Happy-ish Yom Kippur to everybody fastibrating out there.

Anyway, links!

Star Wars II, Attack of the Fitzes: Matt Hayes at the Sporting News had five ways to improve the Big Ten in his First-and-10 column:

1. Recruiting.
2. Clone Pat Fitzgerald.
3. Merge with the SEC.
4. Everyone plays Indiana every year.
5. A weekend retreat with the Ohio State compliance department, focusing on the finer art of spinning and avoiding. Special guest speaker: Mark Emmert.

We could put the Fitz-clones at linebacker while keeping the Fitz as coach. With regards to the other comments, pshh, we'd fit in perfectly in the SEC. Wait, do they have teams besides Vandy?

Hayes also had a separate section on Northwestern worth reading, but it doesn't involve cloning.

24 hour Champaign diet: Presented without comment: Illinois is hosting a Food On A Stick Tailgating Contest:

I'd provide a link, but the site is just an auto-download of a PDF. Elsewhere in the Big Ten, there's this:

Minnesota athletics' Facebook page posted this picture twitter.com/ScottDochterma…

— Scott Dochterman (@ScottDochterman) September 25, 2012

People joke Northwestern fans are too prissy and high class for this conference... they might be onto something.

Today's batch of "What's wrong with the Big Ten" pieces: From Land-Grant Holy Land and ESPN's Big Ten blog. LGHL suggests finding ways to kill the AIRBHG that also effects Purdue QB's and Michigan defensive backs while ESPN kind of basically says we need to start oversigning?

Europe's Big Ten team: With the Ryder Cup coming to Medinah, the real question is: whose side is Northwestern on?

What say you? #ChicagosRyderCupTeam? RT @edmundleff: @nu_sports Am I un-American if I root for fellow NU Alum @lukedonald in Ryder Cup?

— Northwestern Sports (@NU_Sports) September 26, 2012

I dunno about you, but I thought this was America.

No Cody Stanley shoutout? Northwestern's good at soccer, enough to get articles in the Trib. This one's about freshman Joey Calestri.

Notes: BTN has Venric Mark as the No. 3 player in the Big Ten... Northwestern will wear helmet stickers in honor of Leon Brockmeier, a defensive tackle on the 2000 Big Ten championship team who died at the age of 34... I like this story on Treyvon Green coming back from concussion, which includes the semi-news that Trumpy is the No. 2 running back despite his lack of PT this week... Tom Osborne will retire, with at best a .500 record against Northwestern in football....

Tweet of the day: Northwestern's basketball locker room has a nice set-up, which our athletes are totally taking advantage of incorrectly:

Out here watching my man Arthur the Aardvark instagr.am/p/QAtbFpwCoW/

— Dave Sobolewski (@DaveSobo3) September 25, 2012