Sunday Morning Coming Down // Week 12

Ten B1G Things

1. Bet you didn’t have “struggling to beat Maryland for their 1,000th win” on your bingo card
2. “Who coached Michigan’s 1,000th win?” is going to wreck bar trivia players in 30 years (especially after they achieve their 1000th win for the second time)
3. Has any other team ever had two coaches’ dads fill in in the same season?
4. Given J.J. McCarthy’s passing performance this week, maybe Sherron Moore should’ve stuck with the run
5. Harbaugh Humpers have been gifted the perfect setup...a Michigan win means Ryan Day is a terrible coach. A Michigan loss doesn’t count, because B1G hampered them. God has special providence for fools, drunkards, and Michigan fans
6. Cade Stover surpassed 1,000 yards, becoming only the 3rd OSU tight end to do so
7. Minnesota will now have its lowest win total since PJ Fleck’s second season
8. Perhaps firing Mike Yurcich wasn’t the fix Penn State thought it would be given that Drew Allar achieved a season low 6 completions on 13 attempts for 79 yards
9. ...a mere two weeks after tossing 25 completions for 240 yards against Maryland
10. Kirk can’t keep getting away it
11. Michigan State saw that Tom Izzo’s team was not going to provide any consolation for Sparty fans and decided to win one themselves
12. The Hoosiers outgained the Spartans 402-317 and lost. Tom Allen, we hardly knew ye
13. Wildcats fans are now faced with having to walk back months of rage and depression as they clear their December schedules for a trip to a bowl game
14. Nebraska remains winless in Madison for 57th year running

The Rundown

MU at MU | Moore’s Michigan mildly masticates Maryland, 31-24

Brian: Michigan did most of its damage early, jumping out to a 23-3 first half lead. Maryland found its footing and made it a game in the second half, but the Wolverines ultimately held on to record their 23rd consecutive conference victory.

Michigan didn’t play its best game, in fact, you could make the argument it was its worst showing of the year. But you could have said thing about last season’s penultimate regular season game against Illinois. No matter. This season was always about the Michigan/Ohio State game (for both teams). And now it’s here.

MU at OSU | Buckeyes offer glimmer of hope, yank it away, 37-3

GF3: Slow start, but not bad considering the Buckeyes held the Gophers scoreless for nearly the entire game while missing Eichenberg, Ransom, and Mike Hall. The starters sat. Minnesota is not good. This game didn’t matter.

WSR: When you decide to try to shorten the game and burn clock from the opening kickoff to try to avoid getting embarrassed, you deserve to lose far worse than 37-3. The defense did an absolutely outstanding job in the first half to keep it a 13-0 game, but the offense took zero chances to try to actually make it a game. Then tOSU came out after halftime and took even more control of the game and throttled the life out of it. Crap gameplan, crap game, crap result.

RU at PSU | Franklin bludgeon’s ‘em to death, 27-6

misdreavus79: Rutgers hasn’t scored a touchdown in State College since 1994.

IU at IU | Ferentz Ferentz’s ‘em to death, 15-13

thumpasaurus: Bret Bielema has now had four games straight up stolen from him by officiating and cheating in his short tenure at Illinois. My only solace is that for whatever reason Iowa fans are also very unhappy. The only good thing that can come out of the big ten championship game is if a sinkhole swallows Kirk Ferentz and Jim Harbaugh.

I am such a hater that I will continue to live into 2024 out of pure spite. Iowa football is a fucking CIA psyop that the government forgot to stop funding. In heaven there is neither beer nor Iowa fans.

I’m gonna run into Ryan Walters in person some day. He’s definitely in better shape than me. But I fucking promise you, I will land some blows he’ll never forget. My capacity for hatred is tremendous though. And there is nobody on earth who deserves it more than our wannabe rockstar AD. I don’t give a shit how nice a guy you are Cheat! Cheat you fucking shit for brains asshat!

Fucking cheat! Let’s go! For once in my life let’s be an actual contender!

MSU at IU | Sparty wins one for the Izzer, 24-21

BuffKomodo: *insert fart noise. Indiana loses to Michigan State in a way only Indiana can. The officials weren’t great, but when are they ever good. Missed tackles sealed Indiana’s fate. Long stretches of offensive ineptitude resulted in only 21 points. Indiana surrendered 24 points to the only offense possibly worse than Indiana. Oh, and Tom Allen iced his own kicker at the half for some reason. Excellent coaching. Excellent play. Totally worth saving 15 million for another year of this garbage.

