It's time to hate Minnesota again.

So I’m back writing for the best Big Ten blog in the universe for half a second, because apparently Minnesota is just too nice and no one can do what I do. Well, yikes.

You know what though? I’m gonna be nice.

Things that are nice about Minnesota:

• Grain Belt

And that’s the list. Prince is cool, but I’m not a big Prince guy. So let’s get down to brass tacks. I’ve written Minnesota hate pieces before. I’ve written really good Minnesota hate pieces before.

I’m gonna square up with the OTE audience, though: It was manufactured.

How am I supposed to hate a team that hadn’t beaten my team since before Facebook was invented? How am I supposed to hate a team that employed Tim Brewster?

Not anymore.

PJ Fleck ruined that.

He ruined the perfect tragedy that was Minnesota football. I can properly hate Minnesota now, because they are a threat. I don’t have to pretend to hate them just because they’re nearby.

They beat Wisconsin. They just didn’t beat Wisconsin. They destroyed Wisconsin. And I’ve never felt worse. I actually died on the inside watching Minnesota beat Wisconsin and I was bartending, and I literally felt my soul leave my body. It was so unacceptable, so unfathomable. You’re no longer UW-Whitewater to a UW-Oshkosh guy. You are a hatred that can be understood.

Minnesota is pure unmitigated garbage. You have an absolutely horrendous mascot that couldn’t be less intimidating. Your color scheme looks like something that ends up in my toilet after eating Taco Bell [ed. note: See a doctor, dude]. The nation deciding racism wasn’t cool on college campuses rendered you irrelevant in football.

None of those are new insults. Minnesota has just now managed to be mediocre at football. Wisconsin will win the West Division ten times before Minnesota wins it twice. Fleck will be coaching Notre Dame in 2020.

I don’t care though, Minnesota is worthy of hate. Finally. And that hatred burns with a passion that can only exist in the longest continuous rivalry in the FBS.

I never knew what it was like to really hate Minnesota football until now. And it finally hit me.

And it stings. It burns. It might even keep me up at night.

The fact Minnesota finally beat Wisconsin in football makes my stomach turn every time the state of Minnesota is mentioned. I would like to enjoy the Twins being good, but I can’t.

Because Minnesota. And that is what hate truly is. Not me manufacturing factoids about 2002.