Big Ten Football 2015 season preview and predictions

It was the beginning of the 2015 season and Ohio State had just lost to Virginia Tech at home, Michigan State fell to Oregon on the road, Michigan traveled to South Bend to lose to Notre Dame, and Wisconsin opened the college football season by falling to LSU in Houston.

It didn’t take very long for basically everyone outside the Midwest to count the Big Ten out. Basically, if you were in the Big Ten, you were written off and not taken seriously.

Then everything changed. The Buckeyes went on to win the remainder of their games and, eventually, a national title with two different quarterbacks — both have now taken over for Braxton Miller. Michigan State lost just one conference game against Ohio State and narrowly missed out on the College Football Playoff, winning the Cotton Bowl and finishing the year ranked No. 5.

Wisconsin made it to the Big Ten Championship Game, and despite playing in the conference’s inferior division, they put together a solid season and even took down SEC foe Auburn in the Outback Bowl.

Michigan, however, didn’t have such a great 2014 season, going just 5-7 and missing out on a bowl game in Brady Hoke’s final season as head coach. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise that led to the hiring of Jim Harbaugh — let’s not hype that up too much before he actually coaches a game.

Another top conference team, Nebraska, lost its bowl game against USC, but put on a good show in the national spotlight against one of the top teams in the nation.

Lastly, Penn State won its first bowl game since the whole Jerry Sandusky mess.

Overall, it was a good season for Big Ten football and 2015 is expected to be even better. Let’s preview what will happen and predict the winners of the conference and major awards.

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