B1G Week 2: Recap

I am not sure that I want to do a 2^nd week recap for the B1G.  The one word I would use to describe this past weekend was terrible.  I don’t think a regular season week has been that discouraging in the history of B1G football.  To give you a perspective, the only day that I can think of that comes close is January 1^st, 2011 when the conference seemed to lose every bowl game it played in (most of them by 40 points it seemed).

My picks were not as accurate as in week 1 because I still had some conference bias in my week 2 choices, however some of my smaller details of each game were correct.   Instead of going game by game, I will just pick out some surprises from the weekend.

Good surprise:

This category is tough to determine after the 12 games.  Marqueise Gray looks like he can lead the Gophers to a bowl game this season.  It will be interesting to see how he fares against B1G defenses, but for now he is one of the conference’s most exciting players to watch.  To go along those line, sophomore Braxton Miller continues to impress.  Most people expected him to thrive in the Urban Meyer offense, but I don’t think many expected the improvement to happen so quickly.  Miller has put himself on the short list of B1G Offensive Player of the Year with back to back dominating efforts.  Someone else on the Buckeye offense will need to step up and shoulder some of the load, or else Ohio will be looking like the Michigan offense in 2010 when Denard was forced to leave each conference game with an injury. 

The Penn State defense is fun to watch.  You can see the passion and determination they each play with.  The offense will struggle to win games for the Nittany Lions, but the defense will likely keep the games closer than expected.  I am especially impressed with LB Mauti.  He flies to the ball and could lead the conference in tackles. 

Purdue and Northwestern impress against formidable opponents. From what I have seen in the first two weeks of the season, Purdue looks like the favorite to be going to Indianapolis, representing the Leaders Division in the conference championship game.  This is partly because this looks like the best team Danny Hope has had, but mostly because Ohio is ineligible and Wisconsin looks terrible.  Now that QB Robert Marve is out with his 3^rd ACL injury to his left knee, how will Caleb TerBush respond to having no QB competition?  Northwestern came back home after the exciting win over Syracuse and shut down Vanderbilt.  I did not expect the Wildcats to be able to slow down the Commodores. The defense responding very well from week 1.  It will be interesting to see what Coach Fitzgerald does with the QB competition in Evanston before B1G play starts up.  Suddenly these two games have become much scarier on the Michigan schedule.

Bad surprise:

Where do I start with this.  Well last week I ranked Nebraska as the best team in the conference in my mind, and they responded by forgetting their defense in Lincoln.  They traveled to the Rose Bowl to take on UCLA and gave up 650+ yards of offense.  They did not play Oregon or USC, but UCLA.  Yes, the Nebraska offense looked pretty scary in the first half, but the Bruins found a way to slow them down in the 2^nd.  The Husker run defense looked shaky in week 1 against Southern Miss, but it was exploited in week 2.  I am not sure which unit is the worst offender.  The Nebraska defensive line cannot create any penetration, the linebackers looks slow and out of position, and cornerbacks miss too many tackles.  There is a lot wrong with this unit, and in a running league they need to vastly improve if they want to be back in Pasadena on January 1^st.

I predicted the Wisconsin offense would bounce back against a bad Oregon St team, but I was very wrong.  The offense looked listless for a 2^nd straight week.  The offensive line looked confused for most of the game and it resulted in just 60 rush yards for Monte Ball.  I think we can say that Ball’s Heisman season can be kissed goodbye.  Wisconsin is missing any sort of playmaker on offense, outside of Ball.  This makes me respect Russell Wilson so much more for what he brought to this team.  O’Brien is a decent QB, but he struggles to create positive plays from nothing.  The Badgers promptly fired their offensive line coach after the game, which seems to me that there might be some panic in Madison right now.  The rest of Wisconsin’s non-conference schedule is not a given with Utah St and UTEP still to come.  In a good year in the conference, this Wisconsin team might struggle to make a bowl game if something doesn’t change soon.

I wrote that Northern Illinois all but shut down Iowa’s offense last week, but Iowa St did completely shut down the Hawkeyes on Saturday.  I keep thinking Vandenberg is going to turn things around and make enough plays to win ball games, but at this point it does not seem like it will happen this year.  To think that the running game is low on their worry list right now should tell you everything.  If Iowa doesn’t make a bowl game this year, does Ferentz get fired?

Finally, Illinois impressed me in their opening week win against Western Michigan, but they forgot their offense in Champaign when the rest of the team headed to Tempe, AZ.  Arizona St throttled the Illini on Saturday night.  Yes, Scheelhasse was hurt for the game, but I don’t think he can account for the 31 point loss.  The Orange and Blue might struggle to make a bowl game if the QB misses any time in conference play. 

I would say that my conference rankings are as follows:

1.       Michigan St (Up 2)

2.       Ohio St (No change)

3.       Michigan (up 1)

4.       Purdue (up 2)

5.       Northwestern (up 3)

6.       Nebraska (down 5)

7.       Wisconsin (down 2)

8.       Minnesota (up 3)

9.       Illinois (down 2)

10.   Penn St (no change)

11.   Iowa (down 2)

12.   Indiana (no change)