Off-Beat Badgers preview: Time for the spin zone
If you are looking for hard-hitting analysis, yeah, this ain’t it. But if you want a fun, entertaining read, you’ve found the right place. For more of Brandon Rifkin, please head to his blog or follow him on Twitter.
If the 500 message grouptext I had with my friends debating whether or not Hornibrook is objectively terrible is any indication, this is going to be a HARD spin zone this week. There's no way of describing that game other than calling it what it was: a complete and utter failure. Hornibrook? What the hell was that. Chryst? Third-and-2 from their 42 and you pass and then punt because WHY. Penalty for roughing the snapper? A Harbaugh-infused pile of bullcrap the size of Montana.
I could go on, but there's no reason to. We were outcoached and outplayed on the road by a better team. It happens and it sucks and we are all perfectly aware that the world was wrong about the 2018 Wisconsin football team. Whatever.
RANDOM MUSIC WE'RE DIGGING HARD THIS WEEK
https://youtu.be/hZvFGEE26vE
Spotify Discover Weekly coming through in the clutch!
(I still haven't stopped listening to the new Metric album, send help.)
BIG TEN FEAR RANKINGS
1. Ohio State, 7-0 (4-0). SPIN ZONE: we no longer have to root for OSU to stay undefeated. Playoff backdoor is closed and we can resume hating every inch of their existence.
2. Michigan, 6-1 (4-0). SPIN ZONE: Michigan is getting pumped up so much that their inevitable collapse will be SUPER enjoyable to watch. Might start DVRing Michigan games just to get full sad Michigan fan exposure.
3. Michigan State, 4-2, (2-1). SPIN ZONE: I made chimichurri this week and it was perfect:
I tried making it once before using a blender and let me tell you that you get what you pay for when it comes to blenders. That thing sucked and we ended up with green soup.
This time I went au natural and sliced and diced everything by hand. SO MUCH GARLIC. I've put it on skirt steak, bread, chicken, & salad so far with on end in sight. Chimichurri is criminally underrated and needs to be incorporated into more recipes.
p.s. -- this is the recipe I used. My modifications were some dried jalapeño flakes and a smidge of shallot. Oh and I probably used more garlic than necessary, but I consider that one of the core tenets of my cooking philosophy.
4. Iowa, 5-1, (2-1). SPIN ZONE: our win in Iowa City looks real good right now. Wisconsin: underrated?
5. Penn State, 4-2 (1-2). SPIN ZONE: Penn State may be better but we still have the easier path to the B1G Championship.
6. Wisconsin, 4-2 (2-1). SPIN ZONE: young defensive backs kind of held their own on the road against a good team. That experience will pay off in future seasons where we return to low expectations/over-performance. That's our sweet spot!
7. Northwestern, 3-3, (3-1). SPIN ZONE: everything else is going wrong this year, which means we are rolling into Evanston and handling Northwestern. Zig when everyone zags.
8. Indiana, 4-3 (1-3). SPIN ZONE: iOS 12 runs pretty damn well on my suddenly antique 6S. Usually every new major iOS release drains an extra 10% of battery per day and makes opening apps take 5 additional seconds. But I'm impressed with how well this one runs on my ancient iPhone.
p.s. -- however, there's no spinning how stupid this is:
I'm not sure what the thinking was in moving the "flip camera" button in FaceTime to this secondary menu, and I REALLY don't know what the thinking was in making the slider control for dismissing this secondary menu right on top of the giant "hang up call" button. It's way too easy to fat finger hang up a call when you're just trying to get back from an unnecessarily cumbersome camera flip. Stupid.
p.p.s. -- also stupid? Changing the way you send pictures in Messages. The previous solution of tapping the "camera" button and being able to either take a quick pic or send one from your library wasn't perfect, but it worked. Now you tap "camera" and you go to a full screen camera, where you then have to tap an additional button to get to your photos. Or you can use the "photos" Messages app to get straight there, which is annoying because a) the Messages apps have always felt weird, and b) it's requiring some significant re-learning on our part. Not a fan.
9. Maryland, 4-2 (2-1). SPIN ZONE: playing good football might erase the memory of that time your football program killed a kid. Wait actually screw this spin, Maryland shouldn't have a football program anymore.
10. Illinois, 3-3 (1-2). SPIN ZONE: look who's playing .500 ball! The beard plays!
11. Purdue, 3-3 (2-1).SPIN ZONE: three straight wins and OSU coming to town. What's that I hear? Is it... MOMENTUM?
12. Minnesota, 3-3, (0-3). SPIN ZONE: they're real and they're spectacular:
Top of the muffin ... TO YOU!
13. Rutgers, 1-6 (0-4). SPIN ZONE: second-worst record in the conference ... progress!
14. Nebraska, 0-6, (0-4).SPIN ZONE CANCELED-LOSS-LOSS-LOSS-LOSS-LOSS-LOSS is proof you can't lose what you don't play.
THIS WEEK'S GAME IN HAIKU
Hoops season is near
Thank god 'cause this is a mess
HornDawg faith fading
YOUTUBE
https://youtu.be/kHBcVlqpvZ8
It's so awesome that you can be a top tier engineer and choose to either build a rocket that takes us to Mars or a robot that twerks in my eye:
Look at that face. Creeper knows exactly what it's doing with its booty in your face.
p.s. -- do robots have genders? Actually maybe I don't want to go down that road.
https://youtu.be/refCJcJJZso
I think the actual 10-year "School of Rock" reunion was several years ago, but it's the first time I'm seeing this video of their reunion performance. So there you go.
https://youtu.be/s-NkVcJiqPo
Dave Grohl continues to be the greatest man alive. What a legend. He should be on everyone's "top-10 people I want to drink a beer with" lists.
PREDICTION CITY
The season may be sliding off the rails, but the full derailment is not happening this week. THE PICK:
WISCONSIN 41, Illinois 14
***
ON WISCONSIN
