Yeah, until I come up with a better title for my link posts, you're stuck with this.

• First, and most importantly, the Fitz-o-meter. I'll be updating it weekly throughout the regular season. Last week, because I really just wanted to put something up, I had Fitz's intensity at a 3. This week, we have a must-win road game, and our team is reeling. Therefore, I'm updating the Fitz intense-o-meter to a 6 of 10. Six on the Fitzgerald intensity meter is characterized by intensity-induced psychadelic flashing lights and colors, so, that's what our head coach is going through right now.
• (update: this article appears to have disappeared. I'm searching for another source of evidence that it actually exists.) In somewhat disconcerting news, Northwestern's basketball recruiting has officially lost any semblance of sanity, as we've just offered a scholarship to a high school freshman.  (In our defense, he's a 6'8 Serb named Milos.) As you can see from the quote, he's taking it as any high school freshman would: Noll's 6-8 addition only a freshman  

"When I told him about the offer, Milos said: 'Why? I'm in high school. I have four more years.'"

The kid certainly seems... enthused about Northwestern. Then again, I could care less about Milos picking NU, because I WON'T EVEN BE ENROLLED HERE ANYMORE IF HE CHOOSES TO ATTEND NORTHWESTERN. 

• From a PR perspective, how do you distract people from a 2-2 football team that was supposed to be 4-0? Apparently by doing this:  Yes, that's right: NU's official website has ditched their usual "Buy football tickets!" site that pops up when you're just trying to go to their homepage, and replaced it with a 47-day countdown to basketball season. I mean, this might have been planned for some time, but putting it up the Monday of a second-straight football loss sure reeks of "hey, everybody, look over here!" And if that's the case, NU is being way too gloom-and-doom about things. It's just two losses. 
• I've been asked to participate in the Rivalry Esq's Big Ten Power Poll, which is basically just me ranking the 11 teams of the Big Ten, along with every other Big Ten blogger on the network. So here goes:

1. Iowa (yeah, I went there, I presume some other people will too)
2. Ohio State
3. Penn State
4. Michigan
5. Minnesota
6. Wisconsin
7. Michigan State
8. Purdue
9. Indiana
10. Northwestern
11. Illinois

I'm feeling rather shaky about the Purdue-Indiana-NU trio, all of those three are pretty interchangeable, and Minnesota only goes above Wisconsin because I'm just not feeling Wisconsin right now. But anyway, there you have it, agree or disagree below. 

So that's that.  I have another post coming up later, so stay tuned.