It’s hard to believe that Northwestern was in the Big Ten Championship game against my team last December. But as we all saw on Friday night, what a difference 10 1/2 months make. Northwestern played like Northwestern in the 1980s... a crappy team with no talent. The only difference was that back then, Northwestern kids were smarter than ours. But now that the incoming Ohio State freshman class had an average ACT score of 29.1 this year, the gap isn’t that wide.

Now that the last two sentences fulfilled one of my obligations as Ohio State’s assistant athletics director (I know you read these columns, Gene Smith), I can now analyze the game. The Wildcats played well in the first quarter. Well, as good as Northwestern can. They forced us to actually have third downs. Once Justin Fields and the rest of our offense routinely converted, their players got frustrated and sad. This sadness resulted in points. A lot of points. You may or may not know that I’m asked to give a score prediction prior to each game. I said the Buckeyes would score 52. Damn, I’m good.

Defensively, no one even knew who Northwestern would start at quarterback. Not even their coach Pat Fitzgerald knew so I’m guessing he drew straws or flipped a coin or something. The poor nervous-looking kid who won (or lost) the coin toss struggled all night. They ran the ball well at times so I’ll yell (or Ryan Day will yell) at the players and get ready for Wisconsin.

Speaking of Wisconsin, they helped Illinois coach Lovie Smith keep his job for a few more weeks. I mean, who ever thought a top five school would go on the road and actually lose to an inferior Big Ten West competitor. Blasphemy! Iowa beat Purdue on Saturday, btw. Anyways, for those of you who thought it was imperative that the Badgers win today and come to Columbus undefeated - poo. It doesn’t matter. We still will have big wins against a top 15 Wisconsin team, a top 10 Penn State team, a potentially ranked Team Up North team and a ranked Badger or Hawkeye or Gopher (tee hee hee) team in the Big Ten Championship. Win and get in the playoff, people. Personally I’m thrilled I won’t have to fly to Los Angeles to do my Fox Sports analysis work. I’ll do it from inside the stadium. I can’t wait to be cheered and tweet from inside the Ohio Stadium just like old times.