What Up, What’s Haapnin: Big Ten Football Week 8 preview

HIT THE MUSIC!

It is time to give a Big Ten-centric preview of the upcoming college football weekend that declines to use stats or analysis and instead...deals only in vibes. This post is a shorter version of the old Big Ten Roast that I used to do (not last year though, because last year sucked and I didn’t really feel like cracking jokes) so hopefully you’ll tolerate this as much as you tolerated that.

Northwestern at No. 6 Michigan, Saturday, 10/23, 11:00 a.m. CT, FOX; Michigan -23.5

The Wolverines will be sleepwalking their way to a win here because everyone and their drunk uncle are looking ahead to next weekend when Michigan plays Michigan State in East Lansing. The discourse online between the Wolverines and the Spartans fans has been incredibly toxic already and next week, with both teams presumably undefeated and in the top-10, hoo, boy is it going to be wild.

Julius Marble II’s face here is just perfect too. He knows this is getting posted online and he only kinda cares. More trash talk between rivals is good and also not bad.

Illinois at No. 7 Penn State, Saturday, 10/23, 11:00 a.m. CT, ABC; PSU -23.5

Fucking Bret Bielema, man. Sure, Lovie Smith’s recruiting sucked but, you know, you’re the coach here now and if you can’t develop players...that’s on you, Bert. Can’t imagine this went over well in the locker room and it’ll be interesting to see how the team comes out and plays in a game in which they are greatly overmatched.

I don’t know what Illinois thought they were getting with Bielema, but I’m sure shitting on his own players halfway through the first season wasn’t on their wish list.

Wisconsin at No. 25 Purdue, Saturday, 10/23, 2:00 p.m. CT, BTN; UW -3.5

I love the ChrystMemes account. It is perfect in every way to me and it will never run out of content as long as Paul Chryst is coach because he just keeps spouting off nonsense like this every single week.

While Purdue is in a prime position for a letdown game after beating No. 2 Iowa last weekend, it’s extremely difficult to bet against the vibes coming off this powerful picture. If the Boilermakers beat the Badgers by 30 it is solely because of No. 69 Greg Long.

Maryland at Minnesota, Saturday, 10/23, 2:30 p.m. CT, ESPN2; Minnesota -4.5

If anyone brings this game up again I’ll ban you from the whole internet.

I’ve found that growing older/becoming a parent has left me in many situations where I can’t remember words and, quite frankly, it’s kinda hilarious because it leads to situations where you have to describe one word, using multiple words that may not be completely relevant to it.

It’s like the bizarro version of the Mitch Hedberg naming kitchen appliances joke.

No. 5 Ohio State at Indiana, Saturday, 10/23, 6:30 p.m. CT, ABC; OSU -21

I remember back over the summer I thought this game was going to rule and potentially be a program defining victory for the Indiana Hoosiers. Sadly, the plucky, upstart Hoosiers only seem to play well when the entire is shut down due to a pandemic. I feel safe, and incredibly correct, in saying that the Hoosiers won the national title during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.

I guess if you’re looking for tickets to the game, though, there are plenty of good seats available!