In this episode, we power rank the Big Ten as we near the end of spring practice, but first we talk NBA Playoffs and the OSU media debacle.
Welcome to a new episode of Land-Grant Podcast Network’s I-80 Football Show. On this show, we travel down I-80 to talk all things Big Ten Football. After every week of action, we will catch you up on all the conference’s games and look ahead at the matchups, storylines, and players you should be paying attention to for the next week. My name is Jordan Williams, and I am joined by my co-host Dante Morgan.
In this week’s traffic update, there is drama in the Ohio State media landscape as two well known reporters were fired for cause and alleged to have skimmed money off the top of sponsorship deals. It’s too early to pass judgment, but it’s not a good look for the Ohio State media sphere with rumors of taking money from players to be floating around.
In other news, we discuss the end of the college basketball season with UConn winning on the women’s side and Florida capturing the title on the men’s. Lastly, Lebron James becomes the first professional male athlete to get a Barbie doll as a part of the Kenbassador program.
The NBA is entering the final week of the season, and once again the Western Conference race is tight with multiple times within 1.5 games of each other. Despite the close race, Dante thinks the Oklahoma City Thunder are the only team from the West capable of winning a title over the Boston Celtics or Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Denver Nuggets are firmly in the playoffs, but have fired head coach Mike Malone seemingly because he was too hard on the players. The timing of this move is concerning, but Jordan believes they fired him now so he doesn’t have a chance to keep his job with a deep playoff run.
With spring ball almost over and many programs hiding from the media and canceling spring games, we try to power rank the Big Ten without any real information. It’s a great exercise to think about the teams before the next transfer portal window.
Unsurprisingly we have the same teams in the bottom four: Maryland, Northwestern, Purdue, and UCLA. We also share the same top three teams with Ohio State, Oregon, and Penn State, but in different orders. After winning a national championship, can Ryan Day lead the Buckeyes to a coveted win over Michigan and a Big Ten Title, or will Penn State capture the throne after bringing back a large group of seniors?
In their weekly pitstops, Jordan gives his review of the 1995 movie ‘Casino’ and Dante talks about his new tattoo. As he gets older, it gets harder and harder to sit for sessions longer than two hours.
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You can also find Jordan’s article ‘B1G Thoughts’ on Land-Grant Holy Land.
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