Big Ten Image On The Line Again During Bowl Season
By J.P. Scott
The Big Ten still has a perception problem in college football. A successful bowl season can change that.
Everybody loves bowl season. Intertwined into the holidays are dozens of non-conference football games that serve as the backdrop to our parties and get-togethers to end the year. It truly is a beautiful thing — unless you are the Big Ten conference as of late.
Over the past few years, the Big Ten has taken a pretty significant hit in the perception department, largely due to its performances in bowl games. To finish off 2013, the conference went 2-5 in the postseason. The year before that? Exactly the same. In 2011, the old conference limped to 4-6.
Given that recent track record, you’ll have to forgive fans around the rest of the country when they collectively roll their eyes and giggle when they see their team paired up with a Big Ten squad in a bowl game. Nowadays in college football — a sport where 12 people deliberate over who gets to play for a national title — perception is literally reality. The reality is that the Big Ten has developed a pattern of struggling against other conferences.
On the surface, the 2014 bowl season looks like more of the same for the Big Ten. Ten teams from the conference received bowl bids. On one hand, that’s ten chances to show the country what Big Ten football is all about. On the other, that’s ten chances the conference has of cementing its spot in the hearts and minds of college football fans as the worst Power-5 conference.
To make matters worse, the wise guys in Las Vegas came out with the odds for the 2014 bowls games and have the Big Ten as underdogs in all ten matchups. That’s right — all ten. What’s more, all ten games aren’t even against Power-5 opponents. Illinois is a five-point underdog to Louisiana Tech of Conference USA.
This does not bode well for the Big Ten.
The fact that the conference is not expected to win any games won’t matter in the court of public opinion. All anyone will see is the final scores of the contests and either form their opinions based on those or just keep the one they already had.
There are a handful of games that, as someone who covers the Big Ten closely, I feel they have a very good shot at winning. North Carolina is a 3.5 point favorite over Rutgers. People have underestimated the grit of the Scarlet Knights all season and North Carolina will be no different. I expect Rutgers to win that game with another gritty, clutch performance similar to the the ones that earned them victories against Washington State and Maryland.
In the Holiday Bowl, Nebraska enters as a six-point underdog to Southern Cal. With a couple of weeks to get Ameer Abdullah and Randy Gregory healthy, I expect the Huskers to be focused and ready to put on a show similar to what they did against Miami earlier in the season and dedicate the win to recently fired head coach Bo Pelini.
In the Cotton Bowl, I like Michigan State’s chances against Baylor — a team many thought should have qualified for the College Football Playoff. I’m not so sure Baylor has seen a defense like what the Spartans bring to the table. Mark Dantonio has developed into somewhat of an effective big-game coach over the past few years and I expect his group to shine again.
Speaking of coaches, there might not be a better one in the country than Minnesota’s Jerry Kill. Kill has started a football revival up north, turning the Gophers into a relevant program since he arrived on campus three seasons ago. I think despite being six-point underdogs to Missouri, Minnesota will be able to control the tempo with their running game and play solid, disciplined defense that will allow them to pull out the win. In a coaching battle of Jerry Kill vs. Gary Pinkel, I’ll take Kill every time.
I’m also feeling pretty good about Iowa being a 3.5 point dog to Tennessee. You could argue that no two teams in the Power-5 have been as flaky or inconsistent as these two. That said, I like Kirk Ferentz’s bunch to come out focused as usual for their bowl game and walk away with a win.
Ohio State has done its part all season to keep the Big Ten at the forefront of any college football talk. True as that may be and as impressive as their season has been (sans the loss to Virginia Tech), a blowout loss to Alabama would surely result in those “S-E-C” chants echoing throughout the stadium late in the game. The Buckeyes are a 9.5 point underdog to Alabama. Fortunately for the Big Ten, the Buckeyes have a talent-based on par with the Crimson Tide and a coach with a comparable resume and championship pedigree.
If Ohio State could pull off the win over Alabama, that alone could go a long way in improving the image the Big Ten in the eyes of the nation. Winning again the following week coupled with four or five postseason wins by the rest of the conference would undoubtedly move the nation’s oldest conference out of the basement of the house of national perception.