers. Once we pick a team to lose, then we can’t re-pick a team to lose in the future. So even though they’ll have more opportunities to lose later, I think I’m going to pick Maryland. Maryland is a bad football team. I graduated from Eastern Michigan, majoring in Journalism and minoring in Knowing What a Bad Football Team Looks Like.
Jesse: Yeah… You’re probably not wrong.
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Final Week 4 B1G-MAC Rosters
Jesse #TeamEmpire | Alex #TeamHustle | |
QB | CJ Beathard, Iowa | Riley Neal, Ball State |
RB | Rodney Smith, Minnesota | Kareem Hunt, Toledo |
RB | Saquon Barkley, PSU | Travis Greene, BGSU |
WR | Alonzo Moore, Neb | Tajae Sharpe, UMass |
WR | Ricky Jones, Ind | Jordan Williams, Ball State |
WR | DJ Moore, Maryland | Ronnie Moore, BGSU |
TE | Austin Traylor, Wisconsin | Rodney Mills, UMass |
FLEX (Q/R/W/T) | Nate Sudfeld, MSU | Matt Johnson, BGSU |
K | Marshall Koehn, Iowa | Morgan Hagee, Ball State |
D/ST | Nebraska | Bowling Green |
Loser | Western Michigan | Maryland |
Catch up on all the excitement of the B1G-MAC Challenge in the B1G-MAC Fantasy Football Challenge Hub!