The great thing about college football is that it is Ground Zero, where raw athletes are molded into gems before our eyes every week. However, pressure does not always produce diamonds. Welcome to the D-List, Deadspin Dean’s recognition of college football’s saddest achievements. This is a nod to college football’s unrefined talent, the underachievers on the playing field, infamous figures, coaches with star systems, canceled Heisman campaigns, and all the ugly spots on the college football scene.
The Big Ten West has been in a terrible state for more than a decade. On the other side of the more affluent community of the Big Ten’s East Division are the dilapidated programs of the West Division. The saving grace is that the conference overlords are finally addressing the competitive imbalance by announcing this summer that they will disband the divisions once they welcome USC and UCLA into their fold in 2024. Thank the greed of college presidents for a reason to get behind the gentrification of college football.
The difference in money and talent between the divisions was always a joke. The Big Ten West looks like Brownsville in the 1990s. Corporate sponsors will be holding tight to their wallets as they advertise during a Big Ten West game this season. The Big Ten West’s best are a long way from competing with the East division’s Michigan-Ohio State-Penn State triumvirate, but the NIL era would have only widened the disparity.
The West-leading Iowa Hawkeyes are representative of everything that is wrong with the Big Ten’s bottom feeder division. At 7-2, the Hawkeyes are on the cusp of clinching their division despite a host of issues. It’s early November and the Hawkeyes quarterbacks have amassed fewer than 1,000 total yards. Starting quarterback Cade McNamara was lost for the season after tearing his ACL against Michigan State a month ago.
of Iowa offense ranks last in the entire Big Ten in yardage and 13th out of 14 teams in points, the offensive coordinator is the failure of their beloved head coach, and he has been politely asked to leave after the season. Head coach Kirk Ferentz was so committed to the nepotism that Iowa’s athletic director had to install an addendum to Brian Ferentz’s contract that would terminate his employment if the offense did not average at least 25 points per game. It was the equivalent of parents grounding their children or giving them time out from the TV unless they read a few chapters a day and clean their rooms.
Until this week, Brian was walking the tightrope of 25 ppg when the program decided it was enough. According to the Josh Dubrow of Associated PressIowa is the first Power-Five program to be held to fewer than 250 yards in at least six of their first nine games since Rutgers during their 1-11 campaign in 2002.
If they can survive unranked Rutgers, Illinois and Nebraska, they should be the lamb for whoever emerges from the East’s gauntlet. Surprisingly, Rutgers is 6-3, but the odds are in their favor. The Scarlet Knights are improving quickly, but they will always have a ceiling around Michigan and Ohio State’s knees. The best they can do is trip up the Big Ten kingpins every now and then.
Minnesota is the only Big Ten West opponent to edge Iowa by upsetting the Hawkeyes 12-10 earlier this month. Even if Iowa wins, they still get defeathered in the Big Ten Championship Game. Since 2013, the Big Ten East has gone 10-0 in conference title matches.
Brian’s offense certainly set football back a century. However, the rot has spread throughout the Big Ten West. Brian shouldn’t be the only offensive coordinator hired. In fact, no offense in the Big Ten averages 25 points per game Brian had to keep his job.
Ahead of Rutgers’ showdown against Ohio State on Saturday, Greg Schiano resorted to gallows humor when discussing the challenge of facing the Buckeyes’ top-5 defensive unit.
Realignment has destroyed a bevy of hallowed college football traditions, but one byproduct the nation should be ecstatic about is that the final act of the Big Ten’s binary East-West tragicomedy is upon us.