Ruminations on Week 6

Another week...another brutal Wisconsin loss that I don't want to talk about. It's a good thing that plenty of other things happened this week for me to discuss. Here are my ruminations on Week 6 of Big Ten play:

1) Quarterbacks, Quarterbacks, Quarterbacks. Where to start with these guys this week? The Juice got loose, Terrelle became a man, and Darryl Clark did what he does. Even Brian Hoyer made some plays on Saturday. On the opposite end, Curtis Painter found his way to the bench in the second half against Penn State and Allan Evridge tried his hardest to get there. Tell me who predicted that both Todd Boeckman and Curtis Painter, the most experience/hyped QB's in the league would both be on the bench during Week 6 games?

2) Timmay! has a W. The Minnesota Golden Gophers have their first conference win of the Tim Brewster era after scraping past Indiana on Saturday. Brewster has himself a stud in Eric Decker and the defense is much improved under the Ted Roof (see what I did there? under the roof? yep, been saving that one). Granted, Indiana has regressed faster than Michael Richard's stand-up career, but a win is a win is a win. And for Timmay!, it's a first in the Big Ten.

3) Tiller is different on his way out. If you Joey T wasn't retiring this year and he still had recruits, high school coaches, etc. to please, do you think Curtis Painter gets benched in the second half last week? Do you think Tiller even talks about benching him the week before even though he didn't? I sure don't. I know from some good sources that Tiller and Kyle Orton had some major differences is style during Orton's senior year (Orton thought they were too conservative and was vocal about it...real vocal). Yet Orton never saw the bench, even though Tiller could barely stand him by the end of the season and Purdue's season had spiraled downward. If Tiller was retiring do you think Orton sees the bench? I'd bet on yes.

4) Alright, let's talk about it. Props to Ohio State this week, and especially Terrelle Pryor and Beanie Wells. Those two are a potent combination that rival any combo in the nation. But this rumination isn't about them, it's about my Badgers. This defeat was bad, but not as bad as last week. They were competitive, even Beanie came out and said he had never been hit so consistently hard on every play throughout a game, and they gave the UW faithful a great, albeit disappointing, show on Saturday night. I can live with losses like this....oh who am I kidding? That sucked. It leaves the Badgers staring at 0-2 in the Big Ten with arguably the league's best team coming next week. The biggest challenge of the season for the coaches could be to keep this team motivated...clips from last year's PSU debacle should help.

The Journey: J Leman Refuses to Give It Up

Am I wrong? Is it not weird that he's all over this show? The guy was a great player last year, and certainly deserved to be honored as one of the school's 10 best linebackers on Saturday...but what in the name of Glenn Mason is he doing on this TV show again? (sidenote: Glenn Mason is an announcer for the BTN now. Do you think he rubs it in people's faces in Minnesota when he eventually goes there for a game? Do you think the BTN ever assigns him to a Gopher game? I would definitely watch Mason talk about how far Minny has fallen since he left and Timmay! took over.) Anyway, the interview with Leman wouldn't have been bad at the alumni luncheon...if that was the first time we saw him. But good ol' J managed to make his own uninvited, incredibly awkward entrance in the scene where the equipment manager was comparing the old-school helmets to the current ones. Leman just sort of walked into the picture, out of nowhere, stood there, smiled, and gave his qualified approval of the old-school uniforms. All this after showing up in the intro of the first episode to talk about the 2007 season and what he expects from the 2008 Illini. My big thing is, why?

This isn't 2007. I feel bad for Leman that he's not on an NFL roster right now, but showing up on a BTN program at your old school on a weekly basis is like going on The Surreal Life to revive your acting career...it's nothing but downhill. Just like the Surreal Life cast members are pretty much doomed to only appearances on other terrible VH1 shows (Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, anyone?), J Leman may be doomed to nothing more than a college legend that couldn't let go. This guy should be working to shape the next phase of his career or life, not hanging on to a team and program that is clearly moving on without him. And that's what it seems like Leman is doing, hanging on. It's fine if he is there to work out while waiting for another shot at the NFL, or if he's getting enough credits for his degree. But J, please...please!...try to avoid the cameras that are following the team. It makes you look a little sad, and takes some of the luster off your great college career.

On the other hand, I almost would love the show even more if the BTN kept showing him every week...kind of in the way that you cheer for crashes in NASCAR.

Other quick-hit thoughts from this weeks show:
1) Juice Williams is a dad? I legitimately did not know this. Also, did anyone else get the feeling that his girlfriend let him get away with not doing many of the chores just because she knows a payday is coming sometime soon?
2)The Zooker says "dad-gum" quite often. Pretty much in every speech he gave, it was "dad-gum this" or "dad-gum that". Does he never swear in general or is he simply just aware of the cameras?
3) Those throwback unis were sweet. I feel like this is true for a lot of teams, and makes you wonder why some teams ever upgraded in the first place?
4) The Zooker was dead-on in his speeches at halftime and after the game. The guy is a great motivator and certainly knew exactly how to handle those situations. Props.

The Journey: Zooker is a TV Star!

