KotH Week 9 Notes

-- Illinois turned in an impressive performance yesterday, making Ohio State work for its 17-10 victory the whole way through the game. Still, the moral victory felt a little empty – not just because the Illinois program is so starved for wins, but also because it felt like Illinois might have won if the game had been, say, 75 minutes instead of 60. Watching Illinois in the second half (which, incidentally, it won 10-0) was like watching a racehorse who normally runs a mile try to compete in a six-furlong race: By the time it got itself in position to make a run, the finish line was too close already.

-- Oh yeah, and don’t look now, but 17 is the fewest points anyone has given up to Ohio State this year, and 7 is the lowest margin of victory Ohio State has had this year.

-- We could argue all day about whether the 2006 BEARS have earned comparisons to the 1985 BEARS yet. But I’ll tell you this: Exacting some small measure of revenge on Miami will help them pull even in some people’s hearts.

-- Lesson learned from John L. Smith: If you’re going to be a punk, you’d darn well better win.

-- Indiana and its bowl hopes came crashing back to earth yesterday thanks to a 63-26 thumpering by Minnesota. This is the same Minnesota team that hadn’t yet won a Big Ten game in five tries. And the same Indiana team that came back from 15 down to beat Illinois on a last-second field goal, and which went on to beat Iowa the next week with another last-second field goal. And the same Illinois team that was coming off a surprising (at the time) 23-20 upset of Michigan State when it lost to Indiana. And the same Iowa team that beat Illinois and Purdue but gave Northwestern its first conference win of the year this weekend. And the same Northwestern team that was winless in part because it gave up the biggest comeback in NCAA history to that very downtrodden Michigan State team. And the same Michigan State team that fired its dirty-pool-teaching punk of a coach for not beating anybody but Northwestern. Maybe, just maybe, the Big Ten just isn’t that good.

-- I’m going to stand by my 5-11 prediction for how the Cowboys finish under Tony Romo. At least until they win their sixth game. Which, well, should be any day now.

-- Why is Ben Roesthlisberger still playing? Forget about injuries and off-field idoicy; Charlie Batch is just a better quarterback right now. And I’m not saying that because of Charlie Batch.

-- Just saw a report that Sammy Sosa, sitting on 588 home runs, wants to come back to reach the 600 milestone. Smart money says he has as much chance of hitting 12 more big-league home runs in his life as I do. That said, though, I always thought it was cool that after losing the HR title to Mark McGwire in two straight 60-plus seasons, Sosa caught Big Mac -- by two -- on the all-time list.