Groundbreaking Report: Purdue Football Has Prestige

In ESPN's latest foray into idiotic rankings of intangible things, they're currently unveiling their "Prestige Rankings." Tomorrow numbers 6-10 are announced and then on Friday we all get to vomit together as Notre Dame undoubtedly makes the top 5 and they celebrate that like a national championship (you know, like they did when beating a .500 Hawaii team).

As it turns out, Purdue football is ranked 50th. So what does that mean exactly? Our program is the 50th-most.... prestigious? How does one measure such things? Sure, I know they have a formula but it's all just so silly. Purdue has 210 Prestige Points, 9 behind #49 Illinois. Indiana, on the other hand, is ranked #102 out of 119 and has negative-8 points. Negative. So, then, if you go to IU, you'll wind up a less-prestigious football player than you arrived? What does any of this mean? Is it that slow a month? I guess so.

Yes, yes, I get it -- it's to foster debate. But it's stupid. And people spent a lot of time, obviously, on conjuring this bullspit up. And aren't there better ways to spend time than this pseudo water-cooler chat fodder? I mean, do you know anyone who would read this list and then show it to their friends and say, "Dude, didn't you go to Boston College? They're only the 40th most prestigious football program in the country and DUKE is #38. Ha! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!"

Does ESPN think we're going to debate this in bars? Yes, here I am posting about it, but it's largely because there's little else to write about right now... and also, I'm not analyzing it or debating it because, well, it's retarded. If I had taken the total letters in the names of every player on the 1987 squad of each of these schools and arranged the teams in order of who had the most letters, the list would probably make just about as much sense.

Army #39, Oregon #53, Auburn #21, Iowa State #114, Rutgers #101..... uhhhhh, okay! Whatever you say, guys.

But tell me, who's more "now"?