Tonight the Nebraska Cornhuskers play the Wisconsin Badgers in the Big Ten Championship game. It’s a bit of a nightmare scenario for the conference.
Nebraska is not a bad team. They’re 10-2 and have only lost one game in the conference — although it was a crushing loss, a 63-38 spanking at the hands of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Wisconsin, on the other hand, is a different story. The Badgers are 7-5 overall, and only 4-4 in the conference. Wisconsin lost three of its last four games, all in overtime.
Wisconsin is not a bad team, either — but what does it tell you when a .500 team in the conference makes it to the championship game and has the chance to play in the Rose Bowl? The reason, of course, is that undefeated Ohio State, easily the best team in the Big Ten, isn’t eligible to play due to NCAA sanctions.
Not surprisingly, there’s not a lot of interest in the game. Many tickets are for sale at a steep discount from face value, and organizers are expecting a number of empty seats. I’m confident that the Rose Bowl organizers, too, are holding their breath and hoping that Nebraska wins, so the Granddaddy of all bowl games doesn’t feature a team that barely has a winning record.
I’m sure the Badgers will play their hardest and will be proud to represent the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl if they win. I’d feel that way if I were a Badger, too, but for the rest of us Big Ten fans this game is an embarrassment. It’s a pathetic conclusion to a year that — thanks to the sanctions imposed on Ohio State and Penn State, weak teams, a less-than-stellar out of conference record, and uninspired play by teams like Michigan State that were expected to be powerhouses — has been an embarrassment for the storied Big Ten conference.
After the game, I was surprised to read some very harsh comments about this simple gesture. Fans of Michigan, Wisconsin, and other schools — many of whom think Ohio State’s domination of the Big Ten conference is the product of a dirty program that skirts the NCAA rules and cheats — depicted the ceremony as Ohio State thumbing its nose at the NCAA and displaying its contempt for the rules and sanctions that ultimately resulted in Jim Tressel’s resignation. I think that is a small, mean-spirited reaction to a desire to honor a storied Ohio State team on the 10th anniversary of its greatest achievement.
One of the 
For starters, Penn State will have to pay a $60 million fine — representing one year of revenue from its football program — to external programs aimed at preventing child sexual abuse or helping the victims of such abuse. The NCAA also barred Penn State’s football program from bowl games for five years, cut Penn State’s available scholarships for four years, and vacated all of Penn State’s many football wins since 1998. The latter penalty means that Joe Paterno will not be officially recognized as the winningest coach in college football history.
2011 was a year of embarrassments unparalleled in the history of OSU football. From the abrupt “retirement” of Jim Tressel in the face of an NCAA investigation, to the forfeiting of games, to the suspension of players for rules violations, to poor play, galling losses, and a crappy on-the-field record, and finally to the announcement of serious sanctions that include a one-year bowl ban, the Buckeyes and Buckeye Nation had to absorb a series of body blows throughout the year.
The dark times are back, my friend! Make no mistake about it. Every day seems to bring a humiliatingly inept offensive performance, or another drip in the water torture that is an ongoing NCAA investigation. Conversations that begin calmly, with protestations that there really isn’t anything to talk about, quickly morph into neck-vein-bulging diatribes at ever-increasing decibel levels until the worked-up Buckeyes fan suddenly realizes that he has coated the listener’s face with a fine coating of righteously spewed Buckeye spittle.
According to reports, as many as two dozen Fresno State players are embroiled in a welfare fraud investigation involving a county Department of Social Services eligibility specialist. The government worker apparently improperly obtained Electronic Benefit Transfer cards — formerly known as food stamps. Although the names of the athletes haven’t been released and it’s not entirely clearly what they received, 
The story is based on an interview with Pryor’s attorney, who read a statement from the Ohio State quarterback. The attorney quoted the statement as saying: “In the best interest of my teammates, I have decided to forego my senior year of football at the Ohio State University.” It is not clear at this point whether the University has confirmed Pryor’s decision.
The Columbus Dispatch story linked above quotes Coach Tressel as saying in a statement: “Throughout this entire situation my players and I have committed ourselves to facing our mistakes and growing from them; we can only successfully do that together. Like my players, I am very sorry for the mistakes I made. I request of the university that my sanctions now include five games so that the players and I can handle this adversity together.”
