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Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten previews the upcoming weekend's games and ponders the meaning of it all, staring into the yawning existential void and calling a fullback dive on third-and-seven.

With one more loss, Michigan will become ineligible for a bowl game for the second season in a row. This has not happened since W.A. "Brad" Thornwhistle's disastrous first two seasons in 1847 and 1848. To avoid this horrible dishonor, all the Wolverines have to do is to beat Ohio State on Saturday. That will keep them alive for the Little Caesar's Pizza! Pizza! Bowl Bowl.

Below, former Buckeye Raymont Harris models the uniforms Ohio State will wear this weekend.
Your eyes don't deceive you. Raymont Harris still exists, and he's modeling the new throwback uniforms the Buckeyes will be wearing for this weekend's game at Michigan. This is where all you coastal and Southern types wonder aloud how anybody can tell if a Big Ten team is wearing a throwback uniform.

Of course, Columbus is the headquarters of Abercrombie and Fitch, Victoria's Secret, The Limited, and a few other fashion-type retailers. You'd expect some swanky threads on the Buckeyes sooner or later. But what else is going on in less fashionable parts of the conference?

Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten previews the upcoming weekend's games and issues random taunts to overconfident fan bases.

Be careful what you ask for, college football fan. The very same Iowa team that so many of you desperately wanted to see lose lest the Big Ten get another team into the title game is now the only thing standing between Ohio State and the BCS. If the Hawkeyes can't pull off a ginormous upset in Columbus behind a quarterback making his first college start, you're going to get the Scarlet and Grey facing some honked-off Pac 10 team.

One little loss to Northwestern can change everything. Iowa looked like the team to beat in the Big Ten title race, but now that it has fallen to the Wildcats and Ohio State has beaten Penn State, all the momentum has moved back to Columbus. Technically, both the Hawkeyes and Buckeyes control their own destiny. Whichever team wins Saturday's game is the presumptive conference champion.

Now go try to figure the odds that Iowa can win in the Horseshoe with a redshirt freshman quarterback making his first career start with no run support to speak of.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Crist will come again ... in four to six months.

Notre Dame learned the fates of both back-up quarterback Dayne Crist and wide receiver Michael Floyd on Monday and the results were mixed.

Crist, a sophomore who went down in the fourth quarter of Notre Dame's 40-14 win against Washington State, learned on Monday that he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee. Floyd, who broke his left collarbone against Michigan State in the season's third game, was cleared to play.

On Tuesday, Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis confirmed that Crist, who had an MRI on Monday, had torn his ACL and that he would have surgery on Friday. Weis said that the Irish staff consulted "the guru in Alabama" (Dr. James Andrews) and that the prognosis was for a four-to-six month rehab. That likely keeps Crist out of spring football.

"I know one thing," Weis said, concerning Crist's return. "We'll be conservative."

Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten runs down the weekend's games from inside a chicken coop, at least as far as you know.

Cue the inevitable anti-Iowa backlash. A team that barely got by Arkansas State and Northern Iowa is somehow No. 1 in the nation according to the computer polls the BCS uses. Don't like it? Line forms to the left. Kirk Ferentz even agrees with you.

Shouldn't the computers' top ranked team have at least some sort of offense? Yes, of course. But whose fault is that No. 1 ranking?

Yours, you loudmouth.

While most of the world is still trying to figure out how the Iowa Hawkeyes stole the cheese out of the mousetrap -- again -- the conference title race is beginning to take a little more shape. Since neither Iowa nor Ohio State lost this past weekend, there's no shakeup at the top. Both teams remain equally in control of their respective destinies.

But what about the rest of the league? Is anybody new out of the hunt this week? Who's still alive but barely breathing? And where do things go from here in this crazy conference?

Iowa and Michigan State decided to save all the excitement for the last three minutes of their game Saturday.

The Hawkeyes beat the Spartans 15-13 on a seven-yard, last-second touchdown pass from Ricky Stanzi to Marvin McNutt.

Michigan State went up 13-9 on a Kirk Cousins-to-Blair White pass that went right down the middle for 30 yards. The pass came just two plays after an unbelievable hook-and-ladder involving White and tight end Brian Linthicum.

After the kickoff Iowa had just 1:32 to find the end zone.

Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten answers the questions, questions the answers, and looks ahead to Saturday's games.

It's now indisputably late October. The leaves here in Wisconsin went from being Monet-like things of beauty to being a soggy ground-based nuisance in less time than it takes for a new Jim Tressel criticism to appear on the internet. It feels like the season just started but after this weekend it's two-thirds over.

There are so many questions yet to answer, however. I've already explored the various Big Ten title scenarios, so let's look at some of the other burning issues.

The Iowa Hawkeyes are the Big Ten's only undefeated team, both in conference play and overall. Right behind the No. 7 Hawkeyes stand a 5-2 team (Ohio State), a 4-3 team (Michigan State), and a 6-1 team Iowa has already beaten (Penn State).

The Hawks look to be in complete control of the conference race, with those 6-1 Nittany Lions nipping at their heels. But Iowa the only Big Ten team in control of its BCS destiny? No, no they are not. You might be surprised how little help some of the other teams need, too.