Buckeyes Beat The Badgers, Silverdome's Demise: The Sunday Papers

All the way from Indianapolis and back to Columbus, the biggest news of the day seems to be the Big 10 Championship game, where the Buckeyes of Ohio State defeated the Badgers of Wisconsin, 27-21. And now the Buckeyes, at 11-2, have an outside chance of making College Football Playoff.

The Buckeyes will find out if they get a berth in the playoff on Sunday, reports Cleveland.com.

It will come down to how the committee sees the Buckeyes and one-loss non-conference champ Alabama. We'll find out on Sunday just how much that loss to Iowa really mattered.

Meantime, there was no celebration back in Badger land. Wisconsin's undefeated season – and hopes of playing for a national championship – ended on Saturday. The loss was lamented in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Wisconsin’s first defeat of the 2017 season was crushing. The Big Ten title? Gone, for the second consecutive season. A berth in the College Football Playoff, just one victory away? Gone.

Meanwhile, football's glory days might be on the minds of a few people in Detroit today.

On Sunday morning, demolition of the Pontiac Silverdome, where Lions running back Barry Sanders once pranced his way through defensive lines, will begin with an implosion. Football fans are expected to tailgate and look on as the hulking building's roof comes down, reports the Detroit News.

“There were a lot of great times there,” said Crystal Williams, a publicity coordinator for the demolition. “People remember all the fun they had there.”

In the Detroit Free Press, there's a much more serious story at the top of the page: A report that examines how a high school boy, accused and convicted of raping three school girls, was sentenced to a mere 45 days in a detention center.

His punishment has the victims reeling. They had hoped he would be placed in a lockdown, residential treatment center for sex offenders for a year — with a follow-up evaluation — as was stipulated in his plea agreement.

Up in Minneapolis, people are still talking about Sen. Al Franken, and what his political future might be after a string a sexual misbehavior have come up. The Minneapolis Star Tribune went to Carlton County, Minnesota, a Franken stronghold, and talked to voters.

Sexual misconduct allegations surrounding the two-term Democratic senator from Minnesota have startled residents of this DFL-friendly area, and provoked an emotional stew of reactions in interviews with nearly two dozen of them, half of whom are women, this past week.
Most said they believe the women accusing Franken of touching them inappropriately, but even some who didn’t vote for him said they like the job he’s doing and don’t think he should step down.

And, lastly, apparently Katy Perry wasn't quite a hit during a St. Paul concert on Friday. A review of the show in the St. Paul Pioneer Press portrays a lackluster performance from one of today's hottest pop stars. The review notes that her latest songs aren't quite as good as the older ones – and performed live, they failed to deliver much punch.

She wrapped the two-hour performance with “Firework,” in yet another new arrangement that sapped some of the song’s power. For all the show’s bustle and bluster, one couldn’t help but think Perry’s lost some of the spark that made her a star in the first place.

Image by Andy Lyons / Getty Images Staff