The Outland Trophy awards the nation’s top interior lineman, and the award has been garnered by a Big Ten player 3 of the last five years–Iowa’s Robert Gallery won in 2003, while Minnesota’s Greg Eslinger and Wisconsin’s Joe Thomas claimed the honored in 2005 and 2006. They might as well call it the Big Ten interior lineman award Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that every year the Big 10 has a big name in the finals or even a winner of the Bronco Nagurski Trophy, which awards the National Defensive player of the year award. James Laurinaitis, who won the award in 2006 and was a finalist in 2007, returns for another year of contention and should be a shoo-in for another finals. Other than the Ohio State standout, nine other Big 10 players were announced as being considered for the trophy. They are: Illinois’ Vontae Davis, Indiana’s Greg Middleton, Iowa’s Mitch King, Michigan’s Terrance Taylor, Northwestern’s John Gill, Ohio State’s Marcus Freeman and Malcolm Jenkins, Penn State’s Maurice Evans, and Wisconsin’s Matt Shaughnessy. Read the rest of this entry »

In an article by ESPN that was done a few days ago, columnist Mark Schlabach likes the Big 10 to have as many as eight teams in bowl games for the upcoming college football season, and even has Ohio State back in the national championship against Georgia. While the Big 10 typically boasts a strong number of teams every year in the postseason, I personally was surprised to see that many teams named, much less that the conference would be the leader of the pack–well, at least the co-leader (he thinks the SEC will have 8 teams as well). Read the rest of this entry »

Mark this down: the Iowa Hawkeyes may take the Big Ten by storm this year. Or they may fall completely apart. Coach Kirk Ferentz had his team finish 6-6 last year and lost some key players going into this season, but he also returns some decent stock and with some breaks here and there, you may be seeing the surprise team of the year. Read the rest of this entry »

If you watch the Big Ten Network for just random games, or just love to watch the Big Ten in general, the network certainly loves you! However, for those of you that are rock-chalk solid as just watching one team and one team only (and of course the other team that plays), the BTN is putting together 24 hours of highlight for each school in the Big Ten set to start airing next week. It’s a good way to celebrate all of the 2007-08 things that happened to your school’s team in a very condensed way! Read the rest of this entry »

We all knew that the Big 10 was strong in softball, but how’s this for a number: 13. That’s how many players were selected by the NFCA (National Fastpitch Coaches Association) to the All-Region teams that are broken down into nine regions across the country. This once again gives credibility to the strength that the conference has in terms of having quality players and teams not only top to bottom, but also on a national level. Read the rest of this entry »

The first for the last. That’s what the summation of the Big 10 Women’s softball tournament really breaks down to; Northwestern beat Iowa 1-0 to win its first conference tournament crown, but it will be its only one for the immediate future, as the conference tournament is being disbanded as voted on by Big 10 coaches to extend the regular season, thus giving more of a chance to teams for NCAA seeding and placement. Read the rest of this entry »

Katie Brown had a good weekend. That’s an understatement. The Iowa Hawkeyes’ sophomore was only sent down 1 time in six at bats against the Illinois Fighting Illini softball team this weekend, and the times that she did get on, she put on maximum damage by having 3 HR, 1 double, and six RBI with an absolutely amazing 2.500 slugging percentage to take home the co-Big Ten player of the week. Read the rest of this entry »

Purdue and Maryland have not met for over 11 years in women’s basketball, but throughout that course of time, both programs have remained strong and in the national spotlights. With the 2008 ACC/Big 10 challenge match ups released today, they will get a chance to see who’s program has come along the most as they square off in one of the marquee matchups of the annual head-to-head competition. Both teams figure to finish in the top three of their conference and preseason wise should be pretty high up there in the national rankings as well, so if you get a chance, don’t miss this game. Read the rest of this entry »

Ahhh, the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. Such history.

Such a ridiculous pairing of two conferences.

Sorry guys, but this is heads and above my least favorite thing that the Big 10 does. Not because I feel like they shouldn’t play against tough teams, but the fact that this is a “match up” of two conferences battling against each other, there’s never much to the overall scheme of things–the ACC usually kicks the crap out of the Big 10, much in part because normally the Big 10 has 1-3 very good teams, while the ACC generally has a deeper conference that can compete from top to bottom, which makes all the difference in the world when you consider the cavernous difference from top to bottom in Big 10 basketball.

So, enough of my soapboxing, here are the games:

Monday, Dec. 1: Wisconsin at Virginia Tech

Wednesday, Dec. 3: North Carolina vs. Michigan State (from Ford Field), Indiana at Wake Forest, Michigan at Maryland, Florida State at Northwestern, Penn State at Georgia Tech 

Actually, I am not reaaaaaaally going to complain too much about these games, even though the Penn State-Georgia Tech and the Illinois-Clemson games are mismatches overall. But the Duke-Purdue and MSU-North Carolina matchups will be awesome.