Commissioner Petitti: Please don’t let BTN make John McKay a Big Ten legend over Duffy Daugherty

PHOTO: Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti. Visit my website homepage, TomShanahan.Report MEMO TO: Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti FROM: Tom Shanahan, author and award-winning writer on college football integration. DATE: September 6, 2023 RE: Conferences adopting legends through realignment. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Now that USC is 2-0, ranked No. 6 and is another day closer to joining the venerated Big Ten Conference you lead as its new commissioner, please be wary of Big Ten Network executives and writers adopting Pac-12…

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Barry Alvarez: “I thought Mel got the most out of his kids this year.”

By TOM SHANAHAN Barry Alvarez likes to keep up on former players and coaches, especially ones that graduate to head coach. Sometimes they come to him. A 2006 game that was scheduled years in advance happened to feature San Diego State and first-year head coach Chuck Long playing at Wisconsin against first-year Badgers coach Bret Bielema. Long was Iowa’s quarterback when Alvarez was a Hawkeyes assistant under Hayden Fry. Alvarez was Wisconsin’s head coach (1995-2005) with Bielema his…

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Wisconsin’s “Maestro” applies refreshing facial scrub to college basketball

By TOM SHANAHAN We’re barely a couple weeks into the Big Ten season, but Michigan State coach Tom Izzo’s sounded as if he was ready to name Wisconsin’s D’Mitrick Travis the Big Ten Player of the Year. Izzo called him “The Maestro” of a senior-laden team, intending to draw a comparison to Leonard Bernstein, not to Bob Cobb, Jerry Seinfeld’s Tuscany foil. Wisconsin’s "Maestro" was lightly recruited out of high school and is six years removed from his…

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