Tuesday Top Ten: Big Ten College Towns

Last week, Athlon Sports released a top-to-bottom ranking of the Big Ten's college towns.  (Thanks to Kazda for sending me the link.)  Athlon polled ten "Big Ten experts" -- Gerry DiNardo, Dave Revsine, Tom Dienhart, and Brent Yarina of the Big Ten Network, Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune, Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com, Kevin McGuire of College Football Talk, Sean Callahan of HuskerOnline.com, Kevin Noon of BuckeyeGrove.com, and Braden Gall of Athlon Sports and SiriusXM -- asking each of them to rank the Big Ten college towns from 1-14.  A first-place vote was worth 1 point, and a 14th-place vote was worth 14 points.

Here are the results, with the town, the school, and the point totals (with the first-place votes in parentheses), along with my thoughts:

1.  Madison, Wisconsin (Wisconsin) - 12 (8)
I have no beef with this.  Madison is a fun town, especially when you're there for a bachelor party.

2.  Ann Arbor, Michigan (Michigan) - 35 (1)
Ann Arbor -- who is a whore, mind you -- is an okay town with some nice campus buildings (the Law Quad is particularly cool), but it's not much of a party town compared to some of the other Big Ten towns.  Not that that's what this list is necessarily about, but I'm just sayin', if you want to go to a Big Ten town to have fun, Ann Arbor would not be in my top 6 or 7.

3.  State College, Pennsylvania (Penn State) - 37
I've never been to State College, so I can't really comment on how cool of a town it is.  However, from what I understand, it's not easy to get to, and it is very tolerant of child rapists and people who allow child rapists to continue to rape children, so there's that.

4.  Columbus, Ohio (Ohio State) - 54
If this was a poll of the best Big Ten towns in which you will see people throw beer bottles at opposing fans and shit in coolers before football games, Columbus would have received all ten first-place votes.

5.  Bloomington, Indiana (Indiana) - 60
Obviously, I am totally biased, given that I spent seven years in Bloomington and enjoyed every minute of it, but I can honestly say that Bloomington is the greatest college town in the world.

6.  Iowa City, Iowa (Iowa) - 64 (1)
I haven't been to Iowa City, but I've heard nothing but good things, especially if you want to get blackout drunk.

7.  Evanston, Illinois (Northwestern) - 76
Living in Chicago, Evanston is a like an adorable, yet deaf mute, little brother.  There are plenty of mildly fun things to do in Evanston, but if you just take the L south a few miles, you can have a lot more fun.

8.  East Lansing, Michigan (Michigan State) - 81
I have never had a bad time in East Lansing, or so I'm told.

9.  Minneapolis, Minnesota (Minnesota) - 83
I spent the first three months of my life in Minneapolis, and it was fucking cold.  For Christ's sake, they have tunnels downtown so people don't have to walk outside in the winter.  "But Minneapolis has a thriving art and music scene," someone who lives in Minneapolis might say.  Well, it also has a million mosquitoes in the summer and face-burning cold in the winter, but on the other hand, you could run into Prince.

10.  Lincoln, Nebraska (Nebraska) - 84
I've only been to Lincoln once, for a wedding, and I thought it was a pretty cool little city.  Granted, it was in the summer, so there weren't any students there.  I don't know if that would have made it better or worse.

11.  College Park, Maryland (Maryland) - 94
I've never been, and I don't really have any desire.  Yes, I'm still bitter about 2002.

12.  Champaign, Illinois (Illinois) - 105
Aside from the time that I went to Champaign to take the LSAT, I have always had a good time in Champaign.  The only issue is that, when the wind blows from a certain direction, it wafts the inimitable stench of livestock manure from the surrounding farms over the campus.

13.  Piscataway, New Jersey (Rutgers) - 129
The fact that Piscataway is in New Jersey and still didn't finish last is a testament to how absolutely despondent and soul-crushing of a place West Lafayette, Indiana is.

14.  West Lafayette, Indiana (Purdue) - 135
See, even unbiased people think West Lafayette is a total shithole.  7 of the 10 voters ranked West Lafayette last, with good reason.  As my friend RPTre said, "The entire place smells like hot dog water."  Frankly, I think that's being a little too kind.  If you like a combination of raw sewage and industrial effluence hanging in the air, mixed with boxy, utilitarian architecture, horrible-looking people, overcast skies, and literally zero men's basketball NCAA championship banners, then West Lafayette may be the place for you.