Rome has burned. John C. Holmes needs Viagra. St. Elmo's has an "All You Can Eat" buffet and is serving food under a sneeze guard. Winston Churchill has begun to stutter. The most historically significant collegiate athletic conference has become little more than a bloated and charmless version of the MAC. The Big Ten has become an embarrassment and a national laughingstock. I don't know who is to blame, but the evidence is now undeniable. The slide is occurring in every sport, at every school, and it has to stop.
The last week provided yet another avalanche of feces to support this assertion. The last two Big Ten teams in the tournament went down like Glass Joe in Tyson's Punchout. Playing the role of the Polish in World War II were the Michigan State Spartans who were destroyed by a school that gives diplomas printed with finger paint on construction paper. On the other side of the bracket were the Wisconsin Badgers who were boatraced by a school so small that they took the entire student body on a field trip to the Elite Eight. And to cap off this turdcicle of a week was the indignity offered to the conference's preeminent basketball program. Indiana offered its head coach position to a 37 year old midwesterner who coaches at a school that hadn't won a conference title since 1941 and he turned it down. Why write for Sports Illustrated when I can track high school hoops at the Churabusco Chronicle sayeth Tony Bennett?
These embarrassments are just the latest in a long line. How about the Big Ten in bowl games? Just a guess, but I would bet that the entire AP Top 10 would have to be shipped to Iraq before Ohio State gets asked back to the BCS Championship. The last two Buckeye performances were reminiscent of the game scenes in 'Lucas'. Illinois played the part of Michael Spinks to USC's Mike Tyson. Purdue for their part held serve by beating Central Frickin' Michigan on a last second field goal. Michigan redeemed their pathetic season by outlasting a Florida team that looked as if they had spent the last week binge drinking and watching Sponge Bob to prepare for a team that lost to a Division II opponent named after a mountain range. Penn State has a coach that literally still draws up plays in the dirt. And we need to stop the OSU/Michigan is the "best rivalry in sports" talk. It is now an annual play-in game for an eventual USC/SEC asswhipping.
And doesn't the Big Ten have to win someday for it to be called the ACC/Big Ten Challenge? How about less prominent sports like Women's Basketball? Well conference champ Purdue played host to UConn in January, trailed 50-14 at half and lost by 58 points. No Big Ten team ended the season ranked in the Top 25. Baseball? The MAC and the Valley have been better for a long time. But hey, we've still got Wrestling.
The Big Ten is in a sad state indeed. You think Notre Dame will want to join? Judging by their recent performance, they'd fit right in.
