The Weekly Word is GoldandBlack.com's weekly, obviously, column covering Purdue football, basketball and recruiting, as well as college sports issues, the true meaning of life, or whatever other topics might come to mind in a given week.

So, let's recap here folks:

Last night, Illinois beat Michigan State, relatively handily. Yes, the game came down to the final possession, but this was a double-digit sort of margin most of the way, despite Illinois being without Andre Curbelo, who the Illini are used to playing without, and Kofi Cockburn, who they aren't.

This was the same Michigan State team that lost at home to Northwestern, despite the Wildcats being without their only player who could even conceivably appear on an All-Big Ten ballot, let alone get picked: Pete Nance.

Purdue recently played at Illinois and Indiana and in both games, getting the opposing team's best player in foul trouble worked against the Boilermakers' best interests. Purdue probably wins at IU, as counterintuitive as this sounds, if Trayce Jackson-Davis plays a normal allotment of minutes. If Cockburn does, that game never gets to overtime.

Rutgers comes off a wide-spread illness in December and beats Purdue without Geo Baker; Michigan comes off a COVID stoppage and in its first game with a full team, routs Indiana in Bloomington.

The Big Ten is always up for a good weird result, but here's one of my takeaways from this Big Ten season to date: Nothing matters.