Finally we were able to see horrible B1G teams beat up on other horrible B1G teams. This past weekend did not give me any more hope about the status of the conference, but at least we could avoid another embarrassment. The conference title still looks wide open at this point since the consensus best team is ineligible for the post-season.
Good surprise:
Penn State seems to be on a little bit of a hot streak now, and has won 3 games in a row. They went on the road to Illinois and dropped the hammer on the league’s worst team. The Nittany Lion defense continues to improve each week, and their front seven might be able to shut down most teams in this conference. We could see a situation that the two best teams in the Leaders Division are banned for the championship game.
Ohio State’s front seven really stepped up in East Lansing by completely shutting down Le’Veon Bell. The Bucknut defense has struggled to wrap up tackles in the first month, but they keyed the run and Andrew Maxwell was not able to beat them through the air. If Ohio State can stop the run that well moving forward an undefeated season looks to be in order. And the Urban legend would grow so large it would be even more unbearable.
Iowa had a great bounce back game against the Golden Gophers. Minnesota came into the game undefeated, but left looking like one of the conference bottom dwellers again. Walk on running back, Weisman, runs very hard and the offensive line made some large holes to run through. As bad as they have looked in the first month, the Hawkeyes shouldn’t be a team to look over moving forward.
Even though Nebraska was favored against the Badgers, I thought their win Saturday night was much needed for the Huskers. They overcame some bad turnovers and 2 17 point deficits to win the game and have a leg up on the Legends Division. Taylor Martinez doesn’t look as good as he did early in the season, but definitely improved over last. It will be interesting to see the Husker defense face an offense with more fire power this week in Columbus. If Nebraska wins on Saturday, the Legend’s Division race could suddenly look like a one team competition.
Bad Surprise:
Michigan State’s passing game is absolutely horrible. We knew they weren’t great before Saturday, but it became very obvious that they are going to need to improve a lot to return to Indianapolis for the second straight year. Maxwell seemed to handle the pressure better than he did against Notre Dame, but the receivers continue to drop catchable passes. As bad as this unit is, I have a bad feeling that they will suddenly have Velcro-hands against Michigan in a few weeks.
Minnesota should still be able to make a bowl game this season, but they are a long ways away from being a contender in the Legends Division. Yes, not having Gray hurts the offensive production a lot, but they lack play makers on both sides of the ball, and the defensive line struggled against an average Iowa line.
Michigan State coaches for making excuses after the game. Seriously guys? We know Urban is a horrible, cheating, human being. This is to be expected. Get over the excuses and go play the game. And last I checked, holding the conference’s best team to 17 points should be good enough to win. Maybe Sparty should actually focus on their own execution before throwing out ridiculous reasons for losing.
I would say that my conference rankings are as follows:
1. Ohio State (no change)
2. Nebraska (no change)
3. Northwestern (no change)
4. Michigan (up 2)
5. Purdue (down 1)
6. Penn State (up 1)
7. Michigan State (down 2)
8. Iowa (up 2)
9. Wisconsin (no change)
10. Minnesota (down 2)
11. Indiana (no change)
12. Illinois (no change)
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