Week 1 Big Ten Power Poll: Pranks

Football is finally here, and we’ve had one week of non conference games. Everyone not in Chicago or New Brunswick is happy about the results. According to our friends at InsideNU, Northwestern hit the weight room hard after being dominated by Iowa, Michigan and Tennessee. I think the team pulled a prank on us, because Western boat-rowing fucking Michigan dominated us in time of possession almost 2 to 1. In that vein, our power poll theme of the week is Pranks!

1 — Ohio State Buckeyes — The Curious Case of Sidd Finch

Total Points: 251. First Place Votes: 17. Last Place Votes: 0. Highest: 1. Lowest: 2.

Sports Illustrated 30 something years ago noticed that an issue would drop on April Fools day, so they decided to have participatory journalist George Plimpton team up with the New York Mets and concoct the most epic prank of all time: an eccentric baseball player with a 168 mph fastball. They drafted a suburban Chicago art teacher to play Finch, and actually sent him to training camp!

After the article dropped, tons of people bought it, including several other Major League general managers who called the Commissioner expressing worry about their batters getting hit from an errant pitch. That’s absolutely epic, just like Ohio State’s thrashing of Bowling Green 77-10.

2 — Michigan Wolverines — Lennay Kekua

Total Points: 231. First Place Votes: 0. Last Place Votes: 0. Highest: 2. Lowest: 4

ND linebacker and Hawaii native Manti Te’o was cruelly catfished by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. We all know the story. It was a prank about as cruel as Michigan’s 63-3 beatdown of the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors.

3 — Wisconsin Badgers — The Great Mule Caper

Total Points: 231. First Place Votes: 0. Last Place Votes: 0. Highest: 2. Lowest: 4

Every year the Army plays Navy in the last week of the college football season. The two service academies really don’t get along with each other, and some of their “spirit missions” include the theft of their mascots. West Point cadets have repeatedly driven down to Maryland and stolen the Navy’s goats. In the early 90s a couple of fed up Midshipmen decided they’ve had enough, so they dressed up as Army MPs and soldiers, subdued and hogtied a few guards, and drove off with the Army’s mules.

The Army was so pissed they decided to send helicopters all over the eastern seaboard trying to find the thieves. The midshipmen were caught as they entered the gates of Annapolis by DOD police, but luckily the commanding officer of the Naval Academy ordered the DOD police to escort the thieves to a rally of jubilant Midshipmen.

Last weekend the Wisconsin Badgers finally won their opening game against SEC powerhouse LSU 14-16.

4 — Iowa Hawkeyes — Yale hacks Harvard’s card stunt: WE SUCK

Total Points: 192. FPV: 0. LPV: 0. Highest: 3. Lowest: 12

Last week Iowa defeated Miami Hydroxide 45-21

5 — Michigan State Spartans -- MIT Students putting a cop car on the Great Dome

Total Points: 187. FPV: 0. LPV: 0. Highest: 3. Lowest: 12

MIT Students cope with the pressure of going to MIT with their long tradition of leaving pranks all over campus, or as they call them “hacks”. A repeated target of their pranks is the Great Dome, and a couple of pranksters managed to put a Cop Car on the dome!

Michigan State won last week against Furman

6 — Nebraska Cornhuskers — MIT Students inflate a balloon during a Harvard - Yale football game

Total Points: 171. FPV: 0. LPV: 0. Highest: 3. Lowest: 7

7 — Penn State Nittany Lions — MIT Students steal a cannon from Cal Tech

Total Points: 128. FPV: 0. LPV: 0. Highest: 6. Lowest: 11

A bunch of MIT students drove across the country to Pasadena, made a fraudulent work order, and drove off with a cannon. While some of us might think that PSU head coach James Franklin is a fraud of a head coach, at least he won his game last week against Kent State.

8 — Indiana Hoosiers — MIT Students welcome a new President by hiding his office

Total Points: 120. FPV: 0. LPV: 0. Highest: 4. Lowest: 12

Indiana won last week against Florida Atlantic

9 — Minnesota Golden Gophers — The Great Rose Bowl Hoax

Total Points: 111. FPV: 0. LPV: 0. Highest: 6. Lowest: 12

Minnesota used to be a powerhouse in football, and back in 1961 they appeared in the Rose Bowl in sunny Pasadena, California. What Minnesota did not count on was a couple of students at nearby Cal Tech, upset that their school was ignored, breaking into the hotel room of their cheerleaders and reordering the card stunt so that Gopher fans would hold up cards that spelled CALTECH.

Minnesota won last week against the Oregon State Beavers 30-23 in Tracey Claey’s debut as the permanent Goofball head coach.

10 — Illinois Fighting Illini — Ken Griffey Jr buys Lou Pinella a “steak dinner”

Total Points: 90. FPV: 0. LPV: 0. Highest: 7. Lowest: 13

11 — Maryland Terrapins — ‘Decorating’ an office workers cube with a yearbook photo

Total Points: 83. FPV: 0. LPV: 0. Highest: 8. Lowest: 12

Some of us (ok, maybe all of us) have horrible yearbook photos that we’d prefer not to see again, just like how we all dislike how much Maryland plasters their damn state flag everywhere. Imagine someone covering your desk with your freshman year yearbook photo, or worse, the Maryland state flag?

Maryland won last week against Howard 52-13

12 — Northwestern Wildcats — Bieberifying all of your coworker’s stock images

Total Points: 74. FPV: 0. LPV: 0. Highest: 7. Lowest: 13

I fully expected Northwestern to win this game, while allowing for WMU to be competitive because they were feisty in their game against MSU last year. Hot damn was I wrong. We got pushed around and they had the ball just about twice as much as we did. FUCK! This is about as bad as an office worker named David Thorne screwing with his with his coworker by photoshopping Justin Bieber into every single one of his stock images.

13 — Purdue Boilermakers — Auburn Students greasing Georgia Tech’s train

Total Points: 37. FPV: 0. LPV: 1. Highest: 11. Lowest: 14

Is Purdue on the right track after beating Eastern Kentucky 45-24? It’s hard to tell because the school has been on the skids ever since Kyle “Neckbeard” Orton went to the NFL. Speaking of trains and skids, back in 1896 Auburn hosted the Georgia Tech engineers, who traveled to Auburn by train. A bunch of Auburn students decided to coat 400 yards of train tracks with grease, which ensured that the Georgia Tech train didn’t stop until five miles after Auburn.

14 — Rutgers Scarlet Knights — Failing to steal a cannon from Princeton

Total Points: 21. FPV: 0. LPV: 17. Highest: 11. Lowest: 14

Rutgers is the absolute worst after they got their GTL asses kicked by the Washington Huskies 48-13. They couldn’t do anything right in Chris Ash’s debut as the Scarlet Knight head man. This kind of reminds me of the time Rutgers students tried and failed to steal a Revolutionary War Cannon from Princeton. I’ll let Wikipedia tell the tale:

In October 1946, a contingent of Rutgers men slipped onto the Princeton campus and again tried to steal the famed cannon. This attempt was even more disastrous than the first. They attached one end of a heavy chain to the cannon and the other to their Ford automobile. Surprised by Princeton students and the police, they gunned the engine of the car so hard that the car was torn in half. The Rutgers students managed to escape, but with neither the car nor the cannon.^{[citation needed]}

Good job Rutgers!

[ed note: these will drop on tuesdays from here on out]