Big Ten Spring Games Recaps: What did we learn?

Here’s your swing around the weekend of not-real football:

Illinois Fighting Illini

Score? Butkus def. Grange, 28-10.

Reaction (f/Thump): Welp. Nobody came to our spring game, but Reggie Corbin hurt his knee and Calvin Avery was carted off, and also every scholarship quarterback looked like garbage.

Glad we did this!

Highlight? One of the two (!!!) pick-sixes in this game:

What you should care about: Illinois women’s tennis swept their weekend, with a 5-2 win over wisconsin followed by a 6-1 triumph over Minnesota. They’re now 6-3 in conference play.

Indiana Hoosiers

Score? Cream def. Crimson, 48-33

Highlight? A long touchdown:

What you should care about: Indiana baseball swept a four-game set with Evansville, running their winning streak to 7.

Iowa Hawkeyes

DNP, possibly under water.

Maryland Terrapins

April 27, apparently.

Michigan Wolverines

Score? Not that I could tell/care.

Highlight? Heisman front-runner Shea Patterson tossed this AMAZING ball, and YOU WON’T BELIEVE what happened next!

Just normal football shit, really. It’s gonna be a long summer.

What you should care about: That Shea Patterson is a front-runner for the Heisman, mostly, and that the Wolverines are probably projected to go to the Orange Bowl in 24/7’s “We Know This Is Too Early For Bowl Projections, But... [/wink!]” bowl projections. They’ll barely beat out Nebraska for that spot.

Michigan State Spartans

Score? I don’t know. But the LSJ honest-to-God described Brian Lewerke’s day as “completing 14 of 20 passes for 181 yards. His arm was lively, his touch accurate,” which, just...what the fuck, sportswriters?

(Apparently the defense beat the offense, 42-26, which is very on-brand save for Michigan State actually scoring more than 20 points.)

Highlight? Tom Izzo says Spartans stick together (to avoid any real institutional turnover, ever, somehow):

What you should care about: This was kinda sad. MSU baseball is like, 0-fer the Big Ten season. Softball was slapped around by Minnesota. The tweet up for men’s tennis was bragging about taking the doubles point, which was a bad sign. I guess women’s tennis swept the weekend—4-0 at Maryland and 5-2 at Rutgers. So there’s that!

Minnesota Golden Gophers

Score? Maroon def. Gold, 38-20

Highlight? Here’s WSR:

HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK!
DANIEL FAALELE READ OPTION HANDOFF FOR A TOUCHDOWN!

WSR: Everybody on Minnesota is bigger, faster, stronger, quicker, and knows the playbook perfectly.

I’m sorry, all I can see are those dumbass “F.A.M.I.L.Y.” and “Prefontaine Pace” banners in the background. Enjoy your huckster’s latest 7-6 season, Gophers.

What you should care about: Minnesota United FC opened up Allianz Field, and it was fucking glorious. (Besides the game. But ignore that. We’re used to it.)

Nebraska Cornhuskers

Score? Reds 24, Whites 13. It’s like the Battle of Shenkursk all over again.

But dear God, there’s actually a fucking boxscore for this game.

Highlights?

What you should care about: Yes, this is a cynical recap, but good things did happen (Adrian Martinez running for a touchdown, etc.)...

Good job, Nebraska. (Also baseball swept Penn State and leads the conference.)

Northwestern Wildcats

DNP, also Pat Fitzgerald gave another completely disdainful press conference saying he’s too good for a spring game, Hunter Johnson is DEFINITELY NOT THE STARTER, STOP ASKING HIM, and that Northwestern football just needs better marketing.

The transformation to Purple Iowa is nearly complete, and I want to vomit.

Ohio State Buckeyes

Score? Gray defeats Scarlet, 35-17.

GF3: “Just make sure to mention that Fields is total trash.”

Highlight? Justin Fields found whatever a Binjimen Victor is for a 98-yard touchdown:

What you should care about: Baseball won their series over ranked Michigan, and softball game the Wolverines their first Big Ten loss. That’s something, I guess.

Penn State Nittany Lions

Score? Blue def. White, 24-7, which doesn’t seem fair because it sounds like they had all the starters on their team. TYPICAL JAMES FRANKLIN, [INSERT TALKING POINT HERE] [INSERT FIVE DEFENSIVE “TYPICAL OTE, RIPPING ON JAMES FRANKLIN, WHO HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING WRONG” COMMENTS HERE] [INSERT 32 SELF-UNAWARE BSD “AND THAT’S WHY I DON’T GO TO OTE ANYMORE; WHAT AN ECHO CHAMBER” COMMENTS HERE]

Did we all learn something? I hope so.

Highlight? Tommy Stevens is dead or hurt or something, so Sean Clifford stopped by and peddled his wares for the Lions. You can just watch all the highlights, if you want. I’m pretty sure you’re not coming here for actual journalisms:

What you should care about: Probably lacrosse? I hear Penn State is decent. Yeah, they beat Michigan 17-7. And are #1 in the country. We’ll call that good.

Purdue Boilermakers

They did this last weekend. I think defense won. I don’t care enough to fact-check.

And Jeff Brohm got, like, $37 million dollars. That seems good, especially if you’re Jeff Brohm.

Rutgers Scarlet Knights

This was an actual NJ.com headline: Will Rutgers’ Scarlet-White Game have same scoring system as last year? Everything is terrible.

Score? It was 116-108 before a nice moment with a couple kids—one with autism, the other leukemia—scoring a long TD as time expired. So let’s just enjoy that.

Highlight? All the Rutgers outlets are claiming Artur Sitkowski threw for over 200 yards, which...calling bullshit right damn now.

What you should care about: Remember how we said things were bad for Michigan State? One of those things was baseball getting swept by Rutgers. Yeah.

wisconsin badgers

Sounds like it was just a practice. Good. We were done caring for this article.