Author: David Shama

Yup, Ohio State got a share of yet another Big Ten title (33rd in school history) but there were more surprises than ho-hum developments during the conference’s 2008 football season that ended last Saturday.  Joe Paterno, 81, proved he could still recruit and coach (even if it was from the press box on game day) leading his Penn State team to a co-title with the Buckeyes and along the way showed the Nittany Lions were the best in the Big Ten.

Before the season there was expectation that Wisconsin, Illinois and maybe even Michigan would out-do Penn State in the conference race to see if any team could finish ahead of Ohio State.  Instead the Badgers, Illini and Wolverines faltered, while Penn State, Michigan State, Northwestern and Iowa enjoyed surprising celebration seasons.

Here’s a summary and report card from Sports Headliners on Big Ten teams with remarks and grades based on preseason expectations and actual performance.

Put the Gophers down for a B-.  Losing the last four games was bad and on a family Web site I can’t write the word that describes Minnesota’s performance in the 55-0 final game loss to Iowa, but remember the Gophers were a popular choice before the season to finish last in the conference.  The Gophers, 1-11 in 2007, won four marshmallow-like nonconference games, and then won three of their first four conference games defeating Indiana, Illinois and Purdue.  Two of the wins were on the road.

The Gopher season changed after a 24-17 loss to Northwestern that if played differently might have gone into overtime and led to a Gopher victory.  Coach Tim Brewster’s play-to-win style produced an opening game closing minute win against Northern Illinois, but a late fourth quarter interception by a Northwestern defender sent the Gophers on their way to four consecutive losses.

On Monday offensive line coach Phil Meyer announced his resignation.  Yesterday Tim Davis, an assistant at Alabama, joined up with Brewster as running game coordinator/offensive line coach.  Expect, too, that in the upcoming bowl game (site not determined) the Gophers run some plays with the quarterback under center and show modifications in their play package trying to liven up an offense that produced six points in two of the last three games.

Hardly anyone thought the Gophers would win more than four, five, or six games, and fewer foresaw bowl eligibility.  Mostly behind an improved defense under coordinator Ted Roof, the Gophers won seven, lost five and despite the awful finish surprised the Big Ten and made improvement.

With three national championship appearances since the start of the new millennium, it’s difficult to give Ohio State anything better than a B+ for a 10-2 season.  The Buckeyes had almost all their starters back from the national championship game against LSU last winter but hopes of making the next title game vanished with a 35-3 third game loss to USC.  Ohio State (what else is new?) will be formidable again next season, in search of its second national championship since 2003, but may not be so powerful if junior running back Beanie Wells goes pro.  Good news for Gopher fans is that they won’t have to hear anymore about all-honors linebacker James Laurinaitis, the former Wayzata High School star who is a Buckeye senior.

Penn State, 11-1, has a nice collection of senior players, but none as important as junior quarterback Daryll Clark.  He was among the conference’s most efficient passers and his running ability brought to life a Penn State offense that had struggled at the quarterback position the year before.  Seems like when Penn State commits to an option quarterback (see Michael Robinson and 11-1 season in 2005) the Nittany Lions have an offense, plus there’s always a good defense in Happy Valley.  This season Penn State led the Big Ten in scoring offense and defense.  Give the Lions an A grade with an asterisk that it would have been A+ if not for a 24-23 loss at Iowa.

Who can blame them for crying in their beer in Madison?  Before the season, except for Ohio State, the Badgers looked like the Big Ten’s best.  Three games into the year Wisconsin was 3-0 and ranked No. 8 in the country.  Then the Badgers blew a 19-0 lead at Michigan, lost the game and things were never the same.  Wisconsin lost four of the next five games before recovering to win against three season ending softies, Indiana, Minnesota and Cal-Poly.  It’s a D+ grade for the Badgers who finished 3-5 in the conference, 7-5 overall.  Coach Brett Bielema, 12-1 in his first season and 9-4 last year, better do something about his fading popularity in Dairyland.

Ron Zook is wearing the “Coach February” label after Illinois stumbled to a 3-5 Big Ten season, 5-7 overall.  Zook is known as a superb recruiter who has rounded up impressive talent on February signing days but he’s produced only one winning season in four years at Illinois. The Illini, 9-4 last season and a Rose Bowl team, had a majority of their starters back from last season but they are among the conference’s biggest flops in 2008.  A low point was a 23-17 loss to Western Michigan earlier this month before 12,865 fans at Ford Field in Detroit.  Junior quarterback Juice Williams led the Big Ten in total offense and passing offense per game, but Illinois faltered on defense.  Illinois earns a D grade and a cap D for disappointing.

Desperate Michigan would probably love a D.  Instead the Wolverines receive an F in coach Rich Rodriguez’s first season in Ann Arbor.  How could it be anything else for Michigan, 9-4 last year and a team that returned about half its starters?  The Wolverines were 2-6 in the conference, 3-9 overall.  You’ve heard multiple times the historic firsts about this season: most school losses in school history, first losing season since 1967 and 33 year streak of bowl games halted.  Michigan’s problems started with not having a quarterback who could fit into the new spread system Rich-Rod brought from West Virginia.  A 2009 recruiting class will help make the Wolverines better next season but 2008 will long be remembered in Ann Arbor.

Michigan State used the performance of senior players and the tough mindedness of second year coach Mark Dantonio to finish second in the Big Ten with a 6-2 record, 9-3 overall.  Senior running back Javon Ringer rushed for 21 touchdowns, best in the Big Ten.  The offense benefited, too, from a senior leader at quarterback, Brian Hoyer.  Senior safety Otis Wiley was among the conference leaders in interceptions and part of a Spartan defense that both performed well and failed.  The defense helped beat Wisconsin by one point and Iowa by three, but the Spartans gave up 45 to Ohio State and 48 to Penn State.  The Spartans weren’t quite ready to play with the league’s best but still they almost won the school’s first conference title since 1990.  They deserve their A-.