PU at NU | New coach locks up Wildcats lock up a bowl, 23-15

MNW: Bowl eligible. Wow.

Look. A good deal of this was Northwestern’s making — the rot that had crept in under Fitz, the hazing scandal, and so on. Feeling bad for Northwestern is not on your radar, and that’s fine and understandable. Goddammit, was that fun. Some of those might be me waxing nostalgic: this was my first time back in Evanston since 2021 since the ‘Cats beat Rutgers on homecoming. It was my first time tailgating on the lake since 2019. My first time seeing old friends (including LincolnParkWildcat and MountainTiger) since well before COVID, and now all three of us have kids running around (and MT’s is adorable). When students ambled onto the field after the victory, you felt that kind of catharsis from the fans who joined them in a calm, orderly fashion. In what was likely the last game ever to be played at the old Ryan Field, it seemed like we all just felt okay again. We sang the Alma Mater at the top of our lungs in section 133. We laughed at the performance art that is a Northwestern-Purdue game in November. We made noise on third down, not that it ever matters. We met the rest of the band on the 50, said thank you to Dr Mallory Thompson (congrats on retirement, Dr. T), and made wistful plans for the bowl game. Will we follow through and meet up in Detroit? Probably not. Hell, we tailgated in one of the on-campus lots and were the only two Northwestern fans we saw in a sea of casual Purdue revelers. We’re not back, but it finally felt okay again.That’s a testament to the players who dug deep and avoided a letdown against a bad team playing without its offensive weapon. It’s a testament to David Braun, who has a long way to go but shows willingness to learn and grow in this job. It’s a testament to the stupid, bewildering world of Northwestern football. Long may it reign.

LPW: The ‘Cats are going bowling!!! Cam Porter had two rushing touchdowns, Ben Bryant went 13/24 on passing for 230 yards in David Braun’s first game as head coach after the interim tag was removed this week. Thank god Northwestern’s bend but don’t break defense stopped a few Purdue fourth and 1s. This game was a little sloppy, with some poor play calling by Bajakian, but holy cow what a nice way to send off Ryan Field. Now LETS GET THAT (edited)

BoilerUp89: Purdue was without their QB but made it somewhat competitive. Don’t like some of the play calling but hard to be too angry

NU at WU | Bagders deny Huskers in Madison again, 24-17

BRT: You know, when the Huskers lost to MSU, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t win another game this season. Many of you assured me I was wrong, that the terrible teams they were facing over the coming weeks would surely result in a win for the Huskers. I was just being dramatic, reactive, didn’t understand how bad these other teams were, etc etc.You guys.I understood perfectly what you did not— and that is Nebraska football.This one seems to have been more about coaching for once, rather than 15 turnovers, so that’s fresh and new of late. But it doesn’t matter. Give this team an achievable goal and they will fail to achieve it, cost what it may. Why? I don’t know, I’m not that kind of doctor. Doesn’t really matter though, does it? Maybe they just really like Lincoln in December. If so, lucky them, as they’ve worked hard to stay there this year.

deadread: Nebraska lost to Wisconsin. Again. Nebraska is better than last year, but still not close to good. On to Iowa. I am sure it will go great.

Kind of...(Chris): BRT, I humbly apologize. I really thought UW’s stink was worse. I conceded that Nebraska had the longer track record, and I fully realized the hubris in thinking Wisconsin could catch up that quickly. But, I mean, the Badgers were just terrible the last two weeks. Giving Indiana their only conference win on the season? Letting Northwestern start 10-10 on third down conversions? C’mon, that’s some elite-level suckiness. There really looked like they had quit, and none of the reports out of Madison suggested team harmony was very high.And then Nebraska jumped out to a 14-0 lead.Turns out it was just a perfect setup for my esteemed colleague to be vindicated. Nebraska is still in worse shape. Wisconsin notched their 10th straight win over Nebraska (five have been one-score, two in OT) and became bowl eligible.Given that this win was, you know, over Nebraska, there’s really no reason to think Wisconsin has turned things around. But they now can bank on those evidently crucial bowl practices. So there’s that.