A new feature here at The Wolverine Blog: Around the Big Ten will take a look around the blogosphere for news on upcoming opponents, Big Ten rivals, and Notre Dame (try as you might, Domers, I’m still lumping you in with the Big Ten).

• Black Heart Gold pants pays tribute to murdered Iowa high school coaching legend Ed Thomas (pictured above), and also rounds up eulogies from around the web. Both are must-reads.
• The Only Colors, a Michigan State blog, holds a roundtable to predict their 2009 record. The consensus seems to be around 8-4, with no mention of Michigan in sight. It seems strange to be under the radar to Spartan fans, but that’s what 3-9 will do, I guess. Also, they welcome Saline QB (and Rivals’ No. 4 pro-style quarterback) Joe Boisture to the fold for their 2010 recruiting class. Big pickup for the Spartans, who needed a signal-caller in their class and got a quality player.
• We Will Always Have Tempe, a mouthpiece of the enemy (Ohio State), breaks down the Buckeyes 2010 recruiting class position-by-position. Sam isn’t fretting about the relatively small class thus far. As opposed to Michigan fans, who are fretting about a glut of early commits.
• More Buckeyes: Eleven Warriors previews Indiana’s season. In short: bad offense, decent defense.
• Bad news for Gopher fans fond of the firewater: The Star Tribune reports that alcohol will not be served at any Minnesota sporting events, including games at the new TCF Stadium.
• Lake the Posts, literally the only Northwestern football blog (and a damn good one), compares NW to Purdue and praises the job Joe Tiller did builing the Boilermaker program. A very interesting read.
• The Blue-Gray Sky, a Notre Dame blog, details the acrimonious departure of tight end Joseph Fauria. Fauria left the school instead of serving a one-semester suspension for an undisclosed disciplinary violation, and had some unkind words for the school before his exit:

“They don’t take character into account. It’s the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. It’s a Catholic environment, but there’s no Catholic spirit in the process, no spirit of Notre Dame. It’s all just trying to knock somebody down. It’s terrible…”

“If anyone knows me, they know I’m not some malicious person, not some predator. I’m a fun-loving guy. (Residence Life) didn’t see that.”