Northwestern used a senior group and a coach still young enough to be playing on Sundays to shock the Big Ten world with a 9-3 season, 5-3.  Senior quarterback C.J. Bacher was third in conference total offense.  Senior receivers Ross Lane and Eric Peterman were Big Ten leaders in receptions and before he was injured senior running back Tyrell Sutton was outstanding rushing and catching.  But Northwestern’s rise from 6-6 a year ago was partially attributable to a defense led by first year defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz.  He had been dismissed after last season from the same job at Wisconsin.  The man smart enough to hire him was Pat Fitzgerald, the 33-year- -old head coach already in his third season in Evanston.  Give the Wildcats a savvy A grade for the season.

In Iowa the lunatic fringe who had been disrespecting coach Kirk Ferentz after a 6-6 season last year and 3-3 start this season is now presumably cowering behind closed doors.  The Hawkeyes, 8-4 overall and 5-3 in the conference, played classic late season Big Ten football, winning five of their last six games behind a power running game and solid defense.  Junior running back Shonn Greene leads the nation’s runners with 1,729 yards.  The Hawkeye defense finished in the top three in the conference in scoring defense, run defense and total defense.  Orchestrating the defense was coordinator Norm Parker, an assistant at Minnesota in the 1970s.  Doesn’t matter whether he’s working with under recruited kids from Florida, or no name high schoolers from Iowa or Minnesota, they become players under Parker.  For juicing the most possible out of the material, rallying from that 3-3 start and playing wonderful football at season’s end, the Hawks earn an A.  By the way, Iowa’s four losses were by a combined 12 points.

Purdue and Indiana are in the same state so we’ll lump them into a final paragraph.  A little more than a .500 season was expected at Purdue in coach Joe Tiller’s last season.  Instead the Boilers, who experienced internal dissension and injury to senior quarterback Curtis Painter, finished 2-6 in the Big Ten and 4-8 overall.  Tiller won more games than any Purdue coach in history but he’s riding off to a retirement home in Wyoming with a D+ for the season.  Assistant Danny Hope will be his successor.  The last name is a positive start to the post-Tiller era.  As for Indiana, the Hoosiers fulfilled expectations, minimal as they were.  Picked for near the bottom of the conference, the Hoosiers finished 1-7 and in last place in the Big Ten, and 3-9 overall.  Wins were against Western Kentucky, Murray State and Northwestern.  The Hoosiers deserve an F including for their 62-10 loss to Purdue in their final game. A sad season, bad tradition and gloomy future.

Timberwolves’ TV analyst Jim Petersen is a former McDonald’s All-American who played at St. Louis Park High School, later was a standout for the Gophers and played eight years in the NBA.  Petersen was asked recently if he’s disappointed in Wolves’ 20-year-old rookie Kevin Love, who is coming off the bench, playing an average of 23.6 minutes while averaging 8.3 points and six rebounds.

“No, because I know how hard his job is,” Petersen said. “I know he’s only 20 years old.  I didn’t expect him to have huge success right out of the box, although he’s impressed me in a lot of ways.

“He’s not been a disappointment.  I know how hard his task is to deal with grown men up here. He’s shown me a lot already. I think it’s just a matter of time before we say he’s our second best player, and there may be a time he may be our best player, but not yet.  I would still rather have Mike Miller and Kevin Love over O.J. Mayo even though Mayo is playing pretty well.”

Miller, 28, and Love came here on draft night, along with other players involved on both sides in a trade with Memphis.  Mayo has been taking a lot of shots while starting for Memphis.  He’s averaging 39.2 minutes and 20.6 points per game.

Petersen thinks Mayo may well become an NBA all-star game player but it’s too early to know whether he can achieve superstardom.  “He’s going to be an A player, it looks like,” Petersen said.

The Wolves host Phoenix tonight at Target Center and among the storylines for the Suns is that 36-year-old center Shaquille O’Neal is playing the fewest minutes per game of his career. Through games of last week he was playing 27.5 minutes per game while averaging 15.4 points and 8.6 rebounds.  Wolves’ 7-foot center Jason Collins likely will start the game guarding the powerful O’Neal, 7-1, 325.  Collins, who faced O’Neal when he was a rookie with New Jersey in 2002, told Sports Headliners he starts pushing O’Neal away from the basket when the big center’s team has the ball and “you can’t let him hit you first.”  Often the contact starts at the free throw line, sometimes at the three point line.

“I think the refs over the years have let you get away with more stuff against him because he is so big,” Collins said.  “…My going up against Shaq started my rookie year in the finals.  I was coming off the bench then.  It’s one of those things where you see how the game is going.  You just gotta be physical with him. … Like I said before, you can’t wait for him to hit you.”

Among the MIAC football award winners is league MVP Royce Winford, a two-way player from Augsburg.  On offense, the 6-2 receiver caught 75 passes for 944 yards and 12 touchdowns.  As a defensive back, he had three interceptions during conference play.

Concordia junior defensive tackle Travis Aufderheide received the 2008 Mike Stam Award as the league’s top interior lineman. Aufderheide had 4.5 sacks and 7 tackles for loss for a Cobber defense that led the MIAC in rush defense.

Carleton head coach Kurt Ramler is the MIAC Coach of the Year. Ramler, in his third season, coached the Knights to a 7-3 record, 5-3 in the MIAC.  Carleton had its first national ranking since 1992.  The Knights’ seven wins equaled the program’s second-highest win total over the last 50 seasons.

A vote of conference coaches determined award winners.