Game of the Weak

Mike Hlas is an award-winning columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette and force behind The Hlog. Each week he will break down the biggest mismatches in college football. Mike's task is perhaps more complex than choosing between Obama and McCain considering the increasing number of Bowl Championship Series teams scheduling games against cupcake opponents. These games merely bilk fans out of hard-earned money and cheapen the overall product.

Unlike everyone else in the Big Ten, Purdue didn’t open its season last week.

The Boilermakers apparently were trying to draw out the suspense for their season-opener, this Saturday in West Lafayette, Ind., against the Northern Colorado Bears.

This is Joe Tiller’s 12th and final season as Purdue’s coach. He’ll probably retire into the Wyoming sunset to do lots of his beloved trout fishing. He coached at Wyoming before arriving at Purdue, and he attended Montana State, so Tiller clearly has an affinity for Big Sky country. That may explain why he put Northern Colorado, a Big Sky member, on his schedule.

Just one problem. Northern Colorado is to college football what a bicycle is to a trout.

The Bears of Greeley were 1-11 last season, outscored by an average of 36-11 each week. In their one visit to Division I-A land, the I-AA Bears lost at Hawaii, 63-6.

Will this year be better? Perhaps, but only in the way Gustav was better than Katrina.

The Bears were picked by Big Sky coaches to finish ninth out of nine teams this season. All nine coaches picked them to bring up the rear, including their own guy, Scott Downing.

"Until we go out and win some more games on the field, we expect to be chosen last," Downing said.

That’s called being grounded in Big Sky country.

Northern Colorado-Purdue is another I-A and I-AA atrocity. Last week the I-A teams won 31 of 32 games against their little brothers, and few of the games were remotely close. It would be a dirty little secret of college football, except it’s out in the open.

The hard-working people of north-central Indiana — you know, those nameless, faceless people McCain and Obama give shoutouts to in convention acceptance speeches — shouldn’t be paying to see Northern Colorado as part of their Purdue season-ticket packages.

So the Boilermakers won’t get an adequate tune-up for their extremely interesting clash with a dynamic Oregon team the following Saturday in West Lafayette. If the Ducks do to Purdue what they did to Washington in their season-opening 44-10 mushing of the Huskies, the glow of the Boilers’ glorious win over Northern Colorado will fade faster than a sunset over one of Tiller’s favorite fishing streams.

Comments

[Merle]

So front left is a Purdue student?

[Chg]

I am dubious of the placard's claim, given how obviously poor Purdue admission standards are at keeping goofy looking guys out of IU.

[scrambled eggs]

lets call a spade a spade here fellas. From the looks of any one of those guys pictured, it appears IU has been keeping ugly dudes out of Purdue since 1869 or whatever!!