13 Big Ten teams were in action on Saturday. We saw a mix of great games, expected results, and quite possibly the biggest upset in college football in over a decade. As always, we’re here on Sunday with a quick takeaway from each Big Ten team this week. And we’re going to start with the big one.
If this game is played 100 times, Penn State probably wins 99 of them. As it is, they only played once, and Penn State didn’t win it. Maybe UCLA can use this to inspire the rest of their season. Or maybe the Bruins will finish 1-11, which is still their likeliest outcome. Penn State, meanwhile, probably just saw its College Football Playoff hopes disappear, though a 10-2 season would cause headaches for the selection committee. Either way, the newest thing we learned about both teams was a great reminder that anything can happen in this sport.
This isn’t a knock on Minnesota, which seems to be a decent team. The. Buckeyes are just so dominant on both sides of the ball. The defense is elite, and Julian Sayin is making more difficult throws and better reads each week. And he’s still not throwing incompletions. We didn’t learn much about Minnesota, because there’s not much the Golden Gophers could have done anyway.
The Badgers have played a lot of good defenses this season. But aside from their game against Middle Tennessee, they haven’t scored more than 17 points. And the rest of the schedule looks brutal. This is shaping up to be a rough year in Madison, and it’s not clear they’ll be able to improve much.
The Wolverines have won four games this year, and they’ve looked like very different teams in all of them. The stereotypical toughness is there, but the offense is all over the place. And it’s hard to know how the defense is until it’s really tested. We’ll probably learn a lot more when they travel out west to face USC next week.
Purdue has brought out a surprisingly good offense in each of its games this year. Which means that it’s probably time to stop being surprised. This team is competitive in Big Ten games, though the schedule isn’t great from here. They tried to stick with an Illinois team that just has too much firepower. Illinois, meanwhile, will need its best defensive performance of the season, as it’s a make-or-break game when the Buckeyes come to town next Saturday.
The Terrapins jumped out to an early lead, and the Huskies pulled off the comeback late. Maybe that’s just an effect of traveling 3,000 miles for the game. Either way, these were two evenly-matched pretty solid teams. And both have relatively light Big Ten schedule, but not completely without valuable games. If one of these teams gets to ten wins, there’s probably a Playoff spot available. Big “if,” though.
Northwestern won its buy game, though ULM is probably a decent enough Sun Belt team to avoid a “cupcake game” designation. The win over UCLA looks better now, as does the team. If you squint, there might be three more win opportunities on the schedule–but probably not.
Excluding a rough stretch in the middle of the game, Nebraska looked really good against Michigan State. And the Week 1 win over Cincinnati suddenly looks much better. A quick peak at the schedule shows a team that reasonably can expect to go 10-2. Is that enough for a College Football Playoff berth? As always, it depends on the rest of the country, but eyes should be on the Cornhuskers for now.
The schedule is a bit rough from here, but this team won’t go away. Even when outmatched, the Spartans have talent and will compete against anyone. They are probably underdogs in six of their last seven games, but every one of those teams will have to work for it if they want a win.
