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Each week I will bring you the Dawg/Pussycat of the week from the Big 10. This could be a player, coach, or school who had an outstanding performance, a great recruiting week, or just an amazing week in general. Opposite of that will be the pussycat of the week. This will be the player, coach, or school who failed to get the job done from the prior week. The only rule is it must be an event that has happened inside the B1G (including the teams joining in 2024) from the previous week.
Awards for the week of October 30th to November 5th, 2023
This week 2 individuals take home the award for dawg of the week. The first for showing the country how much winning really means to him and the second for not hiding behind reporters and just saying exactly what he felt. The Pussycat of the Week award is going to 3 Big 10 teams for all the wrong reasons. The first for filling the headlines day in and day out, the other 2 for having two of the most potent offenses in the Big 10.
The Dawgs of the week are Caleb Williams for showing just how much winning means to him. The second is Ryan Walters for calling a 'spade a spade' and owning it.
Caleb Williams came into the season with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Due to his remarkable talent, USC was not only expected to win a conference title but a national championship as well. Unfortunately for USC fans Caleb, was unable to deliver through no fault of his own.
On Saturday night after USC lost their 3rd game of the 2023 season, Williams was caught on camera hugging his mother and crying in utter defeat. In that very moment, Williams showed the country just how much winning means to him. To be filled with that much raw emotion, after a loss just shows how personal he takes failure. This is a young man who gave everything he had to his team and tried everything he could to lead them to victory.
Caleb Williams is what everyone wants out of a teammate and leader, he is someone who will do whatever it takes to win. Williams has become an inspiration to many, he demonstrated it's okay to become emotional in failure. If Caleb uses this as fire to get better, Oregon might be in some trouble this Saturday.
Ryan Walters is what I wish more people were like these days, instead of hiding behind reporters or keyboards he came out and said exactly what he was thinking. By now every college football fan knows the situation happening in Ann Arbor, and Walters didn’t hold back when asked about it on his weekly show.
Walters said “What's crazy is they weren't allegations. It happened. There's video evidence. There are ticket purchases and sales that you can look back at. We know for a fact that they were at a number of our games, so we've had to teach our guys a new language in terms of some signals.” Walter's comments were even better due to the fact his Boilermakers were going to play Michigan on Saturday night.
Michigan would go on to beat Purdue 41-13 and after the game, Walters was asked about his comments and he didn’t shy away from what he said. “Just calling a 'spade a spade', really, in terms of advantages or disadvantages,” Walters would also say “I’m not shy about speaking truth, and if I could do it over again, I’d say the same thing.”
Michigan fans might not like what Purdue’s head coach had to say but should respect the man for at least saying it to their face.
The Pussycat of the Week is the University of Michigan for just adding more information to their never-ending drama. The second was a matchup between Iowa and Northwestern and their terrible offense
Michigan was able to own the headlines and social media for another week but for all the wrong reasons. Just when Michigan fans think there is no way more could come out, their phones ping, and here is another crazy story.
The week's main headline all started with a picture of Michigan’s 'Mr. Dress Up' Connor Stations on the sideline of CMU. If somehow getting a field pass in a different name and standing on the sideline of Spartan stadium just wasn’t bad enough. Stations had to play 'Mr. Dress Up' and be decked out in CMU gear so he could blend in. But there is even more to the story, Connor decided to go full Corey Hart meets 007, and wear his sunglasses at night, not to make a fashion statement, but because there is an alleged camera in the glasses.
Big 10 commissioner, Tony Petitti would take Wednesday and Thursday to meet with coaches and ADs from the other Big 10 Programs. Then after meeting with them and being urged to act, he meets with the President of Michigan and that meeting reportedly didn’t go well. Now after another crazy week, college football fans are left to wait and speculate what will happen next.
Iowa played Northwestern in one of the most iconic ballparks in the country, Wrigley Field. Anyone who went to the game and stayed should be given their money back. In a game where the over-under was set at 30.5 bad offense is to be expected, but this was unbelievable.
Let’s just look at some of the numbers, Iowa would win the game 10-7. The two teams would go a combined 10-29 on 3rd downs. Iowa would have a total of 169 yards 65 in the air and 104 on the ground. Northwestern totaled 170 total yards with 81 in the air and 89 on the ground. Together they would total 26 first downs, the star of the game for both teams were the punters.
To put this into perspective, Iowa, and Northwestern's total score of 17 ranks 7th in highest scores in 2023 at Wrigley Field. There were 6 Cubs baseball games that put more points on than a football game, that’s just insane.
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