B5Q Blogopean Union: Wisconsin will be on the west sideline for the Rose Bowl

Good morning! This is going to be a daily(ish) post that discusses the goings on of the rest of the Big Ten Conference, and the country as needed. Much like the European Union, the Big Ten is a loosely confederated group of entities that sometimes have the same goals (like free movement of people between countries or not winning national titles in football or basketball) and sometimes accept new members that they later regret (Estonia or Rutgers).

We hope that you will use this post to comment on things happening around the conference and also as a sort of daily open thread to discuss breaking news or argue about Spotted Cow.

• The best college football player to live on the tenth floor of Ogg East in the fall of 2003. Closely followed by my buddy Mike who caught a bunch of touchdowns for our flag football team.

• Their season ended earlier than they would’ve liked, but finishing as the No. 12 team in the nation is nothing to scoff at.

• This graphic seems like it’s basically the meme where you list off a bunch of things and reasons why they’re great except one of the things has nothing saying why it’s great. You know what I’m talking about? Anyways, the men’s hockey team is the one with nothing by it.

• This is important! The sun won’t be in Wisconsin fans’ eyes in the second half. ADVANTAGE BADGERS!

• I have a feeling there will be a lot of these honors coming down the pike for Jonathan Taylor.

• Six points in two games? All in your average weekend for Abby Roque.

• Wisconsin is Linebacker U. now. Eat butt, Penn State.

• Maybe this will carry over to his Wisconsin teammates when they get back on the ice?

• Some volleyball awards were handed out by the AVCA on Tuesday.

I don’t fully understand how they figure out which teams are in which regions. For instance: Wisconsin is in the Northeast Region but Wisconsin-Green Bay is in the North Region. What?!?

Anyways, this is Rettke’s third AVCA honor, Hilley and Haggerty’s second and Loberg’s first.

• An interesting scatter plot of where teams get their points in college basketball this year.

• Barry Alvarez was named the No. 90 best coach in college football history. Lance Leipold of Whitewater was No. 78 and Roger Harring of LaCrosse was No. 92.
• Looks like we are playing A BUNCH OF NERDS in the Rose Bowl!

• I want, no I need, former Indiana QB and international jewel thief Zander Diamont to be on the next season of Million Dollar Listing LA.

• Iowa’s Luke Garza was named national player of the week for his efforts.
• Who will Penn State be looking at to fill its opening at offensive coordinator?
• Speaking of Penn State, their basketball team took down a top-five team at home on Tuesday night! The Lions were actually favored to beat Maryland, but still!
• Northwestern may be turning to the TRANSFER PORTAL to find their next quarterback.
• 3-star 2020 DT flips from Vandy to Northwestern.
• Ohio State has a player nicknamed “She-Bron” because she won Ms. Ohio Basketball three years in a row and LeBron James is the only other person to do that.
• Rutgers received verbal commitments from a 3-star OL and a 3-star ATH/WR on Tuesday.
• Dante Trader Jr. is going to play football AND lacrosse at Maryland.
• Personally, I love the Cal/Illinois RedBox Bowl t-shirts and want to buy a dozen of them.
• Indiana beat UConn in a battle of teams that used to be relevant but their fanbases still do a lot of oxy. The second part is always true, regardless of college basketball success.
• Biggest questions facing the Gophers football team in 2020.
• Can we talk about this graphic for a minute?

Three division championships is pretty impressive. Wait a second though! How many conference championship games has P.J. Fleck coached in? How can it only be one!?!? One of his division championships at Western Michigan, which you may not know isn’t Minnesota, was a FOUR-WAY TIE for first place!!!!! Do you think they made t-shirts?

What’s really exciting is that this means the Gophers are probably going to hang a banner, or whatever, celebrating their “B1G West Division Title” from this year where they lost to their two biggest rivals and didn’t play in the title game. Amazing. Fleck has tied for fifth in the conference just as often as he’s tied for first, so I’ll be expecting an updated graphic shortly.

It is also worth noting that in both of his 10-win seasons, half of which came at a school that isn’t Minnesota, he lost to Wisconsin and of his eight rivalry game wins, half of which came at a school that isn’t Minnesota, he’s actually lost almost twice as many as he’s won in Minneapolis.

Also, two of his rivalry wins at Minnesota came against Nebraska which, like, come one. That’s not even worth celebrating.