Kurt Kittner and the Illini won the Big Ten, but aren't headed to Pasadena. Jonathan Daniel/Allsport
	1   Illinois 2   Michigan 3   Ohio State 4   Iowa 5   Purdue 6   Michigan State 7   Penn State 8   Wisconsin 9   Indiana 10   Minnesota 11   Northwestern
	1 Number of bowl bids the Big Ten recoups next year with the addition of the Music City Bowl, which will get the worst of the bowl-bound teams from the Big Ten.
	"I said, 'No, I'm going to announce that I'm going to apply for the Notre Dame job.'" -- Penn State coach Joe Paterno on his reply to a caller who asked if he was going to announce his retirement at his season-ending news conference.

Perhaps one could chalk it up to the feverish fancy the Big Ten faithful. Some Illinois fans, incensed that their confirmed orders for Sugar Bowl tickets were then rejected and refunded, have filed lawsuits to have their tickets re-issued.

That's the kind of lawsuit fans can dream up when they have a month and half between the end of the seasons and a bowl game. After all, the interim (intrasquad scrimmage? Huzzah!) is hardly fraught with excitement.

The Big Ten is in a different place right now. And in relation to relevance on the national map, that place is Burkina Faso. For the second straight year, the conference sends only its regular-season champion to a Bowl Championship Series game, and even then, it's Illinois and the Sugar Bowl. Meanwhile, the Rose Bowl goes from the faithful Big Ten/Pac-10 allegiance to the Jerry Springer Show of national championship games.

The Big Ten didn't do itself any favors a year ago, when it proved the bowl barons right by going 2-4 in the postseason. Even having more bowl-eligible teams than official bowl tie-ins this season resulted in such a mad dash for the league's talent pool that Michigan State gets to play in the Silicon Valley Bowl against Fresno State, otherwise known as the Deflated Hopes Classic.

Clearly, this bowl season begins with substantially subdued expectations from the Big Ten. Yet it also represents a definitive moment for the league to establish some real estate on the national marquee, perhaps more than usual. Lose another four of six this season, and the league starts to drift into the dangerous area of afterthought. Turn that around, and the league starts recouping some of that national relevance and thus some larger paychecks for bowl trips.

It is undoubtedly a league with something to prove, with each individual bowl participant a microcosm of the larger cause. Illinois can prove it's something more than an average league champ. Michigan can prove it did indeed belong in the national scope despite the late hiccups. Ohio State can prove it is back. So can Iowa. Purdue can prove its season was more a holding pattern than the early stages of a crash landing. Michigan State can prove it is more than a perennially popped balloon of promise.

The league's image is hardly the priority for any of these teams, though the coach and administration will pay it due lip service. But collectively, the group will make a statement. That image eventually plays into issues like rankings (and thus positioning in the BCS) as well as at-large BCS bids, which carry the hefty paychecks, which makes everyone in the league a little healthier during the holiday season.

If the Big Ten has been cycling through a two-year swoon, it should be cycling up again fairly soon -- such is the way with these things. The only way to know for sure is that the league's teams start beating other league's teams when it matters.

Coincidentally enough, the bowl season presents itself in all its potential for splendor and glory. Now all the Big Ten has to do is show up and prove that it is, in the parlance of this bowl season, something to sue for.

If you have a great uncle who once spoke with a Notre Dame booster, he's probably been mentioned as a candidate for the open Irish job. So when the name of Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz emerges in the most borderline ways -- his relationship with Irish AD Kevin White goes back to his days as Maine's head coach -- it's hardly a red-alarm situation. Ferentz's name pops up because he appears to be orchestrating the turnaround of the Iowa football program. A late loss to Iowa State took some of the luster off the first bowl-eligible campaign in four years, but nonetheless, Hawkeyes fans were overcome with joy after the sixth win of the year against Minnesota on Nov. 17. Now, Ferentz has an Alamo Bowl date to make another statement. Whether the program takes steps forward next season, when Iowa will probably be a sexy pick as a league contender, or hovers around mediocrity, what happens in this game might have a lot to do with it.		HOT: Illinois fans Hot, as in, steaming mad. Ticket snafu for Sugar Bowl has left fans wanting, and others wanting to sue. NOT: Purdue's winter retention rate QB Brandon Hance decides to transfer, and within a couple weeks, DT Matt Mitrione decides to quit the team before the Sun Bowl. HOT: Joe Paterno retirement rumors There's apparently going to be yet another year of them, and if we believe JoePa, maybe four or five years' worth to go. NOT: Indiana coaching search Since Cam Cameron was fired weeks ago and the Hoosiers still don't have a coach, we'll assume that discretion (probably for a guy who's coaching a bowl team right now) is the better part of valor.
Purdue QB Brandon Hance had to shoulder the label of being the heir apparent to Drew Brees . Early on, he appeared to be growing into the task, even directing a dramatic comeback win against Minnesota. Then, he pulled a Keyser Soze : Like that -- whoosh -- he's gone. Someone else will have to absorb the Brees comparisons, because Hance, a California kid uncomfortable with life in Indiana, has decided to transfer. Kyle Orton had taken over for Hance late in the year, so maybe it won't be too arduous a transition. But it's never fun to have to find out.		Ohio State coach Jim Tressel Has a chance to really exorcise some demons by beating South Carolina, which defeated the Buckeyes in the Outback Bowl last year and cost John Cooper his job. Michigan State coach Bobby Williams Raise and contract extension in hand, it's now up to Williams to get the program into the Big Ten's upper crust with consistency, instead of taking a mass of talent to an at-large bowl bid. Illinois If the Illini want to ditch the label of being the nation's most vanilla 10-1 team, the Sugar Bowl is the place to do it.
If only Lloyd Carr had a little more Steve Spurrier in him. Then maybe the Citrus Bowl matchup between Michigan and Tennessee would have a really juicy undercard, instead of the usual coachspeak that does a wonderful job of masking contempt. There aren't too many lines to read between, given the lack of lip service paid to the issue by either Carr or Vols coach Phil Fulmer , but clearly the meeting of these two teams has some subtext. It goes way back, all the way to 1997 when Charles Woodson pulled a fast one and won Peyton Manning's Heisman Trophy. Or at least that's what the Volunteers faithful cried, a sentiment that Fulmer subtly backed up. Carr, obviously, would take exception, and even more so with Fulmer apparently dropping Michigan in his final coaches' poll of the 1997 season. When it comes to some prefight bloodletting, neither coach is exactly Don King, which is a shame. Hard feelings are a terrible thing to waste.
Apparently, part of the upshot of the new contract and raise for Michigan State's Bobby Williams is an end to negative recruiting that was stinging the Spartans coach, centered around whether he'd actually have a job for the next handful of years. Williams said his status was "mentioned in several home visits" with recruits, though he declined to name names. ... Safe to say that Sugar Bowl scalpers won't have a problem finding takers, since two lawsuits have already been filed against Illinois for the way the school sold its tickets online. Some fans placed orders through a Web site and were billed, only to find out later that they weren't getting tickets. Others made donations to a fund that the school had advertised as a way to "improve your seats." Bottom line was that Illinois got more ticket requests than it thought it would and some Illini fans are finding the Sugar to be very sour. ... Touted Michigan freshman Kelly Baraka was suspended for the season and barred from practicing with the team after two marijuana-related arrests, but is now working out with the team leading up to the Citrus Bowl. ... Minnesota coach Glen Mason has figured out a way to avoid the George O'Leary trap regarding his own days as a player at Ohio State. "I understate it," he said of his background as an athlete. "When you talk about me being a player, that's a misnomer. I was on the team. I never started at Ohio State."