- B1G football recruiting costs soar - It is no secret that recruiting is big business for college football and basketball programs, and the recruiting-industrial complex has grown massively, from the proliferation of recruiting news websites, camps, and even televised high school games.
The Big Ten has struggled to keep up with schools from other regions when it comes to recruiting, and that is something that the conference looks to be trying to change. The Gazette, an eastern Iowa newspaper lays out this increase in spending:
Big Ten public schools have increased their football recruiting expenses by 57 percent in a two-year period, according to documents supplied to The Gazette via state open-records laws. The league's current 11 public schools combined to spent nearly $6.47 in football recruiting in fiscal year 2013. That's a jump from $4.1 million in 2011.
"The costs are rising, coaches are traveling, they have to travel," Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said. "It's an expensive thing.
"It's an arms race, no doubt. But we're probably a little bit healthier here in the Big Ten than in other regions in the country."
Will this pay off on the field?
- Brandon Scherff Arrested for Cattle Theft - Grocery store crime, B1G style.
"I was just up to fry a late-night pork tenderloin before heading to bed, look out the window, and damned if I don't see the barn floodlight shinin' on Old Gus with all four legs in the air, and some big hulkin' thing carryin' ‘em right on off into the forest!" Brown reported.
"We caught Mr. Scherff trying to fit the entire Holstein onto his moped just across Old Beaver Creek, right outside Mr. Brown's property," Larson reported. Scherff has yet to be charged with anything, though cattle theft with intent to consume across county lines is a Class 2 misdemeanor in Iowa.
(Yes, that was satire.)
- A Guide To Hating Properly - Do you have hate in your heart? Let it out properly, with OTE's guide to hating properly.
Let's get the easy one out of the way first: Everyone hates the SEC. This is for regional/national dominance, and those people down south like to think they run the show. It's our job to prove them wrong, and when we can't prove them wrong, we mock their love of ESS EEE CEE Speed, and copious number of calls to PAWWWWWWWWWWL Finebaum, to whom they feel we should "hang up an' lissen."
...
Michigan hates Michigan State and Ohio State. Their relationship with Appalachian State has also been known to be rocky, so maybe it's just a State thing. And the odds are high that the first (or one of the first) comments on this article will be "Fuck Michigan", so brace yourselves, it's happening.
- Finally, ESPN presents this infographic talking about revenue and spending among the ten biggest athletic departments. Did you know that Michigan made the most money of any public school from its away games in 2013? Michigan also spent over one million on its spirit squad.
This is your daily reminder that college sports is big business, y'all.