Big Ten Football and The Office

Taking a page from bloggers everwhere, I’m making a list. Hey Jenny Slater did the Simpsons characters as college football teams. Like Doug says in his blog post, "no good idea goes unstolen." I’m tackling characters from The Office as Big Ten football teams. This may be a gimmick whose time has come and gone, but I have not seen this done with The Office yet. Since my favorite conference is the Big Ten, my favorite show is The Office, and I’m new to blogging, here goes.

Big Ten Football and The Office

Ohio State – Michael Scott
Obviously the boss has to be the team at the top. Like Michael Scott, OSU is the boss right now, yet still does not get the respect from the national media. Michael is the head of an underperforming branch of Dunder Mifflin, and OSU is at the top of the underperforming Big Ten. Michael is always sure that he is right. The Buckeyes are always sure that they are better than everyone else. Michael obsession is that everyone likes him. OSU fans’ obsession is that everyone hates Michigan. And Michael is kind of a dick.

Michigan - Jim Halpert
Like Michigan in recent years, Jim is Michael’s “number two.” He’s likable, and he’s eminently more capable than Michael. He even interviewed to be the boss, but thought that selling his soul for “success” was much less important than his ultimate goal (Pam). Like Lloyd Carr, he’s loyal to a fault. Unlike Jim Tressel, he won’t skirt the rules or step on others to get ahead.

Illinois – Andy Bernard
Andy is the up and coming new guy, much like Ron Zook and the Illini. He’s even managed to get some “necking” time in with Angela, the office prude. Like Ron Zook, Andy would be a great recruiter because of his self-proclaimed skill for personality mirroring.

Penn State – Creed
He’s the elder statesman of the office. Like JoePa, no one’s really sure how old he is (“when I was a kid, I was in an iron lung.”). Creed has some of the best lines on the show, but he is utilized sporadically. Similarly, Penn State has appeared sporadically at the top of the Big Ten rankings. It’s hard to dislike PSU or Creed.

Wisconsin – Dwight Schrute
Like Wisconsin, Dwight is forever mired in the second tier. Dwight will always be the “assistant to the regional manager.” Wisco will always finish between second and fifth in the Big Ten. And Dwight lives on a farm. And I suspect he (and his weird cousin Mose) has had intimate relations with some of the farm animals. Wisconsin is an assembly line for good college running backs (Dayne, Calhoun, Davis, Hill), and Dwight is an assembly line of great quotes (“Always go for the eyes. The eyes are the groin of the head.” Or “This was my grandfather’s tuxedo. He was buried in it.”).

Michigan State – Kelly Kapoor
Like Spartan coach Dantonio, Kelly is always running her mouth about something. She reeeally wants to marry Ryan, and even briefly pretended to be pregnant. Spartan players reeeally wanted to be Wolverines, but most were not recruited by them. Like Kelly, they feel spurned and bitter. Very immature and petty.

Purdue – Pam Beesly
Both are kind of meek, but essential to the success of the show/conference. Like Purdue, Pam can’t seem to “finish” – she broke off her 5-year engagement. She is as decisive as Joe Tiller is competent.

Northwestern – Oscar Martinez
Oscar’s gay. So are Northwestern’s purple uniforms. He occasionally has some good lines, and NU occasionally has some good years.

Indiana – Jan Levinson
Jan has self-esteem issues, since she was fired from the corporate offices of Dunder Mifflin. Indiana has a self esteem problem as it relates to football. They are a basketball school that plays football. And Jan is a middle-manager with no one to middle-manage. But she did manage to buy herself a nice new set of cans, and Indiana did manage to get itself a pretty good coach (before he died).

Iowa – Ryan Howard
Before Ferentz got there, Iowa was mired in suckitude for the last years of the Hayden Fry regime. Ferentz took charge and quickly had the Hawkeyes back on top. Now they’re back on the downslide to the previous level of mediocrity. Before Ryan took over, Dunder Mifflin was also sucking wind, but his new ideas were a breath of fresh air – how about a website? But after the newness wore off, Dunder Mifflin was back to being a crappy paper company.

Minnesota – Toby Flenderson
Like Minnesota, Toby is just there most of the time. He’s never the center of any storyline, but is occasionally the voice of reason, as the HR guy is supposed to be. Minnesota in recent years has been pretty solid, if predictable.

And just for the hell of it, possible future member of the Big Ten:

Notre Dame – Angela Martin

Angela is the office prude. She’s unapologetically a self-righteous Christian and does her best to make sure that if anyone has fun, it’s on her terms. She’s the head of the party committee, and all party decisions go thru her (“I don’t like green. It’s whorish.”). Like most Domers, she is a total buzzkill.

So, there you have it. If you have any suggestions or additions, feel free to leave them in the comments.