FanHouse is counting down the ten best, ten worst, and ten weirdest moments in Big Ten football history.

Yes, here's another moment you just knew was coming.

Anything I can possibly say about how awful it is that Ohio State lost back-to-back BCS Title Games must, of course, be tempered by the mandatory statement about how unbelievably hard it is to make it to one such game, let alone making it to two in a row. Thus if we're going to hail on the Buckeyes for giving a new layer of meaning to the term "epic fail," we owe them ... well, we owe them 50% of the respect we give to the early-90s Buffalo Bills. Or the same amount of respect we give to Bob Stoops' Oklahoma Sooners, who have the same resume (one title, back-to-back title game losses).

So you can't say the Buckeyes are bad, not even if you're an SEC fan, and you can't say that Jim Tressel isn't a very good coach. You can, however, wonder what went wrong. The answer: Lots. In both 2007 and 2008, the Buckeyes were undone by a combination of bad execution (which was within their control) and an imploding hype machine (which wasn't).

Cleveland Browns receiver and Michigan alumnus Braylon Edwards caused a minor internet meltdown in Michigan-land recently when he said he was mad at new Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez for giving the #1 jersey to an incoming freshman defensive back. Edwards had endowed a scholarship for the jersey, traditionally given to god-like wide receivers, that specifically prohibited any freshman from wearing the #1.

Every newspaper in West Virginia has three guys working the Rich Rodriguez beat; Bob Hertzel is one of them. And Bob Hertzel is very confused:

[The number #1] has belonged exclusively to a wide receiver since 1979, dating back to Chris Carter.

There is something wrong with this sentence: it's "Cris Carter." Oh, and here's a picture of the Wolverine legend donning the precious #1:



Oops.

FanHouse is counting down the ten best, ten worst, and ten weirdest moments in the history of Big Ten football.

With the ten best moments accounted for, it's time to move on to the ten worst. There will be some silly moments on this list, and some moments which can best be described as "stupid," but there's only one moment which qualifies as senseless, and it's the closing moments of the 1978 Gator Bowl.

To set the stage: The Clemson Tigers were facing off against Woody Hayes' Ohio State Buckeyes. Late in the fourth quarter, OSU was trailing, 17-15. Quarterback Art Schlichter had to know the famous axiom attributed to Hayes, "There are three things that can happen when you throw the football, and two of them are bad." But the situation called for a pass, and Schlichter (a true freshman) tossed it where Clemson defender Charlie Bauman could catch it. Which he did. Bauman ran towards the near sideline, knowing that the Tigers just needed to run out the clock to lock up the victory. Unfortunately for Bauman, the near sideline was not his own.

FanHouse is counting down the 10 best, 10 worst, and 10 weirdest moments in Big Ten football history.

The phrase "three yards and a cloud of dust" was coined to describe Big Ten football, and it's still a fairly apt description of the conference's beefy, run-first mentality. That is not to say, however, that the forward pass is still a novelty in the Big Ten. Indeed, some pretty good quarterbacks have come out of the conference. A guy in New England comes to mind, for instance.

There was one particular day, though, when everything truly went berserk. That day was November 8, 1980. On that Saturday afternoon, the Big Ten's record for the most passing yards in a single game was broken not once but twice. In fact, not only was the conference's single-game passing record broken, so was the NCAA's. Even more improbably, two other national passing records were broken that day, though not by Big Ten quarterbacks.

Was there something in the air that day? Well, duh. Footballs were in the air. Everywhere.

You're probably tired of the hot topic in the Big Ten this offseason: does a gentleman's agreement to not recruit other conference schools' verbal commitments exist?

Joe Tiller thinks so even though a few years back he lifted Michigan tight end Garrett Bushong from Michigan State; he thinks this mostly because Rich Rodriguez came into town and snatched Ohio wide receiver Roy Roundtree from under his nose. Tiller went nuts, derided "wizard hats and snake oil," and they were off.

Jim Tressel was asked about this gentlemen's agreement and took what might have been a shot at Rodriguez when he claimed that agreement was in effect "only among the gentlemen." Then he yoinked a kid named Melvin Fellows:

The Garfield Heights defensive end informed Tressel that he was switching his oral commitment from Illinois to the Buckeyes, delivering a blow to the Illini and bringing OSU's growing class to 12 pledges.

By my calculations, the gentleman count in the Big Ten stands at zero.

FanHouse is counting down the 10 best, 10 worst, and 10 weirdest moments in Big Ten football history.

As with yesterday's "best moment," here's another accomplishment you'd think somebody would have duplicated at some point. But no. Archie Griffin won the Heisman Trophy in 1974 and 1975. He's the only person (so far) to win it more than once.

It might be difficult to overstate just how good Archie Griffin was. He started for four years, and, not surprisingly, his freshman year was his least productive. He ran for only 1,428 yards that year on 159 attempts.

While Griffin would never again get close to averaging 8.9 yards a carry, that was only because Woody Hayes realized #45 needed to get the ball a lot more often. In 1973 the Buckeyes changed from a T-formation offense to an I-formation, and Griffin carried the ball 100 more times than he had in 1972. He was fifth in the Heisman voting that season.

