B1G Week3: Recap

While week 3 of the season didn’t get any worse for the already terrible conference, they did little to gain back any national respect.  The lone top ten team in the B1G welcomed Notre Dame to their own stadium and then dropped a giant stink bomb on national tv.  This is the 3^rd week in a row that a different conference team has played a night game on national tv, and the result continues to be the same: embarrassment.

Good surprise:

Well Penn State got back to their winning ways with a complete dominating effort against Navy.  I don’t think the Nittany Lions are really that good, but it was nice to see them putting together a solid game to get their first win. 

Braxton Miller continues to impress early in the season.  The Bucknut defense played terrible against an average Pac12 team coming across the country, but Miller put the game on his shoulders and led the Scarlett and Gray to a win.  The OSU vs MSU game to open the conference season should be one of the best games of the B1G season.

My other surprise would be Minnesota beating Western.  I picked them to win in a close game, but MarQueis Gray was injured in this game and a back up QB led the Golden Gophers to the victory.  Minnesota is looking very good to secure their first bowl invite under Jerry Kill.

Bad Surprise:

I am not sure where to start with this section because there is too much to choose from.  I will start with the marquee game of the week.  I will be honest, I thought Michigan State was head and shoulders better than Notre Dame.  Well Sparty didn’t show up at all for their Saturday night game and got blasted.  The Michigan State offense looked ready to struggle in the MAC, and the defense looked susceptible to the deep pass.  Andrew Maxwell actually looked like the least of their offensive worries, he delivered pass after pass on the money.  The State receivers look beyond bad at this point.  They couldn’t get separation from the decimated ND secondary, and when they did get some space they would drop the pass. It looks like Sparty is completely 1 dimensional right now.  Notre Dame did not respect the deep pass, and therefore put 8 or 9 guys in the box.  I don’t care if Bell can hurdle one guy, he cannot escape 3 unblocked defenders.  A lot of changes need to happen in East Lansing for Michigan State to really be a top 10 team again.

Wisconsin continues to look horrible on offense.  I put the Badgers on my upset watch, and looking back on the game, Wisconsin should be 1-2 at this point.  The biggest question with these clowns is, how are they still ranked in the coaches poll?  Wisconsin needs to improve a lot in the next week before they head to Lincoln to open B1G play.

The Ohio State defense gave up over 500 yards of offense to the Cal Bears.  California traveled across the country to play at Ohio State, and they played the game at 12:00pm (9 am in California).  The team should have been sluggish and possibly a bit overwhelmed in front of the 105,000+.  The Bucknut defense struggled to wrap up during tackles all afternoon.  They allowed more big plays than Meyer wanted to see all season.  The scheme changed to get more of a pass rush, but with the added aggression the edges could not keep contain like they should have.  Good thing the B1G is lacking on offensive talent, otherwise they could get gashed.  

I would say that my conference rankings are as follows:

1. Ohio St (Up 1)

2. Michigan (Up 1)

3. Michigan State (Down 2)

4. Purdue (no change)

5. Northwestern (no change)

6. Nebraska (no change)

7. Minnesota (up 1)

8. Illinois (up 1)

9. Penn State (up 1)

10. Iowa (up 1)

11. Wisconsin (down 4)

12. Indiana (no change)