You’re Nuts: Which Big Ten football coach would win a professional wrestling match?

Aside from Miyan Williams tying an Ohio State record with five rushing touchdowns on Saturday, the most notable thing to come out of the 49-10 win by the Buckeyes over Rutgers was the tension between head coaches Ryan Day and Greg Schiano. The former co-workers shared some unpleasantries after a fake punt run by Ohio State punter Jesse Mirco ended with an extremely late hit out of bounds by Aron Cruickshank of Rutgers.

Of course, after all was said and done, our minds started wandering to who would have won in a fight between the two? Which Big Ten coach would be the toughest to beat in a wrestling match? What coach would have provided the little resistance? There are so many questions to come out of what just ended up being a heated exchange.

Today’s question: Which Big Ten football coach would win in a professional wrestling match?

While we could have posed this which coach would win a fight, we figured with the number of Big Ten athletes that have gone on to become professional wrestlers, it made the most sense to think of this in terms of a professional wrestling match. Just a few names that went to Big Ten schools are Brock Lesnar and Ric Flair, who both attended Minnesota, as well as Big E, who is a proud Iowa alum.

We’d love to hear your choices. Either respond to us on Twitter at @Landgrant33 or leave your choice in the comments.

Brett’s answer: Bret Bielema

The man is all-hog, so you just know he would strike fear in his opponents on appearance alone. It feels like Bielema would be the type of guy who all the other wrestlers would gang up on in the Royal Rumble to try and toss him over the top rope, since they know alone they wouldn’t be able to accomplish the task. It also doesn’t hurt his cause that Bielema participated in wrestling growing up.

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Bielema feels like he has the perfect demeanor to be a wrestling bad guy. Just look at what he did this week, going back to Madison and laying such a big whooping on his former team that Wisconsin fired head coach Paul Chryst the next day. If that’s not perfect heel behavior, then I don’t know what is.

While there are coaches that are younger and in better shape than Bielema, the Illinois head coach has a lot more experience than some of the other coaches. Bielema knows all the dirtiest tricks in the game, and while he doesn’t have the titles someone like Ric Flair does in wrestling, I feel like if he was in the wrestling game, Bielema could have a lengthy career — as long as his body was able to hold up to the rigors of professional wrestling.

Meredith’s answer: James Franklin

I took this very much from a WrestleMania perspective FQIW, and James Franklin brings the right balance of energy and eccentricity to succeed in WrestleMania.

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Unlike someone like PJ Fleck, who I think we could all easily see taking a chair to the back of the head while his back is turned, Franklin has a little more situational awareness. On the flip side, personality-wise, Franklin is also a balance between the stoicism of Kirk Ferentz (who would be just awful) and Jim Harbaugh, who would be entertaining but probably not champ-worthy — just like Michigan.

Franklin brings a lot of energy to the Penn State sideline. We tend to see a lot of squatting and leaping during celebrations from the Nittany Lions head coach. That kind of total body fitness would bode well for an event such as WrestleMania.

There was also that time Franklin participated in a team paintball day and showed off his bruises to the news media. The mélange of relative recklessness and showmanship of that recklessness is another feather in his cap for WrestleMania stardom.

Also (sorry) but WrestleMania is acting, and Franklin could always get Keegan-Michael Key as a double.

Finally, Franklin’s shiny, bald head really adds to the persona.