B1G 2019: Think you’re better than us, you lazy prick?

We march on in preparation of B1G 2019, our team-by-team, week-by-week preview of all things Big Ten football in 2019!

If you weren’t paying attention (and it wouldn’t be anything new), here’s what our weekly schedule will look like, beginning next Monday morning (!!!) with Rutgers football chatter:

Monday: Cocktail Party Preview (what to expect, talking points, etc.)
Tuesday: Coaches (changes, paeans, torches-and-pitchforks)
Wednesday: Fandom and Traditions (or other wild-cards)
Thursday: Culture and Other Sports (time for Indiana to brag about baseball!)
Friday: Hate, Self-Hate, and More! (see below)

We also tend to do a daily potluck, wherein one writer poses a question or two to the entire team. We try our best to highlight both team-specific questions (i.e., who starts at QB for Minnesota?) and state-specific food oddities (have you ever tried lutefisk?), but your mileage will vary.

Wait. Hate Fridays?

You’re new here. Welcome!

Fridays at Off Tackle Empire during B1G 201X have, historically, devolved into a thunderdome of (1) rage that someone would be mean to your team, (2) annoyance that someone wasn’t mean enough to your team, (3) fakery that you weren’t actually that bothered by mean things about your team, or (4) self-hatred, crippling ennui, and generally talking Illinois fans off the ledge.

Here’s what, in practice, some of the best have looked like:

The Fruit of the Poison Tree: An Ode to Ohio State Hate (87townie, 2015) | Things That Are Terrible, But Not As Terrible As Iowa (BRT, 2016) | B1G Hatin’ (SleepingGiantRU, 2013) | Indiana Football: An Oral History (babaoreally, 2015) | Mark Dantonio is a Fraud (GF3, 2017) | A K-State Guide to Nebraska (TB, 2011) | 1869: A Sporting History Lesson (Batman42, 2016) | A Rival for Penn State (Zuzu, 2016) | rutger University, Will You Please Go Now! (Stew, 2017)

You might notice that, in there, a few Fanposts are included. That’s a tribute, we think, to what has historically made Off Tackle Empire so damn great: You, the reader, and your psychotic overreactions to people saying mean things about your favorite team.

With that in mind, this year we’d like to offer you this:
The chance to make us, the writers, look even worse than we usually do.

Yes, you are right to be intrigued. You have no doubt spilled your hot beverage of choice in excitement, or scheduled another hour of “executive time” for this afternoon in preparation for whatever this exciting offer could be.

The challenge? Write better hate than we can.

How This Works:

• Each Friday, at some point, we’ll have an OTE-written Hate Piece up on the front page. It will cover God-knows-what and God-knows-who. No doubt some will be funny, others mean.
• You, OTE denizen, have the opportunity to post your own Hate Piece as a Fanpost.
• We will, within the bounds of good taste and our Community Guidelines, front-page any Hate Pieces which have received enough recs (the green star at the bottom of Fanposts) and meet those basic editorial standards (which I think I possibly definitely have).
• Approximately Saturday, we will put up a simple article polling you, the reader, on which post was better/best: The OTE Hate Post, or the Community Hate Post(s).
• Any Community Winners will receive the opportunity to publish a Fanpost of their choosing to be front-paged (again, assuming it meets editorial standards).

Why do this? Perhaps you assume it’s because I’m lazy.

Reader, you would only be half-right.

Because while I am lazy, I am also a non-professional, amateur blog-yeller who does this mostly for kicks and to distract himself from actual work deadlines and other professional obligations.

And you, you disgusting slob, like to sit at your own desk, on your own high horse, in some shitty part of the world, and say “That’s the best you can do?”

Yeah, you fat fuck, that is the best I can do, and I don’t see you doing any better.

Prove that you’re not a miserable excuse for a human being, and one-up me. I dare you.