I believe in radical honesty so I'm just going to say this: I'm done with this season. I mean, not literally, because there are still at least two more predictions I have to make, but man, I'm over this season. Once every Big Ten team is done playing I'll recap the right and (very, very many) wrong predictions I made for the post-season, plus give some thoughts on the expanded league and how it did or didn't work in its first football season. But first, let us pick the two semi-finals involving conference teams, shall we?

Wait ... you're done, too?

I have been saying for several weeks that I don't think Penn State is actually the No. 4 team in the nation -- possibly not even No. 4 in the Big Ten -- yet the Nits have yet to prove me right. Is somebody finally going to get over on them? Please?

I think some of my frustration comes from James Franklin being the league's second-biggest proponent of complementary football, right after Kirk Ferentz. I think for us Iowa fans this is creating false hope, like we think the Hawks are just a quarterback away from the playoffs themselves. No one knows better than I do about the danger of predicting far-off results, but if you don't understand the difference in roster depth between the S-tier teams in the conference and the A-tier teams like Iowa, then you probably think the Hawkeyes are just a quarterback away from the semifinals themselves. Iowa's starters match up well with almost anyone. The backups? Not quite there.

Right, I should talk about this game. Well, I don't believe complementary football works, I know it does. And I'm sick of Penn State putting clown pants on me, so I'm going to let it do that again by actually picking them to win.

Penn State 34, Notre Dame 28

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I said in the last installment that if I don't know how to pick a game, I decide what the funniest possible outcome would be, then I root for that.

Nothing would be funnier than Ohio State winning a national title less than two months after a (probable) majority of the fanbase wanted Ryan Day fired for losing to That School Up North. How does Buckeye Fan react to that, knowing that it makes Day unfireable no matter how many times he loses to Michigan? That is the sort of comedy I live for, and even though Texas might actually be back this time, that is what I am bound to root for.

Ohio State 24, Texas 23