I’m in trial this week, which means I most of last week and this weekend, especially Sunday, getting ready for trial. And it means I’m very exhausted and have more to do tonight (Monday) to get ready for tomorrow (Tuesday). As a result, you’re getting what is decidedly a B(eez)-minus effort tonight. My apologies and stay tuned as I’ll be back and more boring-story-y than ever next week.

Okay okay, one quick hitter:

I’m not sure how many of you keep up with the latest scientific journals, particularly those dealing with gastrointestinal issues or the biological codes we inherit from our parents...but I try my best to spend a little time each Friday afternoon perusing such fare.

Anyway, last week I learned something kind of crazy—did you know the latest studies share, pretty definitively (like a p-value of 0.05 definitively) that diarrhea is hereditary?

It’s true! It turns out it runs in your jeans.

The Disclaimer

If your team’s favorite player isn’t chosen as a Player of the Week, one of three things happened: (1) It involved a player not involved in Wisconsin’s most recent game; (2) your favorite team’s writer didn’t submit the player for POTW honors; or (3) you favorite team’s player really wasn’t as awesome as you thought.

Sometimes a player will get picked because of the awesome raw stats; sometimes he’ll get picked because of good stats plus situational significance; sometimes he’ll get picked because he did pretty well and plays for Wisconsin; and most of the time he just won’t get picked. Leave your complaints in the comments.

Programming Note: “Actual Good Play of the Week is BACK! We have enough sadness in our lives and I didn’t see anything obvious about someone getting hurt, plus a Wisconsin player had a great play, so I’m featuring it.”

Defensive Player of the Week

Anthony Nelson - DE - Iowa - Big Ten DPOTW

5 tackles, 3 tackles for loss, 3 sacks

Iowa had a bunch of guys who deserve mention on this list, leading me to wonder how so many good-to-great individual performances resulted in 31 points allowed to Minnesota and a quarterback who is apparently the love child of that fumbleruski play they ran at the end of Little Giants and a slave ship that they made into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins.

But Anthony Nelson really played an efficient game, recording sacks on 60% of his tackles and giving his beleaguered (I assume, because lol 218/3 to Annexstad?) secondary a few plays off between getting torched and generating a turnover. I can’t really think of any other filler to add here, because my brain is kinda fried after listening to 20 strangers answer boring questions about themselves for four hours today. Congrats, Anthony Nelson! OTE B1G DPOTW

What exactly about this week’s final scores makes you think there are any other deserving defensive players of the week? Defensive Players of Week 6

Jacob Huff - DB - Minnesota - Team-leading(oof) 11 tackles, 0.5 TFL, 1 Int

Riley Moss - CB - Iowa - 5 tackles, 2 Ints; Big Ten FOTW - See below!

T.J. Edwards - LB - Wisconsin - 7 tackles, 2 TFL, 2 sacks

Jake Hansen - LB - Illinois - 9 tackles, 1 pass defended - Illinois won a conference game and this guy was the leading tackler in that win!!!

Special Teams Player of the Week

Ty Johnson - KR - Maryland - Big Ten STPOTW

2 kick returns, 50 yard average, 98 long, 1 TD

You all know the rules by now: Unless something magical happens with a B1G punter or kicker, this awards is always going to the guy who returned a punt or a kick for a touchdown. You may know Ty Johnson as one of Maryland’s four-ish running backs, but it turns out he also returns kicks and just kick returned his way into this column, and more importantly, into our hearts. Most importantly, as the Big Ten Official Bullet Points for Weekly Award Winners stated, he returned the kick, “giving Maryland a 7-3 first quarter lead.” I hope Maryland was able to hold that lead!

Just not quite as special Special Teams Players of Week 4

Nobody. In case you haven’t heard, B1G teams scored touchdowns left and right this weekend. Not a single kicker made even three FGs, and nobody punted 90+ yards or did it like 9 times.

I guess you could say punter Caleb Lightbourn had a big impact by making a touchdown-saving heel tap tackle on a kick return, but he also had two punts for an average of 36 yards and got benched. So sort of a mixed bag day for him.

Rutgers Sure Punts A Lot And We Should Recognize Workhorse Punters Punter of Week 6

Not our usual week of standouts, as nearly every B1G team either torched the other team’s defense or turned the ball over, but at least fans of this week’s winner have SOMETHING to be happy about:

Tyler Hunt - P - Michigan State - 7 punts, 40.9 avg, 63(!) long

Offensive Player of the Week

Dwayne Haskins - QB - Ohio State - Big Ten OPOTW

33/44, 455(!) yards, 6(!!) TDs, 2(:(() Interceptions

Dwayne Haskins threw for 455 yards and 6 TDs. Sure he doubled his interception total for the season—one of which caused his team to actually be losing to Indiana beyond the first drive of the game—but he also completed 75% of his passes and totaled more yards than both teams involved in the NW-MSU game, probably, although I don’t know for sure because I didn’t watch it. He is absolutely going to throw for 600 yards in the Conference Championship game, whether it’s against Wisconsin or Purdue, and he’ll probably be the Heisman winner among players whose teams have to leave their starting QB in for more than 2 ¹⁄₂ quarters per game.

Don’t feel badly, you still did great! Offensive Players of Week 6

JD Spielman - WR - Nebraska - 9 rec, 209 yards, 1 TD - some kind of record

Jonathan Taylor - RB - Wisconsin - 24 carries, 221 yards, 3 TDs, zero fumbles!

Peyton Ramsey - QB - Indiana - 26/49, 322 yards, 3 TDs, zero picks

Freshman of the Week

Riley Moss - CB - Iowa - Big Ten FOTW

5 tackles, 2 Ints

Two interceptions is a big day for any defensive player, let alone a freshman. I’ll assume he bears little responsibility for a pass defense that gave up 218 yards and 3 TDs to something called a Zack Annexstad, and I’ll assume further that his two picks made a huge difference in securing a 17-point win (and surprisingly, it wasn’t something reasonable for Minnesota-Iowa, like 17-0 or 23-3!) Anyway, interceptions are one of the best plays you can make in a game, and this guy made two, so he wins!

Also Adrian Martinez can put up some stats Other Freshman of the Week

Adrian Martinez - QB - Nebraska - 24/42, 384 yards, 2 TDs; 13 carries, 57 yards, 1 TD; 0 turnovers

Honorary Purdue Boner of the Week

I know BRT already adequately highlighted this play, but I will never tire of a fundamental-less defensive player missing a tackle because using your arms is for nerds:

Is this the week? Is October 13, 2018 going to go down in history as the day when Purdue fully escaped from the toothy maw that is having a boner award named after you? Probably not, but at least Purdue made no boners this week.

Actual Good Play of the Week

I had forgotten how actually fast Jonathan Taylor is. Nobody can ever forget how good he is at breaking tackles.