Sunday, September 11, 2005

The Big Thud

This Midwestern boy loves Big Ten football - but when your top three teams go down in inter-conference games on the same day, it's time to recognize that maybe it's a bit early to be singing the praises of our favorite conference.

To be fair to all involved: (1) Texas, Iowa St. and Notre Dame are all very good teams who deserved to win, and (2) it's too early to write off an entire conference based solely upon three losses in early September.

But it would have been nice to at least win one. This does some serious damage to national title hopes of any Big Ten squad - especially Ohio St, which now must hope not only that all major contenders lose once, but that Texas goes out and loses twice. More important than that, of course, is the pride factor. When your best non-conference win to date is Illinois over Rutgers, it's time to take stock.

Anyway, it's a beautiful day in the NFL neighborhood...enjoy the day, boys. I haven't made my own picks for the season, so I'll stick with a local one: Bears finish 6-10, starting the year with a 20-10 loss at Washington. At least we get to play both the Brownies and the Niners later...

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