Many players of week: Steve Snapp, Ohio State's sports information, says Big Ten communications people Scott Chipman and Robin Jentes "make the call" when it comes to the conference's players of the

Many players of week: Steve Snapp, Ohio State's sports information, says Big Ten communications people Scott Chipman and Robin Jentes "make the call" when it comes to the conference's players of the week. If that's the case, maybe they need a third person so they can break all the ties. No fewer than five people were listed as players of the week on Monday. Kind of takes away all the specialness of the award when everybody's doing all this sharing. The Smiths represented Ohio State. Troy Smith didn't have a particularly sharp day but still threw four TD passes (all in the first half) in the rout of Indiana. Antonio Smith, no relation, racked up 12 tackles including four for minus yardage in earning a piece of the defensive award with Penn State LB Paul Posluszny. Troy Smith shared the offensive award with QB Drew Stanton, who had a big part in why Michigan State fell behind 38-3 at Northwestern before coming back to lead the Spartans to a 41-38 win. Maybe Northwestern's defense should have been also named as the offensive players of the week, since it had a hand in the biggest comeback in I-A history. One last vent about BTPOWs. Ohio State PK Aaron Pettrey won the special-teams award on Sept. 18. What did he do? Kicked two field goals in a 37-7 rout of Cincinnati. Wow. Ryan Pretorius had a 52-yarder in the same game. Surprised they didn't share the award.
Feel the pain: Speaking of Northwestern's Mildcats, things can't get much worse than blowing a 38-point lead at home in the second half. No, wait. Maybe they can. It'll be hard to tell those purple jerseys from the welts on their bodies after the next three games: at Michigan, at Iowa, Ohio State. Gulp.
Rusty Miller, Associated Press