Joe Sports

MADISON, Wis. -- By now, every hard-core Big Ten football fan knows the deal at Wisconsin's Camp Randall Stadium.

Between the third and fourth quarters, the PA system blares House of Pain's "Jump Around." Every single one of the thousands of students standing in the north end zone -- as well as thousands of other fans throughout the stadium -- jump up, up and around and make the stadium (including the press box) tremble and sway.

On Saturday, several of Illinois' defenders took the opportunity to jump around with the Badgers' fans. Among others, defensive ends Will Davis and Jerry Brown, linebackers Rodney Pittman and Martez Wilson and safety Donsay Hardeman leaped around on the visitors' sideline. Heck, even a few guys in Illinois' offensive huddle jumped briefly.

Get pumped. Big college football weekend. This is the Saturday that Ohio State throws the Big Ten race into a tizzy, Northwestern clinches a bowl berth and Illinois determines its direction for the rest of the year.

But first, here's what can happen when you use college football -- instead of the other way around.

Former linebacker Keenan Blalark, who prepped at Larkin High School in Elgin before walking on at Northern Illinois and producing 211 tackles for the Huskies, just learned he received a $10,000 grant to pursue a post-graduate education in athletics administration.

As veteran readers know, mathematician Jeff Sagarin is my hero. I like to look at his computerized ratings to get a gauge on how football and basketball games might play out. Usually, it's quite impressive to see how close he comes.

Here are this week's games using his Predictor numbers in USA Today (with the home team in caps and the betting line in parentheses):

Illinois by 3.5 over WISCONSIN (ILL -2.5)
Northwestern by 12 over INDIANA (NU -8)
NORTHERN ILLINOIS by 12 over Bowling Green (NIU -8)
Penn State by 7 over OHIO STATE (PSU -2.5)
Michigan State by 12 over MICHIGAN (MSU -4)
Minnesota by 5.5 over PURDUE (MINN +1)
Notre Dame by 11.5 over WASHINGTON (ND -11)

Hey gang:

If you've missed these quotes this week, you've missed a lot. Or, you've missed something. Or maybe not.

But first, let's open with my favorite quote from the preseason. This was how Hall of Fame center Jack Rudnay, who starred at Northwestern from 1966-68 before dominating for the Kansas City Chiefs, closed his speech to the Wildcats prior to their first practice on Aug. 5:
"God bless you. Rip their livers out."

--In that vein, here's Illinois coach Ron Zook's blunt assessment of last year's game between the Illini and Wisconsin that Illinois won 31-26:
"Both teams just lined up and knocked the crap out of each other."

CHAMPAIGN -- It's 11:25 p.m. and they just turned the lights out in Memorial Stadium. Of course, Illinois turned out the lights on Indiana hours before -- and long before the game was over. (Note to any journalism majors out there: See how easy it is to write bad transitions? Try to avoid doing what I just did).

Anyway, the nation's 10th-ranked offense cranked it up to a new level in 2008 with 55 points and 563 total yards. More important, the Illini discovered yet another weapon to unleash on opponents.

True freshman Jason Ford, who's 6-foot and 222 pounds, displayed the arsenal of moves that explained why he rushed for 6,415 yards at Belleville Althoff High School.

In honor of the first day of college hoops practice, I revved up the Toyota Camry (a.k.a. the Straight Hoop Express), conned the cute 3-year-old daughter into her car seat and headed to Northwestern and DePaul to check out the action.

(We intended to go to Loyola's Rambler Madness, too, but the Straight Hoop Express' dead battery in Lincoln Park cost us $45 as well as the time we budgeted to get to Rogers Park. And, no, we're not nearly hip enough or Onion-y enough to refer to the Camry as the Straight Hoopty Express).

Here are 11 things we saw (in no particular order):

At halftime of Northwestern's homecoming game Saturday against Purdue, the National Football Foundation and the College Hall of Fame will recognize NU coach Pat Fitzgerald for being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

It's a cool honor, though we've known about it for months. Here's the bit of news about Fitz' induction that blows me away: He's the 11th Northwestern player in the Hall of Fame. That's just as many as Illinois, which has had quite a bit more on-field success than the Wildcats.

Here's the list of NU Hall-of-Famers per the website (www.collegefootball.org). Oh, and dig the crazy nicknames:

Jimmy Johnson (1904-05)
Paddy "The Wasp" Driscoll (1915-16)
Ralph "Moon" Baker (1924-26)
Jack Riley (1929-31)
Ernie "Pug" Rentner (1930-32)
Edgar "Eggs" Manske (1931-33)

Maybe Jerry Wainwright and I are kindred souls born a couple decades apart.

Whenever we chat on the phone, our conversations stretch for at least a half-hour. Since I like talking hoops miniutiae and philosophies and whatnot...and Wainwright has some deep thoughts on almost everything...it's a good match. What makes Wainwright so deep? Well, it helps that he sleeps only a few hours each night and has some quiet time to contemplate basketball and other things bigger than the game.

Greetings from Champaign, where Illinois held its media day 72 hours in advance of its first official practice.

Of course, it's a misnomer to say Friday will be the Illini's first practice. They've been able to work two hours per week as a team since Sept. 25...and they were allowed to work four at a time for two hours per week since school began...and they took it upon themselves to have a much more structured summer plan than in years past.

Instead of just showing up at the Ubben Basketball Complex and having an "And-1" run, as soph PG Demetri McCamey described it, the Illini actually broke down into position groups and did some fundamental work before scrimmaging.

At 5 p.m. Central Daylight Time on Friday, college basketball teams across the country can kick their practices into high gear. Right now, teams can work together 2 hours a week...but that jumps to 20 hours per week when the official NCAA season starts on Friday.

To try to capture this excitement, we'll take sneak peeks at our local hoops squads one or two at a time.

Let's start with the Northwestern Wildcats, who can (and will) go nowhere but up after finishing 8-22 and 1-17 in the Big Ten last year. Chatted with Bill Carmody on Monday and here are a few of his observations (mixed in with mine from when I saw the squad have one of their unofficial runs a few weeks ago).