Purdue is the toast of the college football world right now. We don’t get this very much. In fact, we’re only two years separated from “What happened to what Joe Tiller built?” This Monday morning we get to bask in the glow of the biggest win in decades for the program AND much of the college football world patting us on the back for just dismantling a generally disliked team.

So let’s reap some actual rewards, shall we?

The Traveling The

As I mentioned last week, the Traveling The was up for grabs when we played Ohio State. They had regained it against Penn State three weeks ago, but that matchup with Purdue was looming. They couldn’t stop it, and now, per internet rules, they are AN Ohio State University and we are THE Purdue University. The wiki has even been updated.

The rules of the THE now state that we must defend it each week. If we lose, we lose the THE, and Ohio State must track it back down. They could get it as soon as two weeks from now because if we lose to Michigan State on Saturday they get a shot at regaining it the following week. If we beat the Spartans, however, we’re going to have a long journey. This is especially true if the holder at the end of the regular season loses its bowl game.

Speaking of things that we are now defending each week...

College Football Championship Belt

Yes, Purdue is now the World Heavyweight Champion of College Football. This is tracked on the reddit CFB page and it is a lineal championship defended on the field each game. Here is the explanation:

My friends & I were sitting watching football; talking about what a farce Division 1-A college football is without a national championship tournament. Every year, just like millions of others, we gathered together to watch March Madness when a National Champion is crowned in college basketball & we lamented that this doesn’t happen in major college football. Sometime during the 1980’s, most likely 1983 when Miami jumped four spots in the polls over Auburn to claim a National Championship or 1984 when Brigham Young was named National Champions after they had defeated a Michigan team that finished 6-6, we decided to create our own championship. Our logic was simple; we watch as much college football as anyone else so why can’t we name a champion? We wanted the championship to have some history but we had to work within the scheduled games available since we could not create a match-up. The big thing was we wanted the title to be decided on the field like a fight is decided in the ring; this is how The Belt was born.

The concept was easy, no one could claim The Belt without defeating the current title-holder on the field. But where do we start? Who would be the first Belt holder? Some wanted to go back to the first college football games between Princeton & Rutgers while others felt we should start with the 1936 Minnesota Golden Gophers since they were the first team to be named National Champions by the Associated Press. The decision was finally made to give the first Belt to the best college football team within our lifetime. Most of us were born in the early 1960’s so there was really only one choice -- the 1971 Nebraska Cornhuskers.

On January 1, 1972, after a 38-6 victory in the Orange Bowl over Alabama, Nebraska was awarded The Belt. The Cornhuskers stood with a 32-game winning streak & universal acclaim as “Greatest Team Ever”. Since that game, each champion has defended The Belt every time they take the field. The Belt is held with a win or tie while The Belt is claimed by the new champion only when the current title-holder is defeated on the field of play. This is The College Football Belt Championship.

Ohio State held the Belt after beating Penn State, but we took it from them. These redditors have tracked the history back all the way to 1972, so we’re talking over 45 years of history.

This is not Purdue’s first reign as title holders, either. The Boilers first took possession of the Belt on September 28, 1974 with a 31-20 win at Notre Dame, but lost it a week later in a 16-14 loss to Duke. We then regained it with a 26-23 win at Wisconsin on September 18, 2003, but lost it a week later 31-3 at Michigan. This makes it our third reign as champions, but we have never successfully defended the Belt.

The Chaos Belt

Yes, we have another WWE-style belt. We got the Chaos Belt, given to spectacular top 25 upsets per Reddit CFB:

Each week, every team that upsets an AP Top 25 team gets a score, determined by adding the point margin that they won by with their AP rank differential. If the upsetting team is unranked, (1+Loss Percentage/2)*(26-Rank of Losing Team) is added instead of rank differential. If the team has all losses, Loss Percentage equals 1.

EXAMPLE 1: #6 West Virginia (5-0) @ NR Iowa State (2-3) ended 14-30. They are awarded 16 points for their victory margin. Since Iowa State was unranked when this game happened, they are given additional points based on the aforementioned formula: (1+0.6)*(26-#6 WVU) = 32 points for a grand total of 48 chaos points.

EXAMPLE 2: #7 Washington (6-0) @ #17 Oregon (4-1) ended 27-30. Oregon is awarded 3 points for their victory margin. Since both teams were ranked in the AP poll during the game, Oregon is awarded 10 additional points for their rank differential (#17 Oregon - #7 Washington = 10). This adds for a total of 13 chaos points.

Purdue dropped a whopping 65 points, which is a huge number. We only needed 45 to take it from Iowa State, so by walloping the No. 2 team while unranked we put up a massive number and will likely hold on to it for a while.

College Football Empires

This has been another fun internet thing to track. The premise is simple: Each school begins with the counties that are geographically closest to their campus. You then defend your land each week. Win, and you take more land. Lose, and you lose everything you have acquired. We lost our original land to Northwestern in week one, but entered Saturday night with four areas of land thanks to our earlier win over Boston College. We owned the Eagles’ land as well as UMass’ (lost to Boston College), Wake Forest’s (lost to Boston College), and Tulane’s (lost to Wake before they lost to BC).

We were able to add to our 2018 empire in a big way by beating the undefeated Buckeyes. We added their original land as well as that of Oregon State, Rutgers, TCU, Penn State, Appalachian State, Pitt, and Texas State. Texas State had lost to Rutgers before the Scarlet Knights lost to Ohio State. Oregon State and TCU directly lost their land to Ohio State, while Penn State beat Appalachian State and Pitt before losing to the Buckeyes.

Purdue now owns the second most territories along with Clemson at 12 each. We both trail Notre Dame and their 18 territories. We control 240 counties nationally and a population of 44.5 million, second to only Notre Dame.

The historical map is where it gets fun though. The historical map tracks all territory since the beginning of last season when the first empires map started. Ohio State controlled 62 territories, 1,663 counties, and a population of over 160 million in that one. It was by far the most.

That is now ALL Purdue.

Other Fun:

It’s Not Officially College Football Season Until Ohio State Gets Wrecked by Purdue - Rodger Sherman of the Ringer weighs in on the upset.

THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, Ohio State gets the anger spotlight all to itself - To the dicks that are mad about the Tyler Trent story you can piss right off. We ride or die for Tyler.

The Top Whatever - Spencer Hall does his rankings of the moment and Purdue deserves it for this gem:

He (David Blough) also earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for running out onto the field after the Boilermaker defense finished the game with a pick six off Dwayne Haskins. An incredible teammate is always there to help you talk shit, and Blough is obviously an incredible teammate.

S&P Rankings - Purdue makes a big jump to No. 26 and is now ahead of Indiana, Minnesota, and Michigan State on the remaining schedule.

The AP and Coaches Poll - PURDUE ACTUALLY RECEIVED VOTES! Purdue is 40th in the Coaches Poll with 7 votes, and in the AP Poll we’re 33rd with 17 votes. It is the first time since we received 5 votes in the September 23, 2012 poll we have even received votes. We currently have the 15th longest active streak of not appearing in the AP top 25 at 182 consecutive weeks dating back to 2007 (when we were ranked for one week after a 5-0 start). Only Syracuse and Indiana have waited longer as Power 5 teams.

That streak very well could end with a win in East Lansing and would be over if not for the 0-3 start.