So I watched The Journey: Illinois Football this week, and I have to say...what the hell was J Leman doing in the intro? Seriously, shouldn't he be in an NFL camp somewhere? Yet there he was, talking up Illinois and their magical season from 2007. It shocked me to be honest. In a TV show that is supposed to highlight Illinois' 2008 football season, why would they show someone no longer on the team?

That wasn't the only thing that caught me a little off guard about the show; in fact, most of the show itself caught me off guard. Granted, I never watched an episode of the Minnesota Basketball version of The Journey, but here are a few surprising tidbits from my viewing:

1)That they went straight up to the Mizzou game in episode 1. Maybe I was expecting something more along the lines of HBO's Hard Knocks, but I expected the BTN to highlight more of the preseason camp portion of the season. Show me more practice time. The Oklahoma Drill was excellent, but I wanted more. Show me the annual trip to the waterpark...even ESPN picked up on that one!

2)That they didn't highlight the coaches more. Zook works out non-stop, but we only get one shot of him on a stair-stepper!?! (sidenote: a stair-stepper, really? I pictured Zook as more of a weightlifter/stationary bike guy. The stair-stepping really dropped him down a notch or two in my book.) Why did we only get one shot of the coaches watching film? I wanted some practice film breakdown, some team meeting film teaching...something!

3)Player Profiles. Or lack thereof. I guess I was expecting there to be 3-4 players highlighted, their stories told and characters somewhat developed in the first episode. Then we would follow those players throughout the season. One would be the star (Juice), one would have overcome an injury/adversity, one would have been outgoing (Brit Miller), and one would have been an up-and-coming freshman stud who had to earn playing time but broke through by the end of the season. I didn't get it. Sure, they interviewed the center, Juice, Rejus, and Will Davis...but we didn't get any character development. And they followed some freshman to class (a B.S. football player only type class), but I didn't even pick up his name. If they want us to fall in love with these players, they need to tell us more about them.

As it turns out, J Leman was cut by the Vikings, thus had some time on his hands (which goes further to prove how Illinois' sum was greater than its parts last year). But that doesn't mean I wanted him on The Journey. I think my wants are simple. I want to watch this show; I want to like this show; and I want to love the subject of the show. But I need more BTN, I need more. I want the drama to unfold in front of me. I want clever editing that makes awkward silences in places that you can tell there weren't akward silences. I want position battles, coaches yelling, and obligatory shots of sorority girls at the pre-game Block. Basically, I want a full contact version of The Hills with football pads. Is that too much to ask?

All Things Television

First things first...I got the BTN today!! That's what I'm talking about Comcast...it took you a while, but you finally came around. You finally came around, and I love you for it. Don't screw it up.

Now, on to some more good news for the Big Ten Network. After a contentious Friday afternoon in which the Executive Vice President of Time Warner attempted a not so subtle low blow on Mark Silverman and the BTN, Time Warner and the year old Network struck a deal late Monday night. Big Televen fans in Ohio and Wisconsin will now be able to watch their Buckeyes and Badgers play their opening game. Don't kid yourself people, this is huge. Time Warner was one of the last cable carriers within the Midwest to pick up the BTN, and don't think they didn't know it. But even bigger in this whole scenario, the BTN showed that it can put cheap shots and bullshit negotiating tactics behind them to serve their customers. Props.

Coupled with the news that a deal with Mediacom, serving mostly Iowa and some southern Illinois, is immenent...that leaves pretty much only Charter Communications holding their ground. Ya know Charter, Custer once took a stand too...and that one didn't work out so well.


In other news, ESPN just paid $2.25 BILLION for the rights to broadcast all SEC football games after CBS takes the marquis game. The mistake that ESPN made in this deal, and this is key here, is that they paid waaaay too much. Everyone affiliated with college football knows that SEC people can't count past 6. So expecting them to be able to count all the way up to $2.2B is just ridiculous. Secondly, ESPN is a main reason that SEC fans hate the Big Ten. It's true, ansd they're about to get a taste of their own medicine. The whole "Big Ten is down" thing started in the fall of 2006. Knowing they had the TV rights to a potential epic game of Ohio State and Michigan, ESPN had all 10 talking heads hyping up both teams all season. Even after Michigan lost to the Buckeyes, they remained #2 in the country based on all the hype that ESPN gave that game and their gutsy performance on the road. Now, we all know what happened after that. Florida jumped Michigan in the polls, and proceeded to trounce Ohio State in the BCS National Championship. Michigan didn't fare much better in the Rose Bowl against USC. All of a sudden, the two teams that ESPN had hyped all year and forced down college football fans' throats in order to improve their own ratings had been crushed on the two biggest stages possible.

And wouldn't you know it, the very same conference that claimed a Big Ten bias due to ESPN's force feeding has signed on for a 15 year curse of the talking heads. And true SEC fans know it too. As Orson Swindle, writer at EDSBS.com and Florida Gator fan, so eloquently put it,

"ESPN’s love is herpes for the fan of any team: once acquired, it never really goes away, and though contracting it is a sign that you did something right, it also burns and flares up when one least expects it."

Good luck with those sores in your nether regions SEC fans...they are the first sign of the dreaded "overrated" label.