B5Q Blogopean Union: it’s a great week to start thinking about hockey!

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 Nebraska).

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 (which we NO LONGER DO).

• If you missed it over the weekend, freshman RB Antwan Roberts has entered the transfer portal. We wish him well at his next school and hope that he has a successful college career.

• Look at Vitto Brown thriving overseas!

• Much like Wisconsin, Notre Dame’s defense is outperforming their offense so far this season. Should be a real slugfest on Saturday.

• It’s a great week to get prepared for hockey! We’ll have a series preview coming for you later this week as the defending national champs finally take the ice after a long offseason.

• The highlight videos that @BadgerVB put together for all the matches freaking rule. Since the two matches from over the weekend weren’t on tv, this video is mandatory viewing for all.

• The Badgers have added two new duals to the wrestling schedule with the addition of Hofstra and UNC at the Garden State Grapple.

• The Big Ten has been pretty good at football and men’s basketball over the past decade, huh?

• Badger fans finally got to meet new women’s basketball coach Marisa Moseley in person last week. There are, uh, low expectations for the Badgers this season so it’s nice to see UW make an effort to connect with fans while Moseley tries to rebuild the program.

• It was a big Big Ten opening weekend for both the men’s and women’s soccer teams and we have a full post coming later this morning from J.J. on what went down.

• Obviously Saturday’s game is huge for both the Badgers and Irish, but it is also big, personally, for Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly. After beating Purdue on Saturday, he is now tied with Knute Rockne for most career wins at Notre Dame.
• Penn State might be pretty good. The Nittany Lions beat Auburn on Saturday night thanks to some timely defense.
• Nebraska volleyball was swept off the court by Louisville over the weekend. Bremen will have a full Big Ten breakdown later on Monday.
• Purdue just couldn’t put it all together in a frustrating loss to the Irish on Saturday.
• Northwestern QB Hunter Johnson probably won’t be taking another snap for the Wildcats, uh, ever after his performance against Duke. Here is what else the Inside NU staff took away from the Nerd Bowl.
• The Buckeyes eventually put their foot down and beat Tulsa, but it took a lot longer than most expected and there are still a lot of questions about Ohio State, especially on defense.
• Michigan (???) has the best rushing attack in the nation this year.
• Minnesota’s defense looked downright scary in shutting out Colorado on Saturday.
• Illinois went, uh, full Illinois in their loss to Maryland on Friday.
• Maryland didn’t look great against the Illini, but still managed to win. That isn’t something they always did.
• The Spartans added a 4-star forward to their 2022 men’s hoops recruiting class.
• Rutgers soccer had a huge weekend as the men took down No. 11 Indiana and the women beat No. 8 Penn State