Big Ten power rankings, Week 8: Michigan replaces Penn State in top 2
By Ethan Lee
Ohio State is still sitting at the top of the Big Ten power rankings after surviving their game against Minnesota, but there’s a new team at number two after Penn State collapsed against Michigan State.
There’s been a bit of a shakeup in the Big Ten. After this past weekend, the Ohio State Buckeyes are still the best team in the conference. However, Penn State’s loss will impact the way the rest of the conference looks. Mostly because that leaves opportunities for teams like Michigan to ascend even closer to the top.
Michigan was also helped out a bit by the fact that they were able to completely dismantle the Wisconsin Badgers. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that the crushing victory over Wisconsin will also help out the Iowa Hawkeyes a bit.
But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Those teams are a few slides away as they’re at the top of the conference. Let’s go ahead and take a look at the teams that have struggled in the Big Ten before we get there.
Starting with Rutgers who remains at the bottom of the Big Ten power rankings.
This isn’t any surprise at all. The Rutgers Scarlet Knights are the worst team in the Big Ten and they’re one of the worst teams in the country. Another week of college football makes this fact even more cemented.
When the Scarlet Knights took on the Maryland Terrapins, things got out of hand in a hurry. The Terps didn’t have a spectacular day on offense as they only gained 375 yards, but Maryland scored 10 points in the first quarter, 14 points in the second quarter, and then 10 points again in the third quarter. All 34 of those points were unanswered.
It took Rutgers over 59 minutes of game time to get a touchdown in this game. The Scarlet Knights were able to score with 43 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. And that was it.