This week’s Big Ten power rankings see Wisconsin make a big jump with their win over Michigan. But Ohio State remains in a class to themselves.
Rise to a pretty notable ranking in the polls, gain plenty of attention nationwide, lose in a contest against Big Ten team. Rinse, lather, repeat. That’s been the underlying theme of Michigan football over the past few seasons with Jim Harbaugh at the helm. In 2018, it happened against Ohio State. In 2016, it happened against Iowa and then Ohio State. In 2015, it happened against Michigan State and Ohio State.
Dread it, run from it, failure in a big game against a Big Ten team will seemingly always arrive for Michigan and Harbaugh, much to the frustration of anyone wearing Maize and Blue. Now that doesn’t mean that the Wolverines have a bad team, it just means they may hit a ceiling at 10-3.
The latest in this string of losses came against Wisconsin, when the Badgers ran over, around, and through the Wolverines. That 35-14 loss sent then No. 11 Michigan down to No. 20 in the polls and opened Harbaugh up to another round of criticism. The Wolverines can field good teams (even really good teams) but they may not ever be able to attain greatness with Harbaugh leading things.
Rutgers got the opportunity to face off against Boston College, a team that gave a historic win away to a horrible program in Kansas. Unfortunately for Rutgers, the Scarlet Knights couldn’t get that same sort of courtesy, and they lost.
Things looked good for Lovie Smith and the Fighting Illini on Saturday. Illinois was remarkably close to knocking off Nebraska but simply couldn’t get the job done. Though moral victories aren’t great for anyone, this sort of performance should give the Fighting Illini a slight glimmer of hope for the future.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers got a bye week. They didn’t really look all that great before the bye, but maybe they’ll improve moving forward. The Gophers are still undefeated, which means they’re doing something right.
Hey Hoosiers, while you’re not on your way up in the world quite yet, you got a 35-point win this weekend! It’s a shame you can’t schedule UConn more than once a year because I’m sure there’s plenty of programs that would love to just that, but you took advantage of your opportunity and you won big. You’re even halfway there to being eligible for a bowl game!
Things were bleak for the Northwestern Wildcats on Saturday. Michigan State marched right through the Wildcats defense and the Spartans won in dominant fashion. Northwestern has some soul-searching to do and the Wildcats will want to do it before this season gets away from them too much.
Purdue’s bye week was needed. The Boilermakers needed a bit of a break after getting beat up by TCU and now they’ve got an opportunity to get a couple more wins moving forward. Purdue really needs to find some consistency on offense if they want to make a bowl this season.
Maryland didn’t do anything this past week, taking a break after suffering its first loss of the season. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for a rebuilding program. The Terps need to get their offense to be productive again if they hope to succeed down the stretch of this season.
Nebraska struggled mightily on the road against Illinois and the Cornhuskers needed a monumental comeback to beat the Fighting Illini. Maybe the Huskers were looking ahead to Ohio State? Maybe Scott Frost still needs a few more years to get Nebraska to where fans want the program to be. Beating Illinois 42-38 isn’t going to give me a ton of confidence about this team this season, but there’s potential for where this program can go.
Sparty is back in the upper half of the Big Ten. Michigan State mowed over Northwestern in a defensive slugfest that was ugly for all parties involved. Winning by 21 against a fairly respectable conference foe will certainly help Michigan State start to turn this season around following that loss to Arizona State.
The Iowa Hawkeyes got a bye week to rest up from their rivalry matchup against Iowa State. The Hawkeyes don’t move one way or the other and they’re probably still the 5th best team in the Big Ten right now.
Michigan had absolutely no answer for what Wisconsin was doing on Saturday. There was seemingly nothing that the Wolverines could do to even make the game somewhat competitive. Shea Patterson hasn’t improved at all since he transferred from Ole Miss and he had no support from Michigan’s rushing attack. The Wolverines fell behind early and had nothing up their sleeves that could help them mount a comeback.
Penn State got to rest up after struggling against the Pitt Panthers last week. But, luckily enough for Penn State’s sake, the Nittany Lions looked better against Pitt than UCF did. Now, the Nittany Lions get the opportunity to take on Maryland on Friday.
Wisconsin had little issue taking care of Michigan on Saturday and the Badgers are clearly the second-best team in the Big Ten right now. This is the sort of team that Wisconsin was supposed to be a season ago and this is the sort of team that the Big Ten needs to make sure that the conference can get into the playoffs. With Ohio State and Wisconsin both crushing foes with ease, the Big Ten is set up to have two great teams that appear capable of making a run for a national title.
Ohio State fans probably enjoyed seeing their rival get run over on a national stage. That doesn’t mean the Buckeyes don’t have to worry about the Wolverines challenging them later on down the line. Michigan can still theoretically win its division if it wins out. But, for now, Ohio State is the favorite and the Buckeyes look more and more dominant each and every passing week.
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