Final B1G Bowl Record: 5-5

MSU & Iowa are very different teams. Iowa overachieved this year, and did a great job, considering their personnel. We are lucky, in certain ways, that they lost in the Big10 championship game. If they had won, I think the Big10 would have looked even worse. And I'd rather that MSU be embarassed. MSU didn't have to play OSU, UofM, or MSU during the season. If they had, they never would have had a perfect record. They did a great job in the games they played. And, from my perspective, they are now stuck with Ferentz for even longer. I'm thrilled with that, because I think he has a ceiling.

MSU, on the other hand, had another year with exceeding luck. They should have lost to Michigan. And they should have lost to OSU. OSU was screwed by a combination of bad play calling and bad weather. To tell you the truth, though, I'm really glad that MSU won. This meant more schadenfreude at their delicious loss to Alabama. Pretenders. But more than that . . . this also brought schadenfreude at the fate of OSU. Twice now, they have lost to MSU. And OSU, with a good game plan, would have played Alabama much tougher. OSU is losing a ton of seniors and a bunch of guys to the draft. Their loss to MSU meant that they had no possible chance to play for the National Championship. They had only themselves to blame. I'm thrilled that even though we lost badly to them, they didn't make it to the championship series two years in a row. I think it would have been horrible if they had won two National Titles in a row. That would only have helped them even more in recruiting. Oh, and OSU would have killed Iowa too. No, MSU barely beating both OSU and Iowa and then getting clobbered by Alabama was the best possible turn of events from Michigan's perspective.

Finally, I don't think Michigan was good enough in the end to play against a great team. I'm much happier with them clobbering Florida then making it to the National Championship series and getting clobbered themselves.

You can't talk about the comeback of the Big 10 and have the two division champs get absolutely embarrassed. There's not a motivation issue with those games. As bad as MSU lost they were competitive til about midway through the 3rd quarter. Iowa looked like an FCS team in every sense of the word: coaching, talent, preparation, etc.

"Overall I think the SEC hype train has slowed considerably while the Big Ten is gaining momentum."

I mean really?? Based on what? All six original SEC West teams won their bowl game by 21 points. That isn't just winning. That is complete and utter dominance. And it won't happen again in our lifetimes.

The Big Ten has stopped the bleeding. Momentum would be doing something better than .500 in a few consecutive bowl seasons.

is that the bowl games are at a minimum hundreds if not thousands of miles closer for the other teams we usually play, and some of them (citrus v. florida; rose v. usc; alamo bowl v. T A&M, etc) are basically home games for the opposing teams.   that is a big deal that is worth points.  i mean, can you imagine if they played bowl games outside at, say, soldier field and we played a florida or TCU?   those teams' fans would be absent in droves and the teams themselves would freeze their derriers off during the game.  big advantage for us.

with a healthy Connor Cook was one of the two best teams in the conference. They beat Michigan, Ohio State, and Iowa--all away from home.

Iowa, on the other hand, should be forced to give up it's ethanol subsidies for that Rose Bowl display.

? I'm puzzled.  I'm still happy that MSU lost and didn't really care too much about what happened between OSU vs ND.  

I do have to say I'm damnly disappointed in Iowa and Northwestern.

who is happy Michigan won.

So I'm not going to celebrate the fact that they got into the playoffs.  But, that punt was what kept Ohio State out of it.  File that under lipstick on a pig.