No, I'm not going to write about the political conventions. This is the time of year when readership begins to increase around here after a long season. So for those of you who have been around before, welcome back. For those of you who have only recently stumbled across the place, we're glad to have you here. Since it is the beginning of a new season, I thought it would be worthwhile to give a brief tour of what SB Nation has to offer the IU fan.
For big picture coverage of all things Big Ten football, Off Tackle Empire is a great place. If you want serious, they have that. If you want to find out which hapless fictional character is the equivalent of IU, then, well, hopefully we won't be in 12th place all season. Good content and good comment threads are the rule of the day at OTE. They look at IU football fans a little funny, however.
Three of Indiana's four FBS programs have SB Nation sites. The one with which I'm sure you are most familiar is Hammer and Rails. Things haven't been all that civil between our two sites over the last few months, which is a shame, because IU fans and Purdue fans have much in common: most notably, our shared obsession with IU basketball. If you're one of those reversible jacket types, you can admire the passion over there, the belief that posts like this make Notre Dame look bad as opposed to Purdue. While the above sites are long-standing, Notre Dame's SB Nation site, One Foot Down, is relatively new to SB Nation but contains lots of substantive analysis.
As the season transpires, expect an increased emphasis on cooperation, cross-posts, and so on, but for now, for those who like to keep track of local teams, these sites are worth the visit for varying reasons.