Chibi Halo
Procurements
Northwestern will lose a few more games. They'll lose 3 of 4 to Sparty, Nebraska, Michigan, and Iowa. Still, this conference is crap, I'll agree. I think the conference as a whole needs to take a good long look in the mirror and ask themselves just what's going so wrong. It wasn't long ago that they were one of the best in the nation.
Illinois having a new coach shouldn't be an excuse for crappy play. I mean look at Ohio State. They have a new coach and are having a great year but because they players did things that broke NCAA rules they can't go to the Championship game or a bowl game. Penn State is having an okay year record wise but again they can't qualify for a bowl game. Northwestern did what they could to qualify for a bowl game but it won't be a major one. They're guaranteed a win against Illinois unless a miracle happens. However, it's the Nebraska and Iowa games coming up that they really need to focus on. The Big Ten has always been a collective of AAU research schools first and athletic schools second. The academic is great but they need to kick it up on the athletic or they're going to slip into Atlantic Sun levels of meritocracy.
I'm not making excuses for Illinois's new coach. He was a winner at Toledo, and generally winning in the MAC translates to winning outside of the MAC. Also, he knows the spread, which Illinois runs. I think some of the problem's just that, well, it's Illinois. They've been bad since time immemorial. There was a year that they made the Rose Bowl I remember, but outside of that... it's really unfair to compare them to Ohio State. Illinois is devoid of football talent for whatever reason, and Ohio has enough talent to support 10 FBS schools or however many they have.
Iowa's been doing alright so far, certainly rebounding from the rough road they were on in OOC play. Nebraska... well, let me just say this. If things continue how they are, Illinois and Ohio State won't be the only ones with new coaches to talk about.
Oh, I'm somewhat familiar with the AAU, especially with the bullshit they pulled in tossing Nebraska out. The image that I got of them was that they're all about bowtie-and-pocket protector sciences, such as engineering and physics, and that instead of trying to improve their members and grow through encouraging new ideas and modern fields, they believe in addition by subtraction. They recently chased Syracuse out for focusing on the wrong fields (urban affairs and public administration), and they tossed out Nebraska for being too focused on agriculture and not having an on-campus medical center. It was implied that they even took into consideration that Nebraska had a unique situation with their Medical Center, in that it was a separate entity meant to serve all three state universities, but they were punishing the university for not having it on campus. Keep in mind that Nebraska was either a charter member, or a member for over 100 years at the time. Also, Nebraska's not getting back in, since their rules for admission require you to be more prestigious than half of their current members. To me, it just seems like a big circle jerk, especially when you consider that Tufts, Dartmouth, and Notre Dame aren't members.