Week 7 yielded some incredibly interesting results to shake-up the Week 7 Big Ten power rankings as Michigan State suffered a huge upset while Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin all cruised to victory.
As this weekend wraps up, we are officially halfway through the 2018 college football season and the Big Ten title picture is shaping up to be a bit clearer. Ohio State and Michigan are currently leading the Big Ten East and they’re on a collision course for later this season. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Badgers hold a slight edge over a surprising Northwestern Wildcats team for a lead in the Big Ten West.
There weren’t many crazy upsets in Big Ten play this weekend, but there was one and it set Michigan State back quite a bit. While that happened, the rest of the conference slate more or less played out as many would expect it to. The top end of the conference pretty much held tight and won games that they should have won.
And so, without further ado, here’s this week’s Big Ten power rankings.
Losing the Illinois is a less than advisable thing when talking about college football. The Illini, in 2018, may have a 3-2 record, but they are not a very good team. Rutgers is currently stumbling on a five game losing streak and hasn’t looked good all season. Against Illinois, the Scarlet Knights looked hopeless.
Rutgers gave up over 300 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns to Illinois on Saturday. The Illini only threw for 89 yards and were able to get this victory. Rutgers couldn’t do anything to slow their opponents down at all on Saturday.
Illinois needed the win and hats off to the Illini for taking this game, but Rutgers could probably use a break. They didn’t get one. They just got another loss.
Needless to say, the Scott Frost era of Nebraska football isn’t off to a perfect start. The Cornhuskers have had brief moments of promise and potential, but Nebraska continues to fall short time and time again. That happened against the Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday.
Nebraska’s Adrian Martinez did everything he could to give his team a chance at competing against Wisconsin. Martinez threw for 384 yards and a couple of touchdowns while remaining interception free, but it just wasn’t enough.
Wisconsin built an insurmountable lead over Nebraska fairly early. At halftime, things were already pretty ugly at 20-3 in the Badgers’ favor. Things would go on to get even uglier as Wisconsin extended their lead to 34-10 late in the third quarter. Nebraska simply couldn’t keep up or catch up.
The Cornhuskers have some potential, but that hasn’t helped them much this year.