Big Ten Bloggers Roundtable :: Conference Play Opens

This week's Big Ten Bloggers Roundtable is brought to us by Boiled Sports.

1) We're all car guys here at BS. So your task is to assign your own program a vehicle. Is Purdue an all-terrain vehicle like a Jeep or a Hummer? Something befitting a brawny Boilermaker? Is Ohio State a slow, conversion van being passed by Corvettes with USC markings? Is IU a John Deere tractor with a hillbilly riding on it? Get creative and let us know both what your school is if it's a car as well as assigning a vehicle to as many of the other Big Ten schools as you like. (I'd require you to do them all but I know attention spans are short and counting to 11 is hard.)

Wisconsin:
Loud, slow, and usually surrounded by drunken working-class heros, you just keep plowing over everyone.


Michigan:
You laugh now, but this 'project car' will beat your pants off some day.


Purdue:
You used to be cool... in like 2000.

Penn State:
Yup, grandpa has had that car for the better part of a half-century, and it still runs better than your new-fangled piece of crap.


Ohio State:
You were making excellent time, but then...


Northwestern:
Just because we can't afford one of our own, doesn't mean you're automatically smarter than the rest of us.


Michigan State:
You're the unattractive workhorse, never taken out on the town.


Minnesota:
Stick to hockey.


Indiana:
Aw, while cute and efficient, no one really takes them seriously.


Iowa:
Fighting for room in the middle-of-the-pack Big Ten traffic jam.

Illinois:
Looks tough on the outside, but actually compensating for years of inadequacy on the inside.

2) In Week 1 in the NFL, the New England Patriots learned how precious things can be when Tom Brady had his knee blown out by a former Boilermaker. Let's say your team wins out from here to the end and is in a BCS bowl game with a chance to do the school and conference proud – what ONE player on your squad would you most likely cry about having his knee blown out in the first quarter? That is, who is truly indispensable?

ZN: I love this question. Penn State has already lost its "indispensable" player in Sean Lee, and we're doing just fine. Penn State doesn't have that ONE player right now who's injury would kill the season or the big game. Watch this team play a few times, and you'll see that there's no individual star. Hell, even if Daryll Clark went down, PSU has Pat Devlin, who'd start for most other Big Ten teams right now.

3) Purdue plays Notre Dame this week and, well, we detest Notre Dame like probably no other program. Let's say I have the power to force you (maybe you lost a bet to me) to wear another Big Ten school's colors to an away game for that team. That is, you're wearing OSU colors to a game being played at Michigan, or something like that. And I'm talking, dorky, head-to-toe… goofy-ass sweatshirts and flat-brimmed, ridiculous-looking hats. If you have to choose, which program would you be able to stomach wearing? (Remember, you're going to an away game, so people won't like you and accept you and you'll be taking this abuse for a school you're not even affiliated with.) And by the same token, what program could you absolutely not EVER stomach wearing, under any circumstances?

ZN: I could wear Indiana's. Not to many fans actually hate them, especially since the Hoosiers haven't been much of a threat to anyone. But I could never wear Michigan garb. Everyone hates them, hands down. More than Ohio State, more than Wisconsin.

4) I like big butts and I can not lie. Share your embarrassing guilty pleasure music selection that you know other people might laugh at. Bonus points if you can send a YouTube video of an awful music video with it. Many/most of us grew up and/or went to college in the '80s and '90s so I know you've all got some Nelson After The Rain on the iPod.

ZN: Unlike those geriatrics, I went to college in the 21st Century. So I'll go with the ridiculous techno music from the early 2000s, like Castles in the Sky, Sandstorm, and Heaven. That shit was orgasmic for us 18-20 year olds.

*We'll have a Blue & White Roundtable coming out around dinner time. Plus, don't forget about my rundown of the JoePa presser, coming tonight.