1974 and 1975 brought more of the same for Griffin and OSU. His numbers were too great for Heisman voters to overlook. Both years he won the award by more than 1,000 points. Those weren't the most lopsided wins in Heisman history but they weren't far from it. Yet, as amazing as it may sound, winning two Heismans might not be Griffin's most unimaginable accomplishment.

Is your pension coughing up dust? Does the ATM say "You must be joking" whenever you try to make a withdrawal? Starting to wish you hadn't taken out that line of credit at First Consolidated Home Mortgage and Bait Shop? Be not afraid. There are still some tremendous bargains to be had in Big Ten football ... and some dangerous pitfalls for the unwary investor. It's still five months until the start of football season, but now is the time for you to do your due diligence on the opportunities available in Big Ten football this fall. Here's my list of buys, sells, and holds for 2008.

BUY: Minnesota. Now, let's get one thing clear. I'm not saying you should buy them as a potential 2008 Big Ten champion. I'm not even saying you should buy them as a bowl team. What I am saying is that they're bound to improve over their 1-11 record in 2007. The Gophers were a very young team last year who endured a lot of blowout losses but seemed to get better as the season went on. Too, they were in their share of really close games that just didn't go their way. But there's an X factor at work in 2008.

Octogenarians and above, feel free to disregard the following information, as it cannot possibly affect you: the Ohio State Buckeyes and Tennessee Volunteers have just finalized plans to play a home-and-home series.

In light of their recent ineptitude against SEC opponents, this would appear to be a foolish decision on Ohio State's part; the Buckeyes haven't beaten an SEC team since 1988. That win against LSU was their only victory against the SEC since well before WWII. Meanwhile, Ohio State is still winless against the same conference in bowl games, all nine losses coming within the last 30 years. So yes, SEC speeeeeeed! and all that.

But fear not, Bucknuts: All of that is ancient history, completely worthless. Why? Because the games won't even be played for another decade. Yes, the athletic departments at both Ohio State and Tennessee have taken the unusually presumptive stance that Earth as we know it will still exist 10 years from now, Manbearpig be damned, and scheduled the series for 2018 and 2019.

This gives the Buckeyes 10 years to figure out how to slow down an SEC opponent (Answer: tasers. Dozens of them. Five on Percy Harvin alone) and once again be competitive in a game that is creeping past them like a glacier--slow, but totally unstoppable. Meanwhile, quarterbacks will be able to see probabilities in their Lexan visor, and 25-yard end zones, and... oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Still, 10 years is a long time for a football program to evolve (or, as with Nebraska, decompose), and entropy suggests that this matchup may bear little resemblence to its current state. And that's all assuming Skynet lets us keep playing football at all. Vicious haters, they.

The Justin Boren transfer saga continues to get weird. Did we say weird? We mean weirder.

Boren, as you'll probably recall, announced his decision to transfer from the Michigan football program on Tuesday. He tendered his letter of resignation or whatever to the media the next day, and it contained all sorts of ominous, nonspecific statements against the program's best interests, including the following excerpts:

I regret leaving behind my friends and teammates, but I need to stand up for what I know is right.

Michigan football was a family, built on mutual respect and support for each other from Coach Carr on down. We knew it took the entire family, a team effort, and we all worked together. I have great trouble accepting that those family values have eroded in just a few months.

I saw Rich Rodriguez throw Jimmy Hoffa into an active volcano in 1975.

If you want to get technical, the last excerpt may not actually exist in Boren's statement, but his decision to cite "family values" certainly leaves plenty of suspicion in a reader's mind. Sunday Morning Quarterback speculates further, and it reads like the "Woodland Critter Christmas" episode of South Park. SMQ also notes that this situation may be more closely related to the extreme duress of the no-huddle spread offense Rodriguez is implementing and the two offensive linemen who have already left, but let's not get bogged down on facts here folks.

Of course, the "fun" doesn't stop there.

Interesting find in Olin Buchanan's Mailbag this week at Rivals.com: a trend has emerged in college football whereby teams winning a title ending in any year ending in an 8 experience a long, painful championship drought.

Recent victims: Notre Dame has not won a title since 1988. USC waited until 2003 after claiming the 1978 crown. Ohio State endured a more than 30-year wait between their 1968 and 2002 crowns. Scary stuff here.

Everyone wants a championship, but maybe it's a devil's bargain in reaching for this year's title?

Other victims of years ending in "8":

TCU was named the Associated Press national champion in 1938 – the third year of the poll – and even though players such as Bob Lilly and LaDainian Tomlinson have since come through Fort Worth, the Horned Frogs have not won another crown.

Michigan won in 1948 and did not win another national title until 1997, and that one was split with Nebraska. The '58 champion was LSU, which waited 45 years before celebrating another national championship.

Ok so maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing for TCU to win a championship this year. They've waited long enough, maybe another drought is worth the price of ending the current agony.