Game Week: Wisconsin (2014)

We are a 6-point underdog to a team we are ranked higher than. The Big Ten, you guys, is drunk.

And it’s not drunk because of ESPN’s SEC bias. Let’s stop blaming that. I mean, it definitely exists, which is why ESPN can’t get the SEC’s dick out of its mouth long enough to feign disappointment in [insert young loud athlete here]’s latest [insert activity that any young man would do with a bunch of fame/money]. But go watch those SEC teams play for a while. Imagine a Big Ten playing them - and not in January, on neutral fields with minimal stakes. Imagine them playing them mid-November, fresh off the heels of two hard-fought games and staring two more in the face. There is no Purdue in the SEC, as hard as Vanderbilt might try. There also aren’t many Ohio States. But there are a shitload of Nebraskas, Wisconsins and the like. And you have to play them every week. It’s really hard. And I say that with no interest in seeing continued SEC dominance. So spare me the campaign for a Big Ten team in the playoffs. We’re not there yet. Sorry. I wish we were. But if we were, Nebraska probably wouldn’t be 8-1 considering how it has played thus far.

But we are 8-1! Which means we have a shot at being 11-1, or 12-1, and headed to a big fancy bowl game where we’ll have nothing to lose and everything to gain against an SEC team that is already watching film on its 2015 SEC opponents. Which means we might win it! And get some decent recruits. And get some momentum. And some heat off of our coaching staff’s seats. Which might mean a more dominant team in 2015. The kind that can go down to Miami and win. That can manhandle BYU. That can cruise through its still-mediocre conference and into the playoffs where we’ll find out just what we’ve got.

But who am I kidding? They’ll just let Auburn in again.

This week on the Tunnel, the Battle for the Big Ten West looms, AD Eichorst stops by with some proper motivation, and we all try to find a replacement knee for Ameer Abdullah.

Follow TWOS on Twitter if you’d like. Now let’s have some fun with a comic that starts with the Kenny Bell block that I’m forced to remember in a vacuum so as not to relive the pain of literally everything else that happened in the 2012 Big Ten Championship game.

[For mobile users, here’s the direct Imgur